This post discuss about how to configure the server farm’s shared services. For configuring the Farm’s Shared Service (SSP) go to the Application Management tab (Picture 20) –> Office SharePoint Server Shared Services –> Create or configure the farm’s shared services.

Picture 20: CentralAdministration - Application Management

There is a pre-request of web application for creating or configuring the SSP. We must have a web application for SSP administration and Sub sites.

New Web Application

A Web application is to consist of an Internet Information Services (IIS) site with a unique application pool. When we create a new Web application, we also create a new database and define the authentication method used to connect to the database.

To create a web application, go to the Application Management tab (If you are not already there) –> SharePoint Web Application Management –> Create or extend web application. We will redirect to the Create or Extend web application page. The Picture 21 displays it.

Picture 21: Create Web Application

To create a web application click on the link Create a new web application. We will look into extend an existing Web application in another part. The Picture 22 displays the screen shot for creating a new web application.

Picture 22: Create New Web Application

We can find following sections in this page.

• IIS Web Site – We can configure the setting for our new web application.
  • Here either we can use already existing web site in IIS or can choose to create a new IIS web site. Now choose the option Create New IIS Web Site and enter the name of the web site in the Description box.
  • In the Port box, enter the port number to use to access the Web application. If we are creating a new Web site, this field is populated with a suggested port number. If we are using an existing Web site, this field is populated with the current port number.
  • In the Host Header box, enter the URL to use to access the Web application. This is an optional field.
  • In the Path box, enter the path to the site directory on the server. For creating a new Web site, this field is populated with a suggested path. For using an existing Web site, this field is populated with the current path.
• Security Configuration – We can configure the authentication and encryption for our web application.
  • In the Authentication Provider section we can choose either Negotiate (Kerberos) or NTLM. (We already discussed in Part 2.) Choose NTLM.
  • In the Allow Anonymous section, choose Yes or No. If we choose to allow anonymous access, this enables anonymous access to the Web site by using the computer-specific anonymous access account (that is, IUSR_<computername>). Also If we want users to be able to access any site content anonymously, we must enable anonymous access for the entire Web application. Then later, site owners can configure how anonymous access is used within their sites. Choose No.
  • In the Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) section, select Yes or No. If we choose to enable SSL for the Web site, we must configure SSL by requesting and installing an SSL certificate. Choose No
• Load Balanced URL
  • In the Load Balanced URL section, enter the URL for the domain name for all sites that users will access in this Web application. This URL domain will be used in all links shown on pages within the Web application. By default, the box is populated with the current server name and port.
  • The Zone box is automatically set to Default for a new Web application, and cannot be changed from this page. We can change the zone for a Web application in Extend an existing Web application section (We will look in this later).
  • Leave these 2 sections as it is.
• Application Pool – choose whether to use an existing application pool or create a new application pool for this Web application
  • To use an existing application pool, select Use existing application pool. Then select the application pool we want to use from the drop-down menu. (Leave this now and select create new)
  • To create a new application pool, select create a new application pool.
  • In the Application pool name box, enter the name of the new application pool, or keep the default name.
  • In the Select a security account for this application pool section, select Predefined to use an existing application pool security account, and then select the security account from the drop-down menu. (Leave this now and select configurable).
  • Select Configurable to use an account that is not currently being used as a security account for an existing application pool. In the User name box, enter the user name of the account we want to use, and enter the password for the account in the Password box.
• Reset IIS – choose whether to allow Windows SharePoint Services to restart IIS on other farm servers. The local server must be restarted manually for the process to finish. If this option is not selected and we have more than one server in the farm, we must wait until the IIS Web site is created on all servers and then run iisreset /noforce on each Web server. The new IIS site is not usable until that action is completed. The choices are unavailable if our farm only contains a single server. Choose Yes.
• Database Name and Authentication – choose the database server, database name, and authentication method for our new Web application.
  • Enter the name of the database server and Microsoft SQL Server instance we want to use in the format <SERVERNAME\instance>. We can also use the default entry.
  • Enter the name of the database, or use the default entry.
  • Choose whether to use Windows authentication (recommended) or SQL authentication. Choose Windows authentication now.
• Search Server – Leave this now as default

Now click the button “OK” to create the web application. Now we have a web application. Next part of this post is to create SSP.

