Setting Up a Dedicated Indexing Server

                 

 
Special Edition Using Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server
By Robert Ferguson

Table of Contents
Chapter 19.  Managing Indexing


Crawling and indexing can be a very resource- intensive task, in particular if multiple Web sites or large Exchange Public folder trees are referenced as content sources. In that situation, you should consider the usage of a dedicated server that is not used as a document repository or as a portal. SharePoint Portal Server can be configured to be responsible just for the indexing task, however, on the workspace level. In real-life deployment scenarios, though, you would not mix the same server indexing workspaces with regular workspace. Not only would you lose all benefits of the dedicated indexing workspace, additional overhead for the index propagation would slow down the system.

NOTE

Because indexing workspaces typically run on a dedicated server, you will come across the term Dedicated Content Indexing (DCI) Servers.


To create an indexing workspace, you must be an Administrator with access (either physical or through Terminal Services) to the server:

  1. Open the SharePoint Portal Server MMC Snap-In by clicking Start, Administrative Tools, SharePoint Portal Server.

  2. Select the SharePoint Portal Server/<your server> node.

  3. Choose the Action, New command to start the workspace wizard.

  4. Skip the welcome screen and enter your workspace name and description.

  5. Click the Advanced button. This is (almost) your only chance. If you click Finish after the next step without filling in the details in the Advanced dialog, a regular workspace will be created.

  6. In the Advanced dialog, check Configure as Index Workspace and type the URL to the workspace to which the index will be propagated. This workspace must reside on a different server and have a different name.

  7. If you have not yet set a propagation account, you will be prompted now to supply an account and password.

  8. Click Next and fill in the workspace contact details.

  9. You will be presented the information that you have provided. If Propagation Target is defined in the summary screen, slightly hidden in the amount of information, you are going to create an Indexing workspace. If everything is filled in correctly, click Finish.

After having set up an index workspace, a shortcut to the Management/Content Sources Web Folder will be automatically created in your My Network Places. If the Coordinator is a different user , this shortcut must be created manually.

CAUTION

Do not create shortcuts to other Web folders, such as the workspace root, even though this is possible. You created an indexing workspace, where the document management features are not supposed to work.


In the Content Sources Web Folder you will notice by default one content source called "Portal Shortcuts". If you inspect the properties, you'll see that it is dedicated to crawling any shortcuts on the destination server. These shortcuts on the target server might point to content that is located outside the workspace. This feature is provided to allow for configurations such that the target server does not need to crawl at all.

Only the first index workspace that propagates to the target workspace actually crawls the shortcuts. For any other index workspaces that propagate to the target workspace, an error will be reported in the gatherer log. You can use the Catutil.exe utility, which can be found on the SharePoint Portal Server CD under Support/Tools, to specify which server propagates the shortcuts to the target server. The "Portal Content" content source on all other indexing server can be deleted.


                 
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Special Edition Using Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server
Special Edition Using Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server
ISBN: 0789725703
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 286

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