Introducing SharePoint Server 2007
SharePoint Server 2007 is more than just the tools and mechanisms required to organize
corporate data content and business intelligence within web pages, lists, and libraries.
MOSS 2007, like its predecessor SharePoint Portal Server 2003, is a portal technology.
A web portal is not just a website’s index page. It represents a company’s gateway into how
information is collected, maintained, shared, presented, modified, and secured. A portal can
lead into a highly varied environment involving one or multiple sites serving as an intranet to
staff and management, an extranet to the customer base, an Internet site for the general public,
or some combination of these sites.
The core technology of MOSS 2007 is Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0. This service is
available at no cost for the Windows Server 2003 and Windows Small Business Server 2003 platforms;
however, WSS 3.0 doesn’t provide the full range of content management tools available in
MOSS 2007.
SharePoint Server 2007 offers expanded functionality on top of the WSS 3.0 core including
the Business Data Catalog (BDC), business intelligence (BI), Excel Services, Forms Services,
and a new and more robust search engine.
Introducing SharePoint Server 2007
3
Specific knowledge of WSS 3.0 as a stand-alone technology won’t be included
in the 70-630 exam. Microsoft maintains a separate certification for WSS 3.0
configuration—Exam 70-631: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Configuring.
What’s New in SharePoint 2007?
Microsoft divides the capacities of SharePoint Server 2007 into six general areas:
Business intelligence
Business process and forms
Collaboration
Enterprise content management
Enterprise search
Portals
Each area contains updated or completely new features available in MOSS 2007.
Business Intelligence
Business intelligence
was once the sole purview of the developer or consultant; however, MOSS
2007 puts this valuable capacity in the hands of the site administrator and content manager.
Business intelligence is the term assigned to a collection of utilities designed to take a vast array
of unstructured data and data types and present them as a chart, spreadsheet, or other organized
form for the purpose of analysis. This includes the ability to pull raw data from numerous
sources, including those external to SharePoint, and display them as reports or key indicators
in order to track and evaluate specific, business-related trends. The following are the key Share-
Point workspaces and web parts that collectively make up business intelligence:
Report Center site
This is a specific site within SharePoint, created as a central repository for
storing reports, libraries, lists, and connections to data sources.
Excel Services
This solution is designed to manage and share Office Excel 2007 workbooks
as interactive reports.
External data connections
SharePoint 2007 allows you to connect to external data sources
such as SAP and Siebel and integrate information from those sources into lists, libraries, and
web parts within SharePoint.
Key performance indicators (KPI)
Specialized lists and web parts in SharePoint let you visually
track progress made toward specific business goals.
Dashboards
These are web part templates that you can use to collect information from a
variety of data sources, such as charts, KPIs, metrics, and reports, and display the information
in a single interface.
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Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Data filters
Using filters, you can display only a subset of a data collection, designing the presentation
for specific audiences that need to see only the information that’s relevant to them.
Business Data Catalog
The BDC is a SharePoint shared service that accesses data from
numerous back-end applications that exist outside SharePoint Server and combines that information
into a single report or profile.
Business Process and Forms
Although we don’t quite live in a paperless society, forms are now more commonly electronic
than printed, and they maintain their place at the core of an organization’s business process.
Electronic forms are provided in SharePoint by InfoPath Forms Services, and they can help you
collect and validate information that drives your business processes. The key to moving and
tracking forms through your system is utilizing SharePoint’s built-in workflow templates to
automate the journey of business forms through your process.
Workflows provide a system of contact and review points as forms and other documents proceed
from the beginning to the conclusion of a task. They also facilitate collaboration between
team members and other partners in a particular project. The workflow process contains several
decision points:
Approval
This workflow option directs a form, document, or item to an individual or group
for approval.
Collect Feedback
This workflow option directs a form or document to an individual or
group for feedback.
Collect Signatures
This workflow option directs a Microsoft Office document to a group to
collect digital signatures.
Disposition Approval
This workflow option lets authorized personnel decide to retain or
delete expired documents.
Group Approval
This workflow option allows you to choose workflow approvers from a
hierarchical organizational chart and allow these approvers to use a stamp control instead of
a signature.
Three-state
This workflow option is used to track and manage large volumes of business
process forms, documents, or issues such as project tasks.
Translation Management
This workflow option creates copies of documents that need to be
translated to other languages and assigns translation tasks to specified teams or team members.
Using web browser–based forms lets employees in your organization fill out forms without
having to print hard copies from the browser. The forms are created by Office InfoPath 2007,
which provides a central repository for all of the business forms your organization manages.
As with all other documents and information in SharePoint, you can determine whether you
want a form to be distributed just within your company’s intranet or share it with customers,
partners, or the general public using an extranet or Internet site.
Introducing SharePoint Server 2007
5
Since you haven’t installed SharePoint Server 2007 yet, the exercises in this chapter are
designed to help you learn more about MOSS 2007 and related technologies and solutions.
Exercise 1.1 will help you learn about using InfoPath within SharePoint.
Collaboration
Collaboration is the one factor that comes to people’s minds when they think of SharePoint.
MOSS 2007 provides a specific set of utilities that allow project teams, departments, divisions,
or entire companies to work together to attain a common goal. Site templates, blogs, wikis,
and RSS feeds are all web parts that can be used for collaboration. Office Outlook 2007 can
interact with elements in SharePoint. You can use Project Management to manage a set of
tasks that can be accomplished using different web parts and web part configurations. Share-
Point collaboration tools are how these jobs are created, managed, and completed within the
MOSS framework.
Site templates
You no longer have to create a site from scratch; instead, you can use one of
SharePoint’s built-in site templates to suit your needs. Site templates are organized by function
or purpose, so you can simply select the template that most closely meets your needs. For
instance, you can select a Meeting Site template to manage the annual stockholder’s meeting
or a series of frequently recurring events such as a weekly staff meeting.
Blogs and wikis
A new feature in MOSS 2007 is support for both blogs and wikis. These
information-sharing methods are common on the Web, and almost everyone has used them
from time to time. Now you can leverage these data storage and sharing formats within your
company by enabling them in SharePoint.
RSS feeds
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology is another well-known method of
periodically receiving updated information on specific topics or subjects. Use RSS to subscribe
to a blog in SharePoint and get the latest data updates.
EXERCISE 1.1
Learning More about InfoPath
1.
Open a web browser, and go to
http://office.microsoft.com
.
2.
Click the Products tab.
3.
In the menu on the left under Servers, click SharePoint Server.
4.
In the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server search field, type
InfoPath
, and press Enter.
5.
In the search results list, click Export InfoPath Form Data from a Library to a Spreadsheet.
6.
Review the tutorial on this page, and then add the web page to your Favorites list in your
web browser. You’ll need the information when you work with forms in Chapter 13,
“Using Business Forms and Business Intelligence.”
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Office Outlook 2007 collaboration
You can use Outlook to seamlessly share information back
and forth between your email or calendar and SharePoint. For instance, you can add an item to a
discussion group in SharePoint by sending an email to that group. You don’t have to open Share-
Point as a separate application but instead can add information to MOSS directly from Outlook.
Project Management
Never lose track of who is assigned to what project or how close to
completion a task is again. Projects can be organized in lists or charts, such as a Gantt chart,
to show you, at a glance, all of the details you need to manage job assignments.
