I run a forum-based site, and was elated when I learned about Sphinx, because we were having a lot of trouble with the vBulletin default search system for quite a while. Unfortunately, following the instructions for the vB Sphinx, it seemed that I could only set it up on the web server. I currently run the site on two servers--a database server that handles the Big Stuff, and a smaller web server that just handles the HTTP end of things. Placing Sphinx on the webserver causes it to use a LOT of IO (averaging 4K blocks per second), but thankfully doesn't go into swap. If I were to load and run Sphinx on the larger Database server, I believe my IO problem would be solved. I've read the Sphinx Search article, but it didn't really give the information I was looking for. Anyways, I was planning on becoming a Premium Member in order to download and use DP's Sphinx solution instead, primarily because it claims to be more than twice as fast with the indexing and because of all the different types of searches. I also notice the "Can Optionally Run On Different Server" claim, and was hoping that you (users that currently use DP's Sphinx or DP's staff, whichever can answer) could tell me if it gives instructions on just how to run on different servers. Looking forward to using a great search.
Yes it works fine on other servers (we run it on a different server here). There aren't really any special instructions for setting it up that way (since that's just always how it worked) other than you need to specify the IP address of the server running it. Similar to running MySQL on a different server than your web server... there isn't anything special you need to do other than know the IP it's running on.