SharePoint Infrastructure and Setup

Greg Kamer – The Mirazon Group

MCSE:2003, MCTS: MOSS 2007, WSS 3.0 Working with SharePoint for nearly 3 years Blog: http://thenewmossness.com Twitter: @gregkamer Email: greg.kamer@mirazon.com

I desire to see a strong community built around SharePoint

About Me

Windows Server Administration IIS Experience SQL Experience

◦ You DON’T have to be a DBA◦ You need to get comfortable with SQL

99% of all content in SharePoint is stored in SQL

Fundamentals

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) Search Server & Search Server Express

(MSS & MSSX) Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

(MOSS 2007) ◦ Comes in both Standard and Enterprise flavors

Versions of SharePoint

SharePoint Structure (aka the

“World’s Greatest Slide”)

ItemsFiles, calendar items, contacts, customers, images, custom

Lists

Doc Lib, Pages, Events, Discussions, Surveys, etc…

Sites/Webs

Internet, Intranet Portal, Wikis, Blogs, Team, Doc, Mtg

Site Collections

The Bag

DatabasesContent, Config, SSP, Search

Web Applications

Central Admin, SSP Admin, Content

Servers

Web Front End, APP, SQL

Farm

Proper planning is the basis of a healthy, well structured farm.

Planning can save you from lengthy and costly re-architecting of your farm

Don’t skimp; take the time to do it right the first-ish time!

Free e-book http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262757.aspx

Planning

Web Front End (WFE) – All versions of SharePoint

Query – Search Server & MOSS Index – Search Server & MOSS Excel Calculation Services – MOSS only

Every role has a design consideration!

Server Roles

Applies to all versions of SharePoint Serves up content to users Can host other roles as well (careful

planning required) Can be made highly available and scaled

out via load balancing – Microsoft NLB, Third Party vendors

Web Front End

Exists in Search Server and MOSS farms Answers search queries from users Can be made redundant In larger farms avoid placing the query and

Index server roles together

Query Server(s)

Available on Search Server and MOSS only Responsible for crawling content (web sites,

SharePoint sites, file shares, etc) CANNOT be made highly available (MSFT

only supports one index per Shared Service Provider)

Scale according to content to be crawled. Search results can still be returned even if

Index is offline. New content will NOT be added until brought back online.

Index Server

Sometimes called “application servers” Scale by themselves with little admin

intervention Can be on dedicated servers if need arises

Excel Services Server

Install Types Service Accounts Configuration Wizard

Proper Setup

Types of Installs Basic – Don’t click it…really. Nor Advanced

then Stand-Alone◦ Installs all components on one server using local

account credentials (NT Authority\System, etc) Advanced – gives the flexibility to grow the

farm

Basic Installs are BAD

Install as either Complete or Web Front End Only

Complete allows for more flexibility in the future

Even if a single server install, it is still advisable to use the complete option

Advanced Installs

Proper planning is essential - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263445.aspx

Consideration ◦ Passwords are cached in a “black hole” ◦ Service accounts passwords cannot just be

changed in the services console.◦ App Pool accounts cannot be changed in just IIS

manager STSADM is your friend http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838

Service Accounts

Create a custom account for administering SharePoint (SPAdmin)

All accounts can be plain-Jane domain user accounts

Add SPAdmin and farm accounts to local admins on each SharePoint server

In SQL give SPAdmin dbcreator and securityadmin rights

SharePoint gives least privelages to each account (except DBA creation mode)

Service Accounts (cont’d)

Allows for creation of new farm or adding (or removing) servers to a farm

Need SQL server name and Farm account name and credentials

Some antivirus programs can make this fail (Symantec Endpoint Protection is one I have run into)

Select Authentication for Central Admin site

Config Wizard

NTLM◦ Works OOB

Kerberos◦ Requires extra steps to configure◦ SetSPN or ADSIEdit

FBA Anonymous Other

◦ Live Federation◦ ASP.NET

Authentication

Keep all Content DBs under 100 GB◦ Not for scalability reasons; more for backup and

restores◦ Tables can be locked during backups◦ Site collections cannot span multiple DBs

Virtualization◦ Debate in the SharePoint community◦ WFEs are great candidates; Index servers and SQL

are debatable

Best Practices

Backups◦ Backup GUI in Central Admin

Not able to be scheduled WILL get both Index DB and file simultaneously

◦ STSADM Command Line Can be made into a scheduled task. May cause table locking issues in SQL DB with larger

site collections (40+ GB)◦ Neither provide restore or single items or sites

(without great pain!)◦ Third party

AvePoint, Idera, Microsoft Data Protection Manager

Best Practices (cont’d)

Server OS – Server 2008◦ IIS 7 and SharePoint run together very well and

have performance advantages over IIS 6/Server 2003

Go x64! SharePoint 2010 will be x64 ONLY. SQL, 2005 or 2008, but go x64 as well.

◦ 2000 SP4 is supported, but it suffers from performance issues and BI is severely limited.

Best Practices (cont’d)

Q&A

Don’t be afraid to play, it’s a resilient platform.

Thank you!