Enterprise Content Management
Content management is more than just knowing which document library contains your author’s
contracts. Documents are not containers of static content anymore. After creation, content is subject
to modification, versioning, and workflow. Addressing the needs of the enterprise, MOSS
2007 divides this arena into three distinct categories, all with multilingual publishing support. The
categories are document management, records management, and web content management.
Document Management
Document management consists of the processes of creating, accessing, modifying, publishing,
storing, and tracking documentation within your organization. Document management contains
the following tools to enhance this content management form:
Document Center site template
The Document Center site template is one of the default site templates
native to MOSS 2007. It provides document management for large-scale companies with
functions including checkout and check-in for editing, versioning, auditing, and support for various
document formats. Support for converting one document format to another is also available.
Translation Management library
In the realm of multinational corporations, you will likely
need to manage documentation that can be translated into different languages. This library
enables you to create, store, and provide workflow, as well as manage by document type all
your multilingual documentation.
Microsoft Office 2007 integration
Not only can you control document management from
within the SharePoint 2007 interface, but you can also create, manage, and initiate workflow
directly from Microsoft Office client applications such as Word and Excel 2007.
Records Management
Records management may seem to be just document management renamed, but a company’s
official records represent the history, knowledge base, and legal documentation for the organization.
As such, corporate records require specialized management based on the company’s
relevant policies as well as the regulations and laws that apply.
Records Center site template
The Records Center site template is the main utility within
SharePoint for managing the maintenance and retention of business records; it provides a
records collection interface, records routing, records vault capacities, and information policy
management tools.
Information management policies
Just mentioned in conjunction with the Records Center
site template, information management policies allow you to enforce compliance across the
enterprise to all corporate policies and legal regulations that apply to records management.
Introducing SharePoint Server 2007
7
Information rights management
This SharePoint capacity lets you limit what actions a person
can take on a document that has been downloaded from SharePoint. Information rights
management (IRM) encrypts documents that have been downloaded from MOSS libraries or
lists so that what users can do with the documents depends on the permissions those users
have. Limitations include whether a user can decrypt the files, print records, or copy text from
records. IRM is built on top of a certificate-based infrastructure and allows users to restrict
access to a document by both name and by certificate. This capacity focuses on what specific
tasks users can perform when accessing content.
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 integration
Emails are considered formal business documents,
and although sometimes jokes or other personal content are transmitted across a company’s
email system, those emails are actually the property of the corporation. Not only can
a user send an email directly to a Records Center site, but information management polices
can be directly applied from SharePoint to managed email folders in Exchange.
Web Content Management
Web content management is an obvious capacity within SharePoint since MOSS uses a web
interface to allow access to all its tools and information for Internet, intranet, and extranet
sites. Although most people may think that the site administrator or webmaster governing the
SharePoint site collection must be the person to add or modify content, content presentation,
and content organization, in fact SharePoint users can access many tools to control the information
for which they are directly responsible:
Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Office SharePoint Designer 2007 takes the place and
performs the functions of Microsoft FrontPage for SharePoint Portal Server 2003; it is the
primary web design tool for SharePoint Server 2007. Although SharePoint is very customizable,
a number of elements cannot be modified with the tools native to SharePoint. You can
use SharePoint Designer to create a new master page or modify page layouts without having
to be a software engineer. The designer utilizes Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) technology to
enable you to make changes across your entire MOSS site collection.
Default master pages and page layouts
You don’t have to use Office SharePoint Designer to
create the look and feel you want for your sites. The master page, page layouts, and content
pages native to SharePoint 2007 are varied enough to suit almost anyone’s needs. For example,
you can select a particular content page such as a News Content page to specify how information
is presented and modified.
SharePoint site templates
SharePoint 2007 contains a number of default site templates that
you can choose based on the purpose and function of the site you want to create. These are the
five general areas for site templates:
Collaboration
Custom
Enterprise
Meetings
Publish
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Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Each of these areas contains a variety of specific templates that serve particular requirements
within that category. For instance, in the Publish category, the site templates are News Site,
Publishing Site with Workflow, Collaboration Portal, and Publishing Portal.
Microsoft Office 2007 format integration
SharePoint Server 2007 has a Document Conversions
feature that, when enabled, lets you convert Office 2007 documents such as Word documents to
web pages. You can even convert Office InfoPath forms written in XML into web content.
HTML Content Editor
This utility allows you to access the underlying HTML markup language
on any web page and modify the source. This is handy when you create page content
in the What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) window and how it renders is not quite
how you want the content to appear.
Automatic site change adjustment
In SharePoint Server 2003, when you changed the web
page structure of your site and moved a page to a different location, you needed to manually
edit all the links that led to that page. MOSS 2007 automatically changes the site navigation
links, correctly updating and renaming them.
Managing website variations
It’s said that “one size fits all” is a myth, and it certainly is with
websites including SharePoint site collections. In today’s international business environment,
websites often need to be presented in a variety of languages. SharePoint’s Variations feature
lets you publish your source site in a variety of languages including English, French, and Japanese.
Additionally, the rendering of the source site can be modified for geographic region and
browser device type (PC or mobile, for example).
Enterprise Search
Office SharePoint Server 2007 has vastly improved its search abilities over its predecessor.
You can use Enterprise Search not only to locate the right document or piece of data but also
to find the right person, such as a subject-matter expert to fill a particular need. MOSS 2007
search uses the following abilities:
Searching Center site
Like a lot of other SharePoint resources, search capacities are contained
within a centralized site where you can initiate searches and filter results.
Finding documents and people
As mentioned previously, you can find both data and data
experts using SharePoint search. Search queries will span across document libraries, information
lists, and even user MySite sites to locate results matching your search string.
Searching enterprise applications
SharePoint search also has the ability to go through enterprise
applications such as SAP, Siebel, or customized databases in its quest to provide the
information you need.
Portals
Portals are gateways into a large organized repository of data and data management tools.
SharePoint 2007 portal technology has advanced in providing greater personalization of its
portal sites. For instance, individual users can now create personal MySite websites within
SharePoint that act as a portal to any personal profiles, documents, graphics, lists, or other
Planning SharePoint 2007 Architecture
9
information directly relevant to them. This information is searchable by SharePoint Enterprise
Search, and each time a user updates their MySite with information about training classes
they’ve recently completed or a project they’ve just concluded, you can find them and access
the person’s expertise.
Any SharePoint solution you’ve reviewed in the “What’s New in SharePoint 2007?” section
of this chapter can be accessed through a dedicated portal site, meaning that you can create and
manage gateways to each major piece of functionality provided by SharePoint as well as the site
collection as a whole. Portals can be designed to fit your company’s functional activities or along
departmental lines. Each portal then operates like a large container for the information and
activities it contains.
Understanding exactly which features are supported in various editions of WSS and Share-
Point Server can be difficult to sort out. Exercise 1.2 will show you how to get the detailed
information you need.
Planning SharePoint 2007 Architecture
Before you start reaching for the SharePoint 2007 installation disk and slipping it in the server
you plan to use to start building your site collection, you will need to develop a plan for the
layout and deployment of SharePoint’s architecture. This is a lot like saying before you build
a house, you first have to draw up the blueprints, but it’s not as simple as that. As the architect
for your company’s SharePoint implementation, you have several major tasks before you:
Architecting with SharePoint components
Architecting SharePoint server farms, shared services providers (SSPs), and topologies
Architecting the SQL database infrastructure
EXERCISE 1.2
Downloading the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Products
Comparison List
1.