Create New SSP

Actually what is Shared Service Provider (SSP) and why do we need this? The answer is they are the logical environment that contains all pf the particular services you want to make available across our web applications and SharePoint sites. While the server farm is te top level logical container for all of the SharePoint design elements the SSP is the next highest logical object and MOSS 2007 will should have at lease one SSP being configured. The SSP provide the following generic sets of services.

• BDC (Business Data Catalog)
• Excel Services
• Personalization Services
• Portal Usage Reporting
• SharePoint Server Search

The picture 23 displays the screen shot for creating new SSP

Picture 23: New Shared Service Provider

To reach this page click the links as follows CAdm –> Application Management –> Office SharePoint Server Shared Services –> Create or configure this farm’s shared services –> New SSP.

We can find the following sections in this page.

• SSP Name
  • Enter the SSP Name in the SSP Name box
  • select the Web application that we created for the SSP, and do not modify any of the default settings in this section.
• My Site Location
  • Choose the correct Web application. It is recommended that we run My Sites and the SSP administration site in different Web applications so that we can back up and restore My Sites separately from the SSP administration site.
• SSP Service Credentials
  • User name and Password, type the user name and password for the user account under which the SSP to run. The user account must be a domain user account, but the user account does not have to be a member of any particular security group. It is recommended that we use the principle of least privilege and select a unique user account that does not have administrative rights on web front-end servers or on web back-end database servers. we can use the user account that we specified as the Office SharePoint Server 2007 service account; however, if that user account is a member of a security group that has administrative rights on web front-end servers or web back-end database servers, we will not be following the principle of least privilege. The user name must be in the format DOMAIN\username
• SSP Database – Leave it as default.
• Search Database – Leave it as default.
• Index Server – Leave it as default.
• SSL for Web Services – Choose No

Now click the button “OK” to create the new SSP.

Now go to the Home tab of CAdm and refresh it. Now we can see the WARNING : “Server Farm Configuration Not Complete” is gone. Now the SharePoint Server is ready to use.

From next post we will look in to the remaining parts of CAdm.

Again i would like to say, these posts may be reading an old news paper for techies of SharePoint. But definitly this will help for who new to SharePoint.

We have seen the overview of Central Administration(CAdm) pages in Part 1 and the SharePoint installation and post-installation configuration in Part 2. In the part 2 we end up with an alert message that “Server Farm Configuration Not Complete”. In this post we will look in to this.

Picture 13 : Central Administration Initial View

The Picture 13 shows the CAdm initial view. In this page we can find the Administrator Tasks and the Farm Topology.

Administrator Tasks: This section listed the tasks of administrator should have done to configure the SharePoint Server. Once the SharePoint Server installed we can find these tasks in the CAdm. In the Picture 13 the 4 initial tasks listed.

Task 1 – READ FIRST (Not much important. Good practice to read at least once).

Task 2 – Add servers to farm (Important).

Task 3 – Assign services to servers (Important).

Task 4 – Configure server farm’s shared services (Important).

We will look into these tasks in this part.

Farm Topology: A server farm is a collection of computer servers usually maintained by an enterprise to accomplish server needs far beyond the capability of one machine. Server farms often have backup servers, which can take over the function of primary servers in the event of a primary server failure.

In SharePoint we can do three types of farm topologies and stand-alone configuration (single server computer). A stand-alone configuration is also useful if we are deploying a small number of Web sites and we want to minimize administrative overhead. The Topologies are

• Small farm topology (2 servers configured in this topology. 1 is designated for WFE (Web Front Ends) and Application Server Role and another is for Database. This model is suitable for small organizations).
• Medium farm topology (This consists of a database server, an application server and more than one WFE).
• Large farm topology (This consists of 2 or more clustered database servers, several load-balanced WFEs and more than one Application servers).

Please find the following links for more details of installation of SharePoint and implementing the server farm.

Stand-alone installation: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263202.aspx

Server farm: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262243.aspx and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303428.aspx

And an interesting article about the Server Farm configuration and deployment from SharePoint Magazine (http://sharepointmagazine.net) “SharePoint Farm Configuring and Deployment” (It consists of 6 parts and I have given the URL for 6th part. You can find the remaining parts URL in this).

