Technical Considerations

Along with the business, analysis, and design considerations presented in this chapter, you need to be aware of several technical considerations and limitations. Like all systems, SharePoint products and technologies have minimum hardware requirements. Also, like all software systems, a few compatibility issues may affect your deployment plans.

Server Requirements

When planning for the server installation, both hardware and software requirements must be met. I will address installation in some detail in the next chapter, but this section allows you to start planning your deployment. The following lists the minimum hardware requirements to run SharePoint Portal Server:

• Intel Pentium IIIcompatible processor

• 512 megabytes (MB) of random access memory (RAM)

• 550 MB of free hard disk space

You should consider a couple of special points when you are setting up SharePoint products and technologies. First, Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server assumes that all the partitions involved in the deployment are formatted as NTFS. Additionally, program and data file paths cannot point to removable or networked storage. Finally, if you are deploying SharePoint Portal Server in a farm using Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB), you should install a second network interface card (NIC) to support communication between servers in the farm.

In addition to the hardware requirements, SharePoint Portal Server has specific software requirements. Most notable is the fact that SharePoint Portal Server requires one of the Windows 2003 operating systems. This does not mean that your entire network has to be upgraded to Windows 2003, but it does mean that you have to have at least one server running the operating system on which you install SharePoint.

You should keep several special considerations in mind when you are deploying the SharePoint software. First, if you choose to run SharePoint Portal Server on Windows Server 2003, Web Edition, you must have Microsoft SQL Server installed on a separate computer. Second, all servers in a server farm must run the same version of Windows 2003, and the same version of SQL Server 2000; however, the computer running SQL Server 2000 does not have to run under Windows 2003. Third, if you are installing SharePoint Portal Server on a domain controller, you must install SQL Server on a separate server. Finally, the following operating system components must be installed on the computer running SharePoint Portal Server:

• Microsoft ASP.NET

• Enabled network COM+ access

• Internet Information Services Manager

• World Wide Web service

Client Requirements

Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server will work with a wide variety of clients . Client machines may be running any operating system from Windows 98 through Windows XP. Client browsers Internet Explorer 5.01 and higher are supported. Although support for previous versions of Office exists, in order to integrate all the functions of SharePoint Portal Server, client machines should have Office 2003 installed.