Open a web browser, and go to
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/
HA101978031033.aspx
.
2.
Click the download link that matches the version of Excel you have on your computer.
3.
Select Save or Save to Disk.
4.
Navigate to the folder on your computer where you want to save the products comparison
worksheet, and click Save.
5. When the worksheet is saved to your computer, close your web browser.
10 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Architecting with SharePoint Components
Just as you’d expect an architect designing your home to be familiar with the tools required
to plan for and build your house, you will need to learn the components contained within
SharePoint that you can use to build your organization’s site collection. Although some design
components are physical, such as the actual machine your SharePoint site collection will live
in, many others are logical. For instance, SSPs are logical constructs that allow various services
to move across numerous physical servers in a server farm. The following sections are a highlevel
view of SharePoint architecting components.
The Server Farm
At its most basic level, a server farm is a collection of physical server iron and logical servers
grouped in a single location. This collection is also known as a server cluster or data center.
The most common implementation of a server farm is a group of web servers utilized by a web
hosting company or Internet service provider (ISP). Application software can be deployed on
a server-by-server basis, or a single application can span numerous physical servers.
Although the server farm exists physically, as far as architecting SharePoint is concerned,
the farm is administered logically as part of a single entity, which in this case will be all the
components that will ultimately make up your site collection. The tool that SharePoint 2007
provides to administer the farm is called the SharePoint Central Administration tool.
This tool will be introduced later in this chapter in the section “Introducing the
Central Administration Interface.”
Utilizing a server farm on which to build your SharePoint infrastructure lets you provide
centralized access and backup control as well as load balancing to manage many
server requests. The logical server farm is a container for the following SharePoint design
components.
Shared Services Providers
SSPs exist at the next level below the server farm. They are the logical environment that
contains all of the particular services you want to make available across your web applications
and SharePoint sites. Typically you would use only a single SSP in your server
farm, but it is possible to create multiple SSPs. Multiple SSPs within the server farm are
necessary if you need to create a security boundary between specific services. SSPs can contain
the following services:
Excel Calculation Services
Index Services
Search Services
Web Services
Planning SharePoint 2007 Architecture 11
Database Services
Database services are composed of the actual server that contains one or more databases for
SharePoint. Within database services, SharePoint 2007 specifically uses SQL content databases
to contain site collections, and a specific content database is created for each of the web
applications operating in the server farm. Database services for SharePoint can be provided by
a dedicated server running databases from other applications that provide SQL database functionality
such as the following:
Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS)
Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM)
Systems Management Server (SMS)
In addition, SharePoint can also use SQL Server 2005 Express.
Web Applications
In general, a web application is any application accessed over a network using a web browser
to provide a service. Common web applications include blogs, discussion forums, and wikis.
Within the context of SharePoint and existing below the level of the SSP, web applications are
the logical components that are physically associated with SharePoint’s Internet Information
Server (IIS) websites. Only one web application can be attached to an IIS website. Individual
web applications are used to access a particular entry point in SharePoint and may use a content
database created specifically for the application or an already existing database.
SharePoint Site Collections
A SharePoint site is an individual website that acts as a single container or point of access to web
parts, libraries, lists, and other sites. A site collection is a grouping of SharePoint sites that are all
associated with a root or top-level site. For example, you can have a top-level site called /bumblebee.
Members of the /bumblebee site collection can include /bumblebee/hive, /bumblebee/honey,
and /bumblebee/drones. Just as in any other website, a SharePoint site collection can drill down as
deep as you want. For instance, you can create a site and subsite path such as /bumblebee/drones/
sales/regions/northwest.
The top-level site exists directly under the level of the web applications. It is usually the portal
site for your business or organization. Portal sites are also referred to as root or root-level sites
since they occupy the “root” of the site “tree.” Root-level sites are designated by a forward slash
(/). Paths such as /bumblebee/honey or /bumblebee/drones/sales/regions/northwest are known as
managed paths and are the locations where new sites or site collections can be created within a
web application.
The lowest level within a site collection is the site content. Site content can be anything that
is contained or displayed within an individual site such as web part pages, web parts, document
libraries, link lists, and so on.
12 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Architecting SharePoint Server Farms,
SSPs, and Topologies
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, server farms are both physical collections of server iron
and logical collections of servers. Your organizational plans may require one or several server
farms to be designed and implemented. You not only will need to know how to determine how
many farms you will need but how to design an individual farm.
Once you have determined the design for your farm, you will need to implement it using a
particular design topology. The network and server topology you choose will usually follow
the design of your server farm(s), which is based on the functional or organizational requirements
of your business.
Designing SharePoint Server Farm Architectures
In addition to the specific SharePoint design components previously mentioned, a number of
factors will determine whether you design a single server farm or multiple server farms. The
following are the key issues you will need to consider when deciding on developing a single
server farm or multiple server farms:
Licensing
Availability and service-level agreements
Performance and scalability
Organizational and security requirements
Licensing
You will need to purchase a license for each physical server on which you intend to install
SharePoint Server 2007. Two types of MOSS 2007 licenses are available for purchase, but
only one license type can be used on a single server or a single server farm:
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Server License This license is required to run
Office SharePoint Server 2007 in client/server mode. You should use this license with the requisite
number of Client Access Licenses (CALs) appropriate for your organizational needs.
This license is used on servers and server farms that face your internal network and provide
content to your organization. Remote employees can gain access to a server or server farm
using this license over the Internet via a VPN as long as the appropriate number of CALs have
been purchased.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet Sites You can use the software for
Internet-facing websites only. All content, information, and applications must be accessible to
nonemployees. This license has all the features of the Enterprise Edition of Office SharePoint
Server. This is a per-server license that does not require the purchase of CALs.
If you intend on providing SharePoint 2007 sites and content both to an employee-oriented
intranet and to customers on the Internet, you will need to design and deploy at least two
server farms, one for each license type.
Planning SharePoint 2007 Architecture 13
The issue of an extranet site for partners or customers has several licensing solutions:
You can create an extranet site on the server farm that hosts the company intranet and uses
the Server License. If you select this option, you’ll need to purchase the required number of
CALs. This option is more appropriate for partners than customers and is the best choice
if you need to collaborate with a small number of partners.
You can create an extranet site on the server farm that hosts your company’s Internet site
and uses the Internet Sites license. This option doesn’t require you to purchase CALs for
partners, customers, or internal employees working on collaborative projects with them.
However, you will not be able to create sites in this server farm that only internal employees
can access. This is the best choice if you need to communicate securely to a large number of
partners or customers.
You can deploy a server farm to be used for extranet sites servicing your partners and
customers and use the Internet Sites license. This option doesn’t require you to purchase
CALs for partners, customers, or internal employees working on collaborative projects
with them. However, you will not be able to create sites in this server farm that only internal
employees can access. This is the best option if you need to collaborate with a large
number of partners.
Choosing the Correct Licensing Plan
You are a SharePoint administrator for a midsize university and you are developing a Share-
Point Server site collection for the Economics department. In this case “Economics department”
is the formal name of a department at our mythical university. This is a pilot project,
and if it’s successful, you will roll out SharePoint to all of the other university departments
using the same licensing scheme. You need to find the right licensing plan for your organization
and specifically for the current project.
The Economics department’s classrooms, computer labs, and administrative offices have 350
desktop computers. You want a three-year license renewal plan with a renewal option for one
to three years. You would prefer to buy from a Microsoft Authorized Large Account Reseller.