Notice that at this point, in the picture 13 the Database instance and the first server are showing. Also since the installation made in my environment is single server installation, the pictures display as single server only.

Now we look into the Tasks part more deeply.

The first task just click on the task link and complete it.

For the tasks 2, 3 and 4 please follow the steps.

Step 1: Click the “Operations” tab (under “Central Administration” heading).

Step 2: Click the “Services on Server” under the section “Topology and Services”. The picture 14 display the screen which we get.

Picture 14 : Services on Server (Before configure)

Step 3: We can find the “Excel Calculation Services“, “Office SharePoint Server Search” and “Windows SharePoint Services Search” should be required on Farm and they are not running message. Now click the “Start” link near to the “Excel Calculation Services” to start the service. Picture 15 displays this.

Picture 15: Excel Calculation Services Started

Step 4: Now click on the “Start” link near to the “Office SharePoint Server Search”. We will redirected to another page to configure the Office SharePoint Server Search. Picture 16 displays this.

Picture 16: Config Office SharePoint Server Search Settings

Now we should enter the details. Check the both check boxes for “Query and Indexing“. Since this is stand-alone configuration i have selected the both Query and Indexing. Please refer the technet articles (links given above) for Medium and Large Farm configuration.

Enter a valid E-Mail address.

For “Farm Search Search Account” enter valid user name and password to the respective field. This is for the user account under which we want the Search service to run. The user account must be a member of the Administrators group on the computer that is running the Search service. The user name must be in the format DOMAIN\user name.

And remaining “Index Server Default File Location“, “Indexer Performance” and “Web Front End And Crawling” leave the default values and click the “OK” button.

Index Server Default File Loction

Indexer Performance

Web Front End Adn Crawling

Once the “Office SharePoint Server Search” settings configured we can find in the “Services on Server” screen.

Step 5: Next we should configure the  ”Windows SharePoint Services Web Application“. Click on the “Start” link next to the “Windows SharePoint Web Application”. The page will redirected to the settings page. The picture 17 display the settings page.

Picture 17: Config Windows SharePoint Service Search

Now we should enter the required details of this page. we must start the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service on every computer that we want to act as a Web server and was set up using the Complete option during Setup. This service is started by default on servers that were set up using the Web Front End option. To enhance security, we can leave this service turned off on application servers that do not provide Web content to client computers. Also, we do not need to turn this service on to use SharePoint Central Administration on a server.

For “Service Account” and “Content Access Account” enter valid user name and password to the respective field. This is for the user account under which we want the web application service to run. The user account must be a member of the Administrators group on the computer that is running the Search service. The user name must be in the format DOMAIN\user name (Example kkv\mossadmin).

For “Search Database” use the default server which configured already (Part 2). Change the default database name if you want. Leave the windows authentication as recommended.

For “Indexing Schedule” better to select “Daily” option (Refer the technet articles for more on this).

Press the “Ok” button to complet the configuration.

Step 6: Please check in “Service on Server” screen to confirm the required services are started. Picture 18 displays this.

Picture 18: All Required Services on Server Started

Now go to the “Home” tab and change the status of the tasks 2 and 3. The picture 19 displays that and the services running on the server too.

Picture 19: CA Home After Service Started

Still we didn’t come to the end of the configuration. We need to complete the task 4. Due to the size of the post i stop here. We will look in to the Shared Service Configuration in the next post.

We have seen the overview of the Central Administration(CAdm) pages in previous post (Part 1). Before we get into the CAdm, in this post we will look into the Installation of MOSS and Post-Installation configuration.

Installation

We can download the trial version of MOSS 2007 from the following link.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2E6E5A9C-EBF6-4F7F-8467-F4DE6BD6B831&displaylang=en

Also we can find the following product keys for standard and Enterprise editions.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard: XJMKW-8T7PR-76XT6-RTC8G-VVWCQ

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise: F2JBW-4PDJC-HKXTJ-YCKRP-T2J9D

Once the download completed start the installation by double clicking the OfficeServer.exe / OfficeServerwithSP1.exe. Immediately the product license key page will appeared. (In trail version depending on the key the product will install as Standard or Enterprise).

