public DirectoryProviderFactory.DirectoryProviders createDirectoryProviders(XClass entity,
    SearchConfiguration cfg,
    SearchFactoryImplementor searchFactoryImplementor,
    ReflectionManager reflectionManager) 
{
	     
		//get properties
		String directoryProviderName = getDirectoryProviderName( entity, cfg );
		Properties[] indexProps = getDirectoryProperties( cfg, directoryProviderName );
		//set up the directories
		int nbrOfProviders = indexProps.length;
		DirectoryProvider[] providers = new DirectoryProvider[nbrOfProviders];
		for (int index = 0; index <  nbrOfProviders; index++) {
			String providerName = nbrOfProviders  > 1 ?
					directoryProviderName + "." + index :
					directoryProviderName;
			providers[index] = createDirectoryProvider( providerName, indexProps[index],
					reflectionManager.toClass( entity ), searchFactoryImplementor );
		}
		//define sharding strategy
		IndexShardingStrategy shardingStrategy;
		//any indexProperty will do, the indexProps[0] surely exists.
		String shardingStrategyName = indexProps[0].getProperty( SHARDING_STRATEGY );
		if ( shardingStrategyName == null ) {
			if ( indexProps.length == 1 ) {
				shardingStrategy = new NotShardedStrategy();
			}
			else {
				shardingStrategy = new IdHashShardingStrategy();
			}
		}
		else {
			try {
				Class shardigStrategyClass = ReflectHelper.classForName( shardingStrategyName, this.getClass() );
				shardingStrategy = (IndexShardingStrategy) shardigStrategyClass.newInstance();
			}
			catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
				throw new SearchException( "Unable to find ShardingStrategy class " + shardingStrategyName + " for " + directoryProviderName, e );
			}
			catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
				throw new SearchException( "Unable to create instance of ShardingStrategy class " + shardingStrategyName
						+ " Be sure to have a no-arg constructor", e );
			}
			catch (InstantiationException e) {
				throw new SearchException( "Unable to create instance of ShardingStrategy class " + shardingStrategyName
						+ " Be sure to have a no-arg constructor", e );
			}
			catch (ClassCastException e) {
				throw new SearchException( "ShardingStrategy class does not implements DirecotryProviderShardingStrategy: "
						+ shardingStrategyName, e );
			}
		}
		shardingStrategy.initialize(
				new MaskedProperty( indexProps[0], SHARDING_STRATEGY ), providers );
		return new DirectoryProviders( shardingStrategy, providers );
}

 public  void startDirectoryProviders() 
{
		for (DirectoryProvider provider : providers) {
			provider.start();
		}
}