To begin your investigation, you visit the office.microsoft.com website at the following
URL: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX101865111033.aspx.
You’ll need to find out more about volume licensing plans, so click the link in the first bullet point
on this web page, Find Out More About Volume Licensing. On the Microsoft Volume Licensing
Programs page, click the first available link in the body of the page called Volume Licensing Programs
in order to compare a list of volume licensing programs.
On the Buy or Renew Licenses Through Microsoft Volume Licensing Programs page, scroll
down to Step 2: Review Microsoft Volume Licensing Programs, and review the specific information
related to the four licensing plans presented in the four columns of the table. You
should find that the Select License option best fits your needs.
14 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Availability and Service-Level Agreements
Availability and service-level agreements are two related concepts that have to do with the
level of accessibility you have regarding a service or data. In general, availability is defined as
a ratio between the amount of time the service or data is accessible and the total amount of
time measured. One hundred percent availability would mean that the service or data is available
whenever the system (which is SharePoint in this case) is operational. Few systems, if any,
are available 100 percent of the time, but the term high availability defines a system that is
available 99.999 percent of the time (also known as the five 9s).
A service-level agreement (SLA) is usually defined in a contractual agreement between a
network service provider and customer and specifies the types of services the network service
provider will make available to the customer for a particular fee.
One hundred percent availability relative to SharePoint would be the most desirable but, as just
mentioned, is a practical impossibility. In real life, not absolutely all information and services need
to be available to all users or customers 24/7. As you design your SharePoint site collection around
the needs of your company, you’ll need to determine the level of availability necessary for the site
collection as a whole and for the different services and information provided. In a high availability
scenario where you are providing mission-critical data and services, your server farm design will
likely need to include a number of systems to keep SharePoint available in the face of a disaster,
such as a catastrophic server failure. The following is a brief discussion of such contingencies.
Develop a failover system so that in the event of a hard drive crash or other system failure,
another system will immediately take over the original system’s function until the failed component
can be replaced. For instance, if you are using a storage area network (SAN) and your
primary network path fails, a secondary path can be immediately implemented so there is no
interruption of service. The failover should be transparent to the end user. This scenario is
sometimes called a hot server scenario.
In any server farm or cluster, all of your information should be backed up. This is usually done
by backing up server data onto tape on a rotating basis. The backup tapes are then transported to
a remote site for storage. In the event of a server disaster, any failed hardware components can be
replaced, and the data can be restored from the tape. This doesn’t provide an immediate return to
availability but will ensure that the information will again become available, most likely within a
few hours. You can also restore taped data to a backup server so that, rather than repair the original
server hardware, you can restore the data to another piece of hardware that will “step in” for
the original. This scenario is sometimes called a cold server scenario.
A variation on these themes is mirroring or replication, which is where the primary server
periodically copies its data to a backup server. In the event that the primary server fails, the
backup server takes over, utilizing the data from the most recent replication. This scenario is
sometimes called a warm server scenario.
The plans referenced so far are usually implemented in the same physical location; that
is, all of these plans are typically executed within the same physical server farm or data
center. In an extreme situation, when the services your company supplies absolutely must
be available, you can create a plan that includes failover or recovery services at a completely
different location.
Planning SharePoint 2007 Architecture 15
As part of Microsoft’s Software Assurance licensing program, free licenses are provided
for servers implemented in the cold server scenario but are not available for the warm or hot
server scenarios.
It’s not within the scope of this book to provide an exhaustive list of disaster
recovery methods for SharePoint or for server farms in general. For more
information, visit Microsoft’s TechNet site at www.microsoft.com/technet/
windowsserver/sharepoint/v2/reskit/c2861881x.mspx.
Although you can implement most of these recovery methods in a single server farm, you’ll
enjoy greater fault tolerance if you use more than one farm, even if you do so at the same physical
location. The safest recovery implementation is to deploy two or more server farms in two
or more physical locations. However, in any disaster recovery plan, you have to take into
account the cost to your company for every minute your services and data are unavailable vs.
the cost to your company to implement your disaster recovery plan. Most organizations don’t
have the financial capacity to implement the safest scenario. Practicality forces most businesses
to deploy a compromise between availability and their budget. Another factor you must consider
is to whom services and data must be available. This is where the service-level agreement
comes into play.
You are unlikely to sign an SLA with company employees, but you will have such agreements
with partners and customers. The SLA will define the specific parameters by which
SharePoint 2007 services and information will be accessible and will include the level of availability
you guarantee. Specific items addressed in a standard SLA can include the following:
Level of availability
Guaranteed number of simultaneous connections
Advance notification for changes that may affect users
Help desk response time
Performance benchmarks
Usage statistics
Although you can apply different SLAs on the same server farm, you may want to consider
some of the following factors when you create your design.
If the SLA you signed with a customer includes a requirement for high-level security, you may
want to implement their site collection on a separate server farm. This also gives you control over
different authentication methods and access-control policies and results in separate content
databases.
If you have agreed to provide a high level of web application performance, you may want
to implement your SharePoint sites on a separate server farm.
Any agreement you sign that affects any significant aspect of the topology, configuration,
and operations of the data center should most likely be implemented on a separate server farm.
16 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Server farm topologies will be addressed in the “Designing Server Farm
Topologies“ section of this chapter.
Performance and Scalability
Performance is most commonly thought of as speed or responsiveness; that is, when accessing
resources and traversing SharePoint sites, how quickly are you able to get where you’re going
and get what you want? Many factors affect overall performance, including network throughput,
server processor speed, number of concurrent connections possible, and so on. Availability,
as previously presented, can also be included in performance measurements.
The general definition of scalability is the ability of a piece of hardware or software to continue
to function well when the size or capacity of the environment is changed to meet user
requirements. As a rule, scalability almost always refers to upward scalability or the ability of
a system to continue to function well when it is enlarged.
As far as SharePoint performance and scalability in server farm design are concerned,
the primary factors affecting performance are application profile, software boundaries, and
throughput.
Creating more than one server farm based on application profile is usually a good idea when
you are working with enterprise-level production environments. Catalog the different web applications
that you will be using, and create a separate server farm for those applications that will
see the largest demands. You can also organize several web applications into the same farm
when they will see similar usage demands. For example, let’s say that applications A, B, and C
will have similar usage to each other; D, E, and F will see similar usage to each other; and G, H,
and I will see similar usage to each other. Organize A, B, and C in server farm 1; D, E, and F in
server farm 2; and G, H, and I in server farm 3. As the number of users increases, application profiles
may need to be altered. For instance, last year applications A, B, and C all had similar usage
demands, but last month, your company created an entirely new department that equally needs
to access applications A, B, and F. To properly scale, you’ll need to rethink your server farm
design in terms of application profiles.
You can think of software boundaries as a logical interface between a piece of software and
either the users accessing it or the hardware on which it runs. Think of it as the requirements
that SharePoint and SQL have as applications for optimal performance on server hardware.
The software/hardware boundary differs depending on what application you need to operate,
how you need the software to perform consistently, and how much usage it will be getting. If
you are installing SharePoint 2007 on a single piece of server hardware running one dual-core
Intel Xeon 2.8GHz 64-bit processor and 2GB RAM, the software/hardware boundary will be
different than if you are implementing a large number of blade servers, each running four dualcore
Intel Xeon 2.8GHz 64-bit processors and 32GB RAM.