Picture 1 : Installation - License Key

Once we enter the product license key, if the key is a proper key then the green check mark will appear in the screen and click the “Continue” button. The Licensing Agreement screen will appear and check the “I accept the terms of this agreement” and click the “Continue” button.

We should decide the server farm on the time of SharePoint Server 2007 installation itself. The following pictures displays the server farm installation part.

Picture 2 : Installation - Type

There are 2 types of installation we can do, one is Basic (Single server standalone) another Advanced (Single server or SharePoint farm). Once we click the Advanced installation we asked to select the Server Type.

Picture 3 : Installation - Server Type

There are 3 types of server type installation we can do.

1. Complete (Enables all of the options for one server to offer the entire range of MOSS 2007 services and features to the network.)
2. Web Front End (Enables only those options that allows the server to run as a web front end server. This cannot be the first choice of a farm unless we plan on installing other servers in the farm to offer the services and features that users will want to consume.)
3. Stand-alone (Enables all of the services and features for the MOSS 2007 farm, but assumes that there is no SQL server, so the MSDE engine is installed locally on this server.  We cannot scale out this server into a larger MOSS 2007 farm.)

Select the “Complete” installation type and click the “Install Now” button. (Note, also that we can select the location where the product should be installed in the File Location tab and then sign up to give feedback directly to Microsoft if we’d like to do this). The confirmation screen will appear after successful installation of MOSS.

SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration

Once the Installation completed automatically the configuration wizard will appear in the screen (If we check the “Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Wizard now). Otherwise we can get the wizard by clicking Start –> All Programs –> Microsoft Office Server –> SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard. Once the wizard started the following page will appear in the screen.

Picture 4 : SharePoint Configuration - Welcome

On click of the “Next” button, the following alert message will appear in the screen.

Picture 5 : SharePoint Configuration - Warning

Click the “Yes” to continue the wizard. And the following screens in the wizard will drive us to setup a farm. In Picture 6, we can create a new server farm or connecting with the existing server farm.

Picture 6 : Connect to Server farm

Since we are configuring first time select the “No, I want to create a new server farm” and click the “Next” button. The next screen Picture 7 displays the details for configuring the Database settings.

Picture 7 : Configuring Database settings

In this screen we need to give the following configuration details.

• Database Server
• Database name (Automatically created. If need we can configure the existing DB. But it should be empty)
• Database Access Account (Existing windows account with administrator rights – DOMAIN\user_name & Password)

Once filled with the details and click on the “Next” button the Picture 8 : Central Administration Web Application will be displayed on the screen.

Picture 8 : Central Administration Web Application

In Picture 8, we can specify a pre-selected port number for central administration to run on or we can allow the wizard to randomly assign a port number.

And also we’ll be asked to decide which type of security settings we want to use for our farm. Do we want the CA application to run using NTLM (NT Lan Manager) for security authentication or Kerberos?  If the latter, there are some special configurations we’ll need to complete in Active Directory (AD) before Kerberos will work.  I’m finding that most administrators are happy with NTLM, though those in a larger and more secure implementations are increasingly using Kerberos.

In Picture 8, we can specify a pre-selected port number for central administration to run on or we can allow the wizard to randomly assign a port number.

And also we’ll be asked to decide which type of security settings we want to use for our farm. Do we want the CA application to run using NTLM (NT Lan Manager) for security authentication or Kerberos?  If the latter, there are some special configurations we’ll need to complete in Active Directory (AD) before Kerberos will work.  I’m finding that most administrators are happy with NTLM, though those in a larger and more secure implementations are increasingly using Kerberos. Select the NTLM and click “Next” button.

The picture 9 displays the summary of the configuration details which we have entered in the previous screens.

Picture 9 : Configuration Smmary

We can verify the details entered previously in this screen. Since the implementation is for single server the “Advanced settings” button is disabled. Otherwise we can enter the configure the Central Administration Web Application Host in the advanced settings.

On click of the “Next” button the Configuration will start. Picture 10 displays the status of that.

Picture 10 : Configuration Status

Once the configuration tasks are completed the final summary of the configuration and configuration success message will display in the screen (Picture 11).

