How does a MOSS web front end route search requests to query servers?

Question

1. Does the web front end accept a search request coming from my own program?

2. If yes, how does the request get routed to a particular query server, given that I have multiple query servers?

3. Is any particular algorithm used (e.g. round-robin)?

Answer 1

If you have multiple WFEs, SharePoint will route the request based on its Load Balancer.

As for your own program, it depends greatly on how you want to request the search. The short answer is "yes," the long answer is, "I don't know what you're coding in, so I can't help you with specifics."

Answer 2

Why did you invest in dedicated query servers? A common and good deployment practice is to install the query server role on the WFE servers and the index server role on a separate server. You will only need dedicated query servers if you expect heavy query traffic.