You can think of throughput both in terms of individual servers and PCs and as a measure
of network performance. In a piece of server hardware, throughput is the amount of work the
device can accomplish in a given period of time. In terms of a network, throughput is the amount
of traffic that can traverse a network segment in a given period of time. In addressing a server
Planning SharePoint 2007 Architecture 17
farm design, you will want to consider the actual hardware requirements for the server iron you
are going to install, including CPU speed and RAM capacity. For network throughput, you will
want to consider issues such as access-level, distribution-level, and core-level network speeds; the
amount of traffic during normal usage; the amount of traffic at peak usage; and networking
elements such as routers and switches in the topology. Especially in situations where a high level
of network throughput is required, you may want to consider more than one server farm. As the
number of users increases in your organization, resource demand will also increase, requiring
you to either add more server hardware to your existing farm or create a new farm. Changing
the data center topology by adding more high-capacity switches to accommodate more network
traffic may also require either a redesign of the farm or the addition of a second farm.
As mentioned, usually performance and scalability needs to increase over time; however, if
a company downsizes or sells significant portions of its holdings, the overall requirements may
actually decrease. Also, a badly designed and bloated server farm may be costing the company
more money to maintain than necessary. In either of these cases, a redesign of the server farm
or farms to reduce the size and/or number of server farms would be required. Although everyone
wants the biggest and baddest collection of server farms in existence, remember that they
cost money to design, deploy, and maintain. The trick is to have just enough to satisfy requirements
during optimal use without either causing horrible performance slowdowns or costing
the company so much money that it has to come out of your paycheck.
Organizational and Security Requirements
Server farms are also designed based on how the company wants to organize resources, including
services and data. Organization can be set up based on the company’s hierarchy, functionality,
geography, or just about any other criteria you can think of. For instance, size, location,
and capacity of a particular server farm or farms can depend on funding sources, in other
words, money. It’s said that you get what you pay for, but you also have to be able to pay for
what you want. The “perfect” server farm for your company’s needs may be beyond your
department’s budget, so your design will have to reflect how much money you have to deploy
and maintain it. Assuming (and it’s a big assumption) that your budget will increase with the
availability and performance requirements of the server farm, you may have the opportunity
to expand an existing farm or to create additional farms over time; however, you will always
have to balance performance, safety, and cost.
The structure of the company’s organizational chart may also drive the design of your
server farm and is the most common factor in how server farms are planned. This is especially
true if your manufacturing plant is in Singapore but your software developers work in Boise.
In this case, putting a single server farm in Phoenix (no earthquakes or hurricanes to worry
about) will mean that everyone has to access SharePoint over a slow WAN link. It might make
more sense to create a local server farm for each regional office and, if necessary, to back up
to a separate, secure location that doesn’t have to worry about many natural disasters.
If different divisions of your business or different regional offices have different security
and authentication needs, you can create and deploy your server farms based on those
requirements, and in fact, implementing security via isolation is the most straightforward
method. In addition, government or corporate policies or contracts may require that security
isolation be implemented physically rather than using software, even when physical
18 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
isolation won’t actually increase security. MOSS 2007 uses different software methods to
allow you to isolate different applications running in the same server farm:
Implement isolation at the process level with separate IIS application pools.
Implement isolation at the application level with separate web applications.
Implement isolation at the audience and content levels with separate SSPs.
Designing Shared Services Providers
As mentioned earlier in the chapter, an SSP is the logical organization of web applications and
their associated SharePoint sites used to access a common set of services and information. While
the server farm is the top-level logical container for all of the SharePoint design elements, the SSP
is the next highest logical object, and MOSS 2007 will fail to function without at least one
SSP being configured. In fact, once you have installed the server farm, creating the default SSP
is one of the first tasks you must accomplish.
If you set up only one SSP, all of your web applications must be associated with that SSP.
Any individual web application can be associated with only a single SSP, so if your server farm
contains more than one SSP, select to which SSP you want any individual web application
associated. Any sites and site collections within SharePoint that are contained within a particular
web application will use the services provided by the SSP associated with that application.
Services provided by an SSP can be enabled or disabled only at the application level, not the
site or site collection level.
All SSPs provide the following generic set of services:
Business Data Catalog This service provides a single unified schema for data stored in
line-of-business applications.
Excel Services This service provides shared worksheets and methods of analyzing business
information from data connection libraries using dashboard reports.
Personalization Services Personalization Services provides user profiles using information
imported from directory services. This allows personal information about users located on
their My Sites to be managed by privacy policies and shared by all users within the SSP.
Portal Usage Reporting This service lets SSP administrators view aggregated information
about site usage across the entire site hierarchy and enables site and site collection admins to
view these reports.
SharePoint Server Search This service creates a single index of all content, data, and metadata
by crawling all SharePoint sites contained within the SSP’s web applications.
At this point, it’s important to note that a server farm can contain one or more SSPs, or the
server farm can access services from an SSP contained in another server farm. This fact is critical
to understand in terms of server farm design and implementation since a server farm accessing
one or more SSPs on another farm does not have to contain any SSPs within its own farm. Think
of this as the difference between hosting DNS services within your own domain and accessing
DNS from an outside source. The caveat to using another farm’s SSP is that sites within your
farm will not be able to access Excel Services. If your site collection must provide Excel Services,
your server farm must host SSP locally.
Planning SharePoint 2007 Architecture 19
The most common deployment is to create a single SSP in a single server farm. A single SSP
within your farm enables users to collaborate by sharing resources within your entire company.
Enterprise-wide search is also available using a single SSP within the server farm. You will implement
more than one SSP only if you have a specific need.
Creating more than one SSP within a server farm is more or less equal to
creating an additional domain forest within Active Directory. It’s a major
undertaking with a great deal of additional administrative overhead attached.
Although there are justifiable reasons for creating either more than one
domain forest or more than one SSP, weigh the benefits and costs of that
decision before going ahead.
The most outstanding need for creating multiple SSPs within a single server farm is
security isolation. If you have more than one basic group of users accessing services within
the farm and those different groups require different security for their content, develop an
SSP for each group.
Previously, in the “Availability and Service-Level Agreements” section of this chapter,
you read about how server farm design is affected by whether your consumers are employees
accessing an intranet or customers and partners accessing an extranet. The differences between
these consumers will also affect your SSP design since they all most likely will need different
security levels. If you are planning to use a single server farm to service employees, partners,
and customers, you will want to set up an SSP for each of these basic user types. Additionally,
if you are going to allow the general public to access any portion of your SharePoint site
collection via the Internet, you will need to create a separate SSP for that audience.
Most organizations create a separate web presence on the Internet for
the general public that does not involve SharePoint access at all. Usually,
web commerce involving the general public does not require potentially
compromising SharePoint security. Best practices suggest allowing only
preferred customers SharePoint access via an Internet-facing extranet
requiring a logon.
Given the issues just stated, you should attempt to implement the smallest number of SSPs
possible since each additional SSP that you deploy will reduce the overall performance of the
server farm and thus SharePoint. Also keep in mind that security is not limited to just the server
farm or SSP level. You can assign different users, departments, divisions, and so on, different
levels of security access based on SharePoint groups.
Keep in mind that SharePoint group security implemented within a single
SSP will prevent groups without the right privileges from accessing sites and
site content, but content they can’t access will still appear on the results page
of a search.
