The Watson Explorer Engine Search Service, also commonly referred to as the Watson Explorer Engine Query Service, uses local configuration information to identify the collection service that is associated with a given search collection, and then contacts that collection service to locate the indexer service that is associated with that search collection. The search service then forwards the query to that indexer service, and retrieves and returns the results of the query. Each Watson Explorer Engine installation runs two instances of the search service. One of these is simply a manager for the other to ensure that a working search service process will always be available.