With Office 365 Search, Microsoft has created a central entry point for the modern workplace. In one convenient spot, users can access all information from their personal environment and organization fast and simple. Data for example from SQL databases and existing third-party systems such as ServiceNow can also be connected.
In order to integrate these third-party systems into Office 365, you need what are known as search quotas in your tenant. These are obtained either through the licenses that are assigned to the tenant, or you can buy quota as needed. Currently you receive 250 quota points for each E5 license. Quota points can also be purchased in blocks of 1 million points each.
But how are the quota points consumed or calculated? Let's look at the documentation of the Office Graph (Microsoft Docs - Use the Microsoft Search API to index data). Here you can configure the search index and create your own connector. To do this, an externalItem resource type must be created in the Office Graph for each index entry that is to be found later in the search. Each of these externalItems in the graph consumes one quota point. If the externalItem is removed from the graph, the quota point is returned to the Tenant, and it can be used again.
Thus, the connector in Microsoft Search is responsible for creating a matching externalItem entry in the graph from the connected source, such as web pages or files on the FileServer.