20 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Up until now, two or more SSPs have been treated like completely separate entities with
no links between them, but it is possible to share information across different SSPs. This
practice is discouraged for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it defeats the
purpose of creating more than one SSP in the first place. Shared content across multiple
SSPs is not automatic and must be purposefully configured, such as adding the start
address to an external content source to let one SSP crawl content on another SSP or using
trusted MySite host locations to let users on one SSP view personalized information about
users in another SSP. The bottom line is that if you don’t absolutely need to enable this
functionality, don’t.
Designing Server Farm Topologies
The physical and logical topologies of a SharePoint Server 2007 server farm vary for a large
number of reasons including security, customer requirements, and size. Topology designs can
be created around the type of customer (intranet, extranet, and Internet) or based on the size
of the server farm (small, medium, and large). Also, topologies for SharePoint 2007 can focus
on either a single or multiple farm models. This section of the chapter will present topologies
based on the most common examples of these design scenarios.
This section of Chapter 1 is not meant to take the place of a basic book on
server and network topology design. The book assumes you already possess
these skills.
Small-Scale Server Farm
A small-scale server farm might not seem very “farm-like” based on Microsoft’s recommendations
and is composed of only two physical servers:
One server running SQL Server 2000 or 2005
One server running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and IIS
Medium-Scale Server Farm
This level of server farm is typically used for small to medium-sized business environments and
contains three to four servers:
One or two front-end web servers running Office SharePoint Server 2007 and IIS
One application server running Office SharePoint Server 2007
One server running SQL Server 2000 or 2005
In this traditional layout, the application server provides indexing services and Excel
Calculation Services, and the front-end web servers provide search queries and web content
services.
Planning SharePoint 2007 Architecture 21
Large-Scale Server Farm
This is the minimum server farm configuration suitable for an enterprise-level SharePoint
environment:
Several load-balanced front-end web servers running Office SharePoint Server 2007
Two or more application servers running Office SharePoint Server 2007
Two or more clustered database servers running SQL Server 2000 or 2005
In this traditional layout, each of the application servers provides specific SharePoint
Server 2007 services such as Index Services or Excel Calculation Services, and the front-end
servers provide web content services.
All of the servers in your server farm must be running the same server software, which in
this case is Office SharePoint Server 2007. You cannot add a physical server to the farm that
is running different server software such as Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007. If you need
Office Forms Server 2007 to run in your server farm, you must install both MOSS 2007
and Office Forms Server 2007 on each of your web servers.
In addition to what is specifically required for an Office SharePoint Server 2007 server farm,
you will also need to provide Active Directory and DNS services. Figure 1.1 shows a simple
example of this.
As you can imagine based on the examples of server farm topologies previously discussed,
you could take Figure 1.1 and simply add the appropriate number and type of servers to change
it from small to medium to large scale. Let’s take this basic structure and apply it to different
design requirements.
FIGURE 1 . 1 A simple server farm
Internet
MOSS
2007 and
IIS Server DNS Server
Firewall
Domain
Controller
SQL Server
22 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Intranet Server Farm Topologies
An intranet is the corporation’s private SharePoint 2007 site collection. Ideally, the intranet
is accessible only by company employees. Any information from the intranet that needs to be
shared with partners or customers can be accessed via an extranet (see the following section).
Intranet logical topologies consist of three general areas: the Internet, the perimeter network,
and the corporate network. The intranet server farm exists in the corporate network. The
Internet is the world’s public network, which brings us to what stands in between the two—
the perimeter network. This is often known as the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and is the
portion of the overall business network that is facing the Internet.
In Figure 1.2 you can see a simple example of an intranet server farm topology.
FIGURE 1 . 2 Simple intranet server farm
In this example, we assume that the intranet site is exclusively accessible from inside the corporate
network and no component whatsoever can be accessed from the outside. In this case, the
perimeter network exists as a barrier between the Internet and the corporate network to protect
the intranet from intrusion. The safest way to do this of course would be to not connect the intranet
to the Internet at all, but corporations often rely on Internet access to do research, send and
receive email, conduct web conferences, and do other business-related activities. The perimeter
network exists in this scenario because it’s possible for the door to swing both ways. Without a
barrier, an unscrupulous person would have a greater chance of getting unauthorized access to
corporation data.
Although you can create an intranet server farm topology that serves only internal employees,
it is more likely that you will want to allow at least some data and services to be accessed from
Internet Perimeter Network Intranet
Production
Farm
Authoring
Farm
Front-End
Servers
Application
Servers
Domain Controller
Domain Controller
Database
Server Front-End
Import Server
Front-End
Export Server
Application
Server
Database
Server
Internet
Planning SharePoint 2007 Architecture 23
the Internet. This should be limited to content you absolutely need to have be accessed from the
outside. If you need to offer extensive information to and collaboration with customers and partners,
use an extranet scenario. Your company’s web presence to the Internet-at-large should be
handled using a more conventional website scheme. That said, Figure 1.3 describes how you can
use the classic three-tiered design to offer some services from the intranet to the Web while maintaining
a secure environment.
FIGURE 1 . 3 Three-tiered design
The following section will describe in more detail the server farm topology designs you
would use to provide significant access to SharePoint content to the Web while protecting the
internal intranet.
Extranet Server Farm Topologies
An extranet is a private network you allow specified users to access via the Internet. It is designed
with the particular needs of specialized users such as partners and customers. An extranet site
is an extension of the company’s intranet site, but with its own security and identity. Content
between the extranet and intranet can be separated so you share only the content from the intranet
that is required by your extranet consumers.
Internet Perimeter Network Intranet
Production
Farm
Staging
Farm
Front-End
Servers
Application
Servers
Domain Controller
Domain Controller
Database
Server Front-End
Import Server
Front-End
Export Server
Application
Server
Database
Server
Authoring
Farm
Front-End
Export Server
Application
Server
Database
Server
Internet
24 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Microsoft recommends a five-part plan for designing a SharePoint Server 2007 extranet:
The firewall plan In every extranet topology, the firewall solution of choice is Microsoft
Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) server. Of course, you can use any firewall technology
your company wants to support.
The authentication and logical architecture plan An authentication and logical architecture
plan must be established to allow external partners or customers to access restricted content
on the extranet.
The domain trust relationships plan The server farm for an extranet is usually located in a
perimeter network between the Internet-facing firewall and the intranet firewall (sometimes
known as the DMZ). Separate Active Directory domains are maintained for the extranet and
intranet, and by default, these domains do not have a trust relationship; however, your plan
may need to include developing a trust based on a particular scenario.
The availability plan As presented earlier in this chapter, availability is the amount of time
services are accessible on the system as related to the overall amount of time the system is
in operation. Not all extranet consumers will need maximum availability, and this plan can
include different levels.
The security hardening plan Security plans can include specific firewall and router configurations
such as the use of custom port numbers, domain trust relationships, communication
paths between server types, and other factors.
Like intranets, extranet logical topologies consist of three areas: the Internet, the perimeter
network, and the corporate network. The Internet needs no introduction. The perimeter network
is the logical and physical home of the extranet. The corporate network is the company
intranet. Each area is separated from the next by specifically configured firewalls or routers.
Figure 1.4 shows the most typical extranet topology scenario.
