Example Server Scenarios

                 

 
Special Edition Using Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server
By Robert  Ferguson

Table of Contents
Chapter  6.   Capacity Planning Within Your Environment


In this section, we will describe four real-world scenarios. The first is a small single-server site that uses SharePoint Portal Server primarily for document management. The second scenario is an example of another small single-server intranet site with limited document needs and a primary purpose of searching for desired content across the organization. In both these examples, a single server is being used. However, this does not necessarily represent best practices or a recommended strategy. Rather, it represents certain real-world scenarios that may exist, where small sites with limited budgets could accommodate both the document management and search functionality on the same server. The third and fourth examples discuss the use of SharePoint Portal Server across multiple sites. This third example discusses a need for a large portal search site, but does not have tremendous document management requirements. The fourth example discusses a scenario with requirements for enterprise search capability and integrated functionality of multiple document management servers.

Single-Server Document Management Portal

Within this example, we assume that a SharePoint Portal Server was deployed to address the business requirements of a single business unit. The primary focus of this business unit is to enable a single-server intranet site for document management. In addition to the document management, the server will be used to crawl a small amount of content from other content sources. As stated, the primary purpose of the site is to enable the integrated document management functionality, such as creating documents, managing multiple versions of documents, routing and approval, and so on. Our example assumes that we also enabled an external crawl for the Web sites of several of the business unit's competitors . The single server provides one workspace for all content and exposes the content as a dashboard customized for a particular business unit. This site could be expanded to accommodate other needs of the organization.

Figure 6.1. Single departmental solution with indexed content to file servers and Exchange public folders.

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Single-Server Intranet Search Portal

This scenario assumes that we have several business units that are accessing a single intranet search portal to search for desired content. The search content linked to the portal is not necessarily tied to a single business unit. In contrast to scenario #1, this scenario includes limited document management functionality, but has a heavy focus on being the single site for searching content across the enterprise as well as external to the intranet site.

End users from various departments can access the site to search for files stored on file servers, Lotus Notes databases, Exchange public folders, and database servers. The portal is also used to post essential enterprise-related communications, such as new customer account status, essential competitor news, new product announcements, and other key sales and customer satisfaction- related information. Like scenario #1 previously, scenario #2 could easily be hosted on a single server to store the content sources, while providing a dashboard site to expose the workspace for all end users. The site includes extensive indexed content from various internal servers within the enterprise. End users access the site to search for this content. The solution includes limited searching for content on Internet sites, as well as limited document management needs. If this solution also had requirements for managing a large amount of documents, we would likely need to include an additional server and dedicate one server to document management and the other to indexing and searching content.

Figure 6.2. Single Search Portal site with indexed content of file servers, Notes databases, and Exchange public folders.

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Multiple Server Search Portal

Once your SharePoint Portal Server solution requirements outgrow a single server due to lack of acceptable performance during peak periods, you should consider partitioning services across multiple servers. You should also consider multiple servers if you have a very large number of users, or a large amount of documents that need to be managed. Scenario #3 assumes a set of requirements in which a SharePoint Portal Server solution is enabled as a single portal search for a large enterprise. For this particular multi-server solution, document management is being utilized, but is considered very limited, as the enterprise portal's main function is enterprise search.

Our solution will use one server dedicated to searching, and an additional server performing the role of creating and updating indexes. In our sample scenario, we have a need for searching content on several file servers, Exchange 2000 public folders, and several existing intranet sites. We have one server dedicated to indexing that creates an index of all required content. Once the index is created, the index server will propagate the index to the server dedicated to searching. This index can be propagated immediately after it is generated, or if network traffic is excessive, the index could be scheduled for propagation to occur during non-peak hours. Once the search server receives the propagated index, the search server provides the required dashboard site. The search server is the home of the workspace and is where content is stored. However, the server dedicated to indexing only includes indexes for content sources.

CAUTION

The reason we want to consider two separate servers in our solution is due to the fact that creating an index of content stored outside the workspace is extremely CPU- intensive .


Figure 6.3. SharePoint Portal Server solution with dedicated search and index servers.

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Multiple Server Multi-Purpose Portal

Out last example includes a best practice approach for a multi-server, multi-site situation in which a majority of SharePoint Portal Server's features and capabilities will be utilized. This enterprise solution assumes that a large number of documents will need to be managed and aggregated from many other SharePoint Portal Servers. In addition, the enterprise needs a single portal site for searching for content across the enterprise. We assume a large corporation, in which each department has their own document management servers. Our solution also assumes that we have multiple servers crawling the distributed document management servers, and propagating indexes to a single server dedicated to searching. To accommodate these requirements, we created a master portal site at our corporate office in Houston, Texas. At this site, we created three new SharePoint Portal Servers. The first server is a server dedicated to searching. We then created a second server dedicated to creating and updating indexes. The third server is a very large server dedicated to document management. This server has an amount of storage space carefully planned to be able to handle multiple versions of documents.

NOTE

The corporate office has more than ten thousand users, which is why we created a separate document management server. All remote sites also have their own document management server, and some sites have an additional server that crawls these remote site servers, propagating indexes to the centralized search server in Houston.


Figure 6.4. Multi-purpose portal solution with elements of search, index, and document management servers exposed through centralized master portal site.

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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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