Picture 11 : Configuration Success

Click the “Finish” button to close the wizard. Now we have done the Installation and Configuration.  After we close the wizard, automatically the CAdm web site will open in IE (I am not sure about this, i can’t remember whether the CAdm automatically or not when i installed the MOSS 2007). But we can open the CAdm using Start –> All Programs –> Microsoft Office Server –> SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.

The picture 12 displays the first view of the CAdm (before do the server farm configuration).

Picture 12 : Central Administration First View

We can see the red alert “Server Farm Configuration Not Complete” in the top left corner under “Central Administration”. We will look into the server farm configuration in the next part.

SharePoint administration –  i believe, many of us using the SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration (call it CAdm) to do the configuration and other activities of administration. This blog discuss about the overview of the 3 tabs “Home“, “Operation” and “Application Management” and brief about each section under these tabs.

You can view these tabs from the following pictures (Click on the images).

Central Administration - Home

Central Administration - Operation

Central Administration - Application Management

The CAdm Home page provides the access of the other areas of administration and the Administrator task list. We will discuss about this tab after the other 2 tabs CAdm – Operation and Application Management.

The CAdm Operation page helps us to manage the platform, server and topology management, backup and restore. The following sections are available in this page.

1. Topology and Services
2. Security Configuration
3. Logging and Reporting
4. Upgrade and Migration
5. Global Configuration
6. Backup and Restore
7. Data Configuration
8. Content Deployment

we will look into these sections in forth coming parts.

The CAdm Application Management pags helps us to manage the applications and sites created in SharePoint server or server farm. We can configure the sites, search service, shared services setings and Infopath Forms service. The following sections are available in this page.

1. SharePoint Web Application Management
2. SharePoint Site Management
3. External Service Conectrions
4. Infopath Forms services
5. Office SharePoint Service Shared Services
6. Application Security
7. Search
8. Workflow Management

we will look into these sections in forth coming parts (i didn’t plan how many parts are going to be, but need to plan).

This blog may be an old news paper for techies of SharePoint. But definitly this will help for who new to SharePoint.

We can do the administration using command line tool STSADM.exe. But we will not focus this now, may later section. But i can suggest an article from Microsoft TechNet. Please find the link bellow for command line administration.

http://technet.microsoft.com/hi-in/magazine/2007.01.commandprompt(en-us).aspx

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are the author’s personal views and in no way reflects the views of his employer or anyone else. Any opinions, tips, ideas, work arounds, fixes or other commentary expressed in this blog is provided “AS IS” without any warranties and rights.

Some more days back, there was a chance to go through the downloadable book from Microsoft:TechNet named “Installation guide for Office SharePoint Server 2007″. It’s a good one who likes to start the SharePoint installation by their own. You can find the book from the following link.

Installation Guide for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=106632)

or

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc298924.aspx

Oops…. the ten great skills are going history soon…….

Whenever / where ever sw engineers and techies are grouping together you may heard these words from their talks – “Coldfusion, WAP, COBOL“. Not now. Thats few years before. Linda Leung blogs in TechRepublic that the following skills are going history.

1: Asynchronous Transfer Mode

2: Novell NetWare

3: Visual J++

4: Wireless Application Protocol

5: ColdFusion

6: RAD/extreme programming

7: Siebel

8: SNA

9: HTML

10: COBOL

1: Asynchronous Transfer Mode

2: Novell NetWare

3: Visual J++

4: Wireless Application Protocol

5: ColdFusion

6: RAD/extreme programming

7: Siebel

8: SNA

9: HTML

10: COBOL

See…. HTML also in this list. Also Linda advised if your skill set is in the list, better to get in touch with other skills.

You can find the article from the following link

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=842

Before installing the Biztalk server 2009 (BTS 2009), we should consider the following feature dependancy matrix (fdm). Because many of the features of BTS 2009 is depending with other platforms like IIS (Internet Information Service 7.0) WSS 3.0, etc. The following picture shows the fdm.

The new version of Biztalk server released few months before.

We can download the evalution edition from the following link.

BizTalk Server 2009 Evaluation Edition

It is necessary to view once the installation and upgrade guides. Get the guides from the following link.

BizTalk Server 2009 Installation and Upgrade Guides