FIGURE 1 . 4 Typical extranet topology
Router
ISA Server
ISA Server
DNS
Active
Directory
Domain
Controller
ISA Server
Layer 1
Web Servers
Layer 2
Application
Servers and
Database
Servers
Search
Search
Index
SQL
Server
SQL
Server
Layer 3
Active Directory,
DNS, and
Domain Controller
Router
Planning SharePoint 2007 Architecture 25
The interior of the perimeter network is separated into three layers:
The Web Servers layer
The Application and Database Servers layer
The Active Directory, DNS, and Domain Controller layer
As you can see in Figure 1.4, each layer within the perimeter network is separated from the
next by a router so that each layer can exist on a separate subnet or network segment. This
allows you to make sure that only specific requests for data and services are allowed to traverse
the different layers in the perimeter network. This also allows you to limit damage in the perimeter
network to one layer if the extranet is compromised from the outside.
Both the physical and logical server farm topology of the extranet exist in the perimeter network,
making it easier to share resources and reducing administrative overhead. DNS and Active
Directory for the extranet are managed within the perimeter network, which both improves
performance and protects the Active Directory domain of the corporate network. The only real
disadvantage of this design is that it requires a significant network infrastructure built exclusively
to support the extranet.
In the previous example, there are actually two separate server farms in operation—the
extranet server farm in the perimeter network and the intranet server farm in the corporate
network. It is also possible to use a single server farm to manage both the extranet and the
intranet, as shown in Figure 1.5.
FIGURE 1 . 5 Split back-to-back topology
ISA Server Router A ISA Server B
DNS
Active Directory
Domain
Controller
Layer 1
Web Servers
Layer 2
Application Servers
and Database
Servers
Central
Administration
Query Server
Index Server
Excel Calculation
Services
SQL
Server
Layer 3
DNS and Domain
Controller
Router B
SQL
Server
Internet Perimeter Network Corporate Network
Users
Administrator
Workstation
Content
Staging
Farm
Web
Servers
Central
Administration
Web Server
Web Server
and Query
Server
One-Way Data
Stream for Content
Publishing
26 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
The overall topology is still composed of the Internet, the perimeter network, and the corporate
network, but the perimeter and corporate networks exist in the same server farm and
share resources. You’ll notice in Figure 1.5 that the extranet and intranet areas of the server
farm are separated by firewalls. Although web servers are located in the perimeter network
and database servers are located in the corporate network, application servers can be placed
in either realm. If you choose to place your application servers in the corporate network, you
must also place a domain controller in the same network to provide Active Directory services.
This scenario requires that you establish a trust relationship between the domains for the
extranet and intranet. Without this domain trust in place, the web servers (and application
servers if located there) will not be able to connect to the database servers unless you use SQL
authentication. If you choose to use SQL authentication, the domain trust relationship does
not have to be put in place.
Architecting the SQL Database Infrastructure
A lot of people don’t think databases are “sexy.” By this I mean “attractive” or “exciting” or
an interesting topic of discussion. This isn’t a book on Microsoft’s MCDBA certification, so
maybe you don’t think databases are sexy either. However, this often-overlooked topic in
MOSS 2007 server farm design is absolutely vital to the smooth operation (or operation at all)
of your server farm and your SharePoint sites. After all, everything you see and work with in
SharePoint such as web parts, libraries, lists, and workspaces actually lives somewhere in a
SQL database.
Although SharePoint Server 2007 can use SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition or Enterprise
Edition (SP3a or newer) for database storage, Microsoft recommends using a version of SQL
Server 2005 unless you have a compelling reason not to do so. Cost is the most likely reason to
stick with SQL 2000, especially if you are upgrading from SharePoint Server 2003 to 2007 on
a limited budget and are trying to leverage as much of your existing infrastructure as possible.
This would occur if you were implementing a phased upgrade plan where you were moving to
MOSS 2007 and planning to upgrade to SQL Server 2005 at a later time.
That said, there are a number of good reasons to choose SQL Server 2005 for your database
needs. SQL Server 2005 is a completely redesigned version of SQL and offers many new features.
Your organization may not need to take advantage of 2005, but it’s a good idea to review what’s
new in this version before making that decision. Here’s a brief summary:
Database snapshots
Instant file initialization
Page checksum and page-level restore combination
Partitioning
Read-only filegroups on compressed drives
Row-level versioning
Listing all of the new features offered in 2005 and their explanations would be a chapter
unto itself. To review the complete list, go to the following URL: www.microsoft.com/sql/
prodinfo/overview/whats-new-in-sqlserver2005.mspx.
Planning SharePoint 2007 Architecture 27
It’s common to have to make decisions about upgrading software and equipment while planning
to deploy MOSS 2007. This can include upgrading SQL Server. As you learned earlier in
this chapter, even if you have an adequate budget, you still need to choose the right license for
your needs.
Since database design is its own specialty, this section of the book will be relatively brief.
In a real-life scenario, you would likely either have a database design specialist in-house performing
this function or hire a consultant to do the job.
In the physical storage design of the SQL Server 2005 database, Microsoft recommends the
following five-step plan:
1. Characterize the I/O workload of the application.
2. Determine the reliability and performance requirements for the database system.
3. Determine the hardware required to support the decisions made in steps 1 and 2.
4. Configure SQL Server 2005 to take advantage of the hardware in step 3.
5. Track performance as workload changes.
As with your server farm in general, it’s important to build a database design that is scalable.
If anything in your organization can be said to grow explosively over time, it is information.
Although the topology diagrams previously presented in this chapter have often shown only one
or two physical database servers, remember that there isn’t always a one-to-one relationship
between the “map” and the “territory.” In real life, you would have more hardware implemented
for failover and redundancy purposes.
Imagine your new company is creating a SharePoint server farm for your company’s
customers. Now imagine you’re Amazon.com. Within a relatively short period of time, you
have millions and then hundreds of millions of customers. The necessity for designing highly
scalable database storage is amazingly obvious. Scaling up database servers can involve a
couple of different methods:
Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), which means adding processors, memory, disks, and
network cards to individual servers
Adding servers to the topology and then partitioning workload and database storage
across the individual servers, sometimes called database partitioning
The first option assumes you will be using a single physical server for your database storage
needs. Although this may practical in a small-to-medium-size server farm, you will (assuming
your company and your company’s database needs continue to grow) eventually hit the limit
of how much you can physically upgrade an individual piece of hardware. Your one database
server will become a bottleneck instead of a boon.
As you grow, you will find yourself adding database servers to your topology, or you may
design multiple database server hardware into your topology from the beginning, depending
on your organization’s requirements. The second bullet will be the option of choice in that
case, but there’s a couple of different ways to deploy a multidatabase server plan:
Deploy different elements of the overall database on different server hardware, such as
putting a parts inventory on one server, your customer list on another server, and your
shopping cart on yet another server.
Deploy a single, large table across several physical servers.
28 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
In both cases, the partitioning of work and information should be transparent to your customers
and to the applications accessing the database.
You can find a detailed paper on SQL Server scaling at the following URL:
www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/scddrtng.mspx.
A few paragraphs back, you imagined that you were designing a database architecture in
your server farm for Amazon.com. The idea is to imagine your company’s database needs not
only for today but for the future. That is, you need to plan for the rate of content growth in
your database.
It’s not enough to know that your information storage needs will grow. That’s obvious. The
trick is to estimate how much your database storage needs will grow over what period of time.
Add too much storage capacity too fast, and you spend money you didn’t have to spend. (You
have a budget, just like every other department in the organization.) Add too little capacity or
add it too slowly, and you bottleneck your system.
