| The development of a technical support organization , or TSO, is one of the many high-level deployment tasks that should be addressed prior to completing any installation of SharePoint Portal Server. While this deployment consideration is covered in depth elsewhere in this book, administration and maintenance tasks will change as the portal grows and changes over time. Therefore, it is likely that the team tasked with supporting the portal will also require training or changes in team members , structure, and so on. The central figure in addressing workspace administration is the Workspace Coordinator, covered in detail next .  To read more about the general role of the Workspace Coordinator, see "Workspace Coordinator Role," p. 49. The key role from a workspace management perspective is the Workspace Coordinator. In smaller SharePoint Portal Server deployments, or in small organizations, one person typically acts as both the server Administrator and the Coordinator on the top level of the workspace. That is, one "Administrator" performs all of the tasks associated with managing both SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, for example. In larger organizations or more complex deployments, this role may consist of multiple Coordinators, and perhaps even multiple server Administrators. The Coordinator role exemplifies a role packed with responsibilities. Workspace Coordinators manage content sources, document profiles, categories, and subscriptions, and usually drive customization of the related dashboard site. They hold permission to configure user roles on folders, and are authorized to perform Author- related tasks. In terms of managing enhanced folders, Coordinators do even morethey define and configure approval processes, undo the check-out of a document, and have the ability to even end the publishing process. Plus, as we have read previously, they can also view and delete other users' subscriptions. This comes in handy as end users move in and out of roles within an organization, or leave the organization completely. The Workspace Coordinator utilizes SharePoint Portal Server Administration in MMC to manage the SharePoint Portal Server environment. His goals initially lie in understanding user requirements and correctly configuring the portal. Tasks like the following are critical: -
The Workspace Coordinator attaches the server(s) to an organization-wide security infrastructure and directory. -
Works with the user community, deployment team, and hardware/software/integration partners to ensure that the portal is installed, configured, and optimized. -
Creates the initial workspaces on the server. -
Works with the customer community to create new and modify existing Web Parts for the workspace. -
Monitors overall disk space available, CPU statistics, and other resources so as to ensure a baseline level of performance, and determines when additional servers or workspaces might be required. -
Configures security on the top level of the workspace, via SharePoint Portal Server Administration or by using Workspace Settings in the Management folder of the workspace. -
Maintains a list of index workspace names , the server on which each workspace is stored, and the server and workspace to which each is propagated. -
Pays particular attention to the two resource- intensive processes that nearly all SharePoint Portal Server computers performsearching and index creation. -
Responsible for performing full, incremental, or adaptive updates to an index, if required. -
Backs up, tests, and restores the server(s), including mastering the duplication process for disaster recovery purposes. -
Installs and registers IFilters. -
Modifies the noise word and thesaurus files and creates custom search queries. -
Configures the servers to crawl Microsoft Exchange Server 2000, 5.5, and Lotus Notes content sources. |
