In a new installation of vBulletin 5.0.4 and higher, there two search engines installed. The default is called "DB Search" and is an indexed implementation stored in a number of tables within your database. This will allow you to search all content types marked as "Searchable" when they are created/installed in your system.
The second search implementation uses Sphinx Search. Sphinx is an open source full text search server, designed from the ground up with performance, relevance (aka search quality), and integration simplicity in mind. It's written in C++ and works on Linux (RedHat, Ubuntu, etc), Windows, MacOS, Solaris, FreeBSD, and a few other systems. To use this search engine, please see the instructions on Installing Sphinx.
You may be able to find alternative search engines from third-party vendors or possibly at http://www.vbulletin.org.
Note:
Changing search implementations will require you to rebuild the search index before the search function will return results. For the DB Search this can be done via Maintenance > Update Counters. Reindex can take a long time for large boards. Some high performance search engines may provide a faster alternate method of doing a full reindex, consult the documentation provided with your search type. Consult the documentation for your search type to learn how to rebuild the search index for it.