As illustrated in Figure 2, Harvest Gatherers and Brokers can be configured in various ways. Running a Gatherer remotely from a Provider site allows Harvest to interoperate with sites that are not running Harvest Gatherers, by using standard object retrieval protocols like FTP, Gopher, HTTP, and NNTP. However, as suggested by the bold lines in the left side of Figure 2, this arrangement results in excess server and network load. Running a Gatherer locally is much more efficient, as shown in the right side of Figure 2. Nonetheless, running a Gatherer remotely is still better than having many sites independently collect indexing information, since many Brokers or other search services can share the indexing information that the Gatherer collects.
If you have a number of FTP/HTTP/Gopher/NNTP servers at your site, it is most efficient to run a Gatherer on each machine where these servers run. On the other hand, you can reduce installation effort by running a Gatherer at just one machine at your site and letting it retrieve data from across the network.
Figure 2: Harvest Configuration Options
Figure 2 also illustrates that a Broker can collect information from many Gatherers (to build an index of widely distributed information). Brokers can also retrieve information from other Brokers, in effect cascading indexed views from one another. Brokers retrieve this information using the query interface, allowing them to filter or refine the information from one Broker to the next.
You are welcome to browse our demonstration Gatherers and Brokers.