The Content Feeder sends properties and metadata of CoreMedia content to the CoreMedia Search Engine. The Search Engine indexes that data, and provides the possibility to search for the contents. The Content Feeder is an application that connects to the Content Server and to the Search Engine.

The CoreMedia Content Server provides a search service which hides the functionality of the CoreMedia Search Engine from clients. The server contacts the CoreMedia Search Engine to serve client search requests. The Site Manager and custom clients that use the Unified API SearchService get the search results directly from the CoreMedia Content Server.

It is also possible to send search requests from custom clients directly to the CoreMedia Search Engine using the native API of the underlying search engine. This is recommended in most cases because the search service of the Content Server does not support all search features of Apache Solr and adds some performance overhead compared to a direct connection. The Studio back-end is an example for a search client that sends search requests directly to the Search Engine.

Figure 4.1. Search Engine Integration

The CoreMedia Content Feeder feeds an index which is needed for the full-text search feature in the Site Manager and in CoreMedia Studio. Multiple Content Feeders can use the same CoreMedia Search Engine but require separate indices.

To provide full-text search for contents in the Content Delivery Environment, a separate Content Feeder can be set up that connects to the CoreMedia Master Live Server and feeds another index.