In general, server farm design starts small and grows as requests for data and services
grow. Broken down to its basic limits, a small server farm will be able to manage the
following:
Up to 2,000 SharePoint users
Up to 50,000 SharePoint site collections with up to 2,000 subsites per website
Up to 10,000 documents in a document library with individual documents of up to
50MB in size
Up to 100 web parts per web part page
The list is not exhaustive, so don’t believe these are the only items you need to keep
in mind. One way to keep a certain amount of control over growth is to implement size
quotas for SharePoint users. Size quotas are a common tool used in server administration
when you don’t have infinite storage space (and who does?) and when you need to control
how much data users store on the system. You can also monitor your database with
specific utilities such as the Management Pack for MOM. Microsoft provides MOM packs
that are optimized for a wide variety of their products including MOSS 2007 and SQL
Server 2005.
You can find details about MOM for SharePoint Server 2007 at www.microsoft
.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=247c06ba-c599-4b22-b2d3-
7bf88c4d7811&displaylang=en; you can find information about MOM for SQL
Server 2005 at www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=
79F151C7-4D98-4C2B-BF72-EC2B4AE69191&displaylang=en.
Introducing the Central Administration Interface 29
Introducing the Central
Administration Interface
Although you won’t encounter the Central Administration interface until after you install
SharePoint in Chapter 2, “Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007,” this advance look
should give you an idea of the initial post-installation tasks you’ll be facing. You’ll get a more
detailed look at the Central Administration interface and how it operates in Chapter 3, “Configuring
SharePoint 2007.” Right now, you’re just getting what my grandfather used to call
“the 10-cent tour.”
As shown in Figure 1.6, when you are on the Home tab of the Central Administration page,
you’ll see a list of the top 10 ordered administrative tasks. There are actually more than 10,
which you’ll see in a minute, but these are the ones you’ll want to visit first.
If you scroll to the bottom of the same page, you’ll see a list of the services running on the
server farm topology. As shown in Figure 1.7, this is a simple topology; in fact, all services,
including database services, are running on a single server.
FIGURE 1 . 6 Central Administration page
30 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Although you can run WSS database services on the same physical server as
MOSS 2007, this is recommended only for a single-server farm topology that
would service a fairly small business platform.
FIGURE 1 . 7 Simple server farm topology services list
If you want to see the complete list of post-installation administrator tasks, click the More
Items link just below the top 10 administrator tasks. You’ll be able to see the remaining items,
as shown in Figure 1.8.
This is what a typical SharePoint list looks like. The columns of information presented here
are the default, but as in any SharePoint list, the columns can be manipulated and filtered. The
default Administrator Tasks columns are as follows:
Type The type of administrative task
Title The name of the administrative task
Introducing the Central Administration Interface 31
FIGURE 1 . 8 Full Administrator Tasks list
Action What sort of action is required
Associated Service The service (such as SMTP) associated with the task
System Task Whether this is a system task (Yes or No)
Assigned To To whom the task is assigned
Status Whether the task has been started, is in progress, or has been completed
Order The order or priority of the task
Due Date When the task is expected to be completed
%Complete The percentage of the task that has been completed
As you can see in Figure 1.9, when you click the title of one of the tasks, you are taken to
a detailed page describing that specific task. This includes information on all of the columns
that have just been described. Clicking the Edit Item button will let you update the information
in any of the columns, as illustrated in Figure 1.10.
32 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
FIGURE 1 . 9 Administrator Tasks detail page
FIGURE 1 . 1 0 Administrator Tasks edit page
Exam Essentials 33
Summary
In this chapter, you were introduced to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and learned
the following topics:
What’s new in MOSS 2007 including the basic roles of business intelligence, business process
and forms, collaboration, enterprise content management, Enterprise Search, and portals
The primary elements in planning SharePoint 2007 architecture
The components of architecting SharePoint including the server farm, shared services providers,
database services, web applications, and SharePoint site collections
The specific factors involved in architecting server farms including server farm design
architectures, designing shared services providers, and designing server farm topologies
Architecting of the SQL database infrastructure including physical storage design, database
server scaling, and database content growth management
Introduction to the Central Administration interface including post-installation administrator
tasks and how they are organized
Exam Essentials
Understand how to manage administration. Understand the basic tasks in administering
SharePoint Server 2007 from the planning and design stages.
Know how to manage the Central Administration user interface. Understand how to organize
post-installation administrator tasks.
34 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Review Questions
1. You are a consultant training a group of server administrators on the latest features of
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. You are describing the services typically provided
by the shared services provider (SSP). Which of the following services are you discussing?
(Choose all that apply.)
A. Database Services
B. Excel Services
C. Index Services
D. Web Services
2. You are a SharePoint 2007 administrator for your company, and you have been tasked with
designing a server farm for your organization’s external partners and internal employees. You
are told to create an environment where partners and employees can collaborate freely on
mutual projects and does not require that the company purchase Client Access Licenses (CALs)
for either the partner or employee users. Of the following options, which is the best choice?
A. Create an intranet site on the server farm hosting the extranet, and purchase the Microsoft
Office SharePoint Server 2007, Server License.
B. Create an extranet site on the server farm hosting the intranet, and purchase the Microsoft
Office SharePoint Server 2007, Server License.
C. Create an extranet site on the server farm hosting the Internet, and purchase the Microsoft
Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet Sites license.
D. None of the above.
3. You are part of the design team that has been tasked with planning a SharePoint Server 2007
deployment for your business. Your company currently uses SQL Server 2000 SP2 for database
services. You are required to determine whether this version of SQL Server will support
MOSS 2007 and, if not, what upgrade option is available at the least financial and administrative
cost. Of the following options, which choice best fits?
A. SQL Server 2000 SP2 will support MOSS 2007.
B. You must upgrade to SQL Server 2000 SP3a.
C. You must upgrade to SQL Server 2005 SP1.
D. You must upgrade to SQL Server 2005 SP2.
Review Questions 35
4. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. The database content storage needs
for your company’s SharePoint 2007 server farm are growing rapidly, so you are working with
your company’s database administrator to determine the best scale-up plan for your SQL
Server. You have SQL Server 2005 running on a single hardware server, and the processors and
RAM have already been upgraded to their maximum limit. What options are available to scale
up the database? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Deploy different elements of the overall database on several different servers.
B. Deploy a single, large table on a single SQL Server, and deploy a second server to provide
mirroring services.
C. Deploy a single, large table across multiple SQL Server instances.
D. Run Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) database services on the same physical server as
MOSS 2007.
5. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. The CIO wants you to integrate
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 into the Share-
Point server farm. Of the following options, which one is the most viable solution?
A. Add two physical web servers to the server farm. Install Project Server on one of the
hardware servers and Forms Server on the other hardware server.
B. Add one physical web server to the server farm, and install both Project Server and Forms
Server on it.
C. Install Project Server and Forms Server on each one of the hardware web servers running
MOSS 2007.
D. Install Project Server and Forms Server on just one of the hardware web servers running
MOSS 2007.
6. Your company has just signed a service-level agreement (SLA) with one of its partners
to provide a SharePoint extranet service for collaboration purposes. The agreement states
that your company will guarantee high availability, and in the event of a service outage,
you will return the extranet site to service within two hours of failure with a minimal loss
of data. What fault-tolerant solution will come closest to meeting the terms of this agreement
at the most economical cost?
A. Deploying a hot server solution
B. Deploying a warm server solution
C. Deploying a cold server solution
D. None of the above
36 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
7. You are a SharePoint 2007 consultant working with a customer’s IT department staff