The Search Service is part of the SharePoint 2010 services infrastructure. It is one of the service applications that can be shared by multiple farms. The advantage of this type of architecture is that farms do not have to configure their own search; they can subscribe to this service and can be managed at the enterprise level.
Search has been a component of SharePoint since its beginning and has evolved over time into a mature and complex product.
There are several editions of Search that an administrator should be aware of:
Search Server Express 2010: This is a free product that enables users to find their content. It can search 10 million items in a fraction of a second, has the refinement panel, and contains connectors for federation and Windows file shares.
SharePoint Search Server 2010: Bundled with Standard and Enterprise editions of SharePoint 2010, this component provides the search service for people and expertise, is integrated with My Site, and contains a phonetic...
