Seeds are the starting points of a crawl, and are used by Watson Explorer Engine connectors to retrieve data from the resource that is identified by the seed. More specifically, seeds are the programmatic mechanism by which Watson Explorer Engine enables a connector to crawl a resource.
All installed connectors in Watson Explorer Engine have a corresponding seed that must be added to your search collection first to enable that installed connector to crawl your search collection. Typically, seeds configure URLs to access protocol-based resources such as fileshares, SMB shares, databases, email archives, and other data repositories that are accessible by various web protocols.
Seeds can also be repository-specific to enable connectors to crawl specific third-party applications such as Salesforce, SharePoint, IBM Domino, as well as other client relationship management (CRM) systems, product life cycle (PLC) systems, content management systems (CMS), cloud-based applications, and web database applications.
The pros of using an installed and ready to use connector are somewhat self-evident. They require no additional development work to use. You simply create a collection in Watson Explorer Engine, add the seed for your repository (and any needed converters, users collections, etc.) , and you are ready to go. There is no development work needed on your part and this means you can get up and crawling in very little time.
The tradeoff is that you might not get the data in the exact manner in which you require it. If that is the case, then you may want to consider modifying that connector, which is the next option to consider. However, if connecting to your repository with as little extra work as needed, and as fast as possible, is more important to you, then your best option is simply to use a Watson Explorer Engine bundled connector that is pre-installed and ready to go.