Centralized storage for search servers

A non-transitory computer readable medium having program instructions stored thereon that are capable of causing a first of a plurality of search servers to implement operations for distributing index information to a storage shared between the plurality of search servers, the operations comprising:

• receiving a request to index one or more items such that the one or more items are identifiable as search results in response to a performed search;
• in response to the request, generating index information based on the one or more items;
• adding a first instance of the generated index information to index information stored in a local cache accessible to the first search server;
• synchronizing the local cache with the shared storage, wherein the synchronizing includes:
• adding a second instance of the generated index information to index information stored in the shared storage such that the generated index information is accessible to the plurality of search servers;
• and
• updating the index information in the local cache with at least a portion of the index information in the shared storage that is not stored at the local cache;
• and
• performing a search that includes identifying one of the one or more items as a search result determined based on the first instance of generated index information stored in the local cache.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having program instructions stored thereon that are capable of causing a search server to implement operations for servicing search requests based on index information stored in a storage shared between a plurality of search servers, the operations comprising:

• storing, in a local cache, index information for servicing received search requests;
• synchronizing index information in the local cache with the index information in the shared storage, wherein the synchronizing includes:
• retrieving, from the shared storage, metadata indicative of the index information in the shared storage;
• identifying, based on the metadata, index information in the shared storage that differs from the index information in the local cache;
• and
• updating the index information in the local cache with the identified index information in the shared storage;
• and
• updating the index information in the shared storage with at least a portion of the index information in the local cache that is not stored at the shared storage;
• and
• in response to a search request, providing one or more results determined using the updated index information.