Recovery of a document serving environment

One or more computer storage media storing computer-useable instructions that, when used by one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform a method, the method comprising:

• identifying a current load of an index unit associated with a document distributor in a first layout, wherein the current load of the index unit is a number of individual documents received by the index unit, and wherein the index unit includes one or more document servers associated with the document distributor;
• receiving an indication that a total load of the index unit is increasing;
• creating a second layout including at least one additional index unit compared to the first layout;
• transferring data associated with the first layout to the second layout until the first layout has transferred all data associated therewith;
• and
• identifying the second layout as a primary layout such that all data is communicated directly to the second layout.

A method for serving documents, the method comprising:

• receiving, at a document distributor, an individual document that is available from a document provider, wherein the document is any web document;
• communicating the individual document to a plurality of document servers associated with the document distributor, wherein the plurality of document servers receive documents only from the associated document distributor;
• identifying, by a computing device having a processor and a memory, that a first document server of the plurality of document servers is failing;
• identifying a sequence point, where the sequence point is a time at which the first document server failed and was no longer receiving documents;
• reassigning the failing document server's responsibilities to a second document server such that any documents received after the sequence point are received by the second document server;
• and
• updating the second document server such that it is identical to each document server in the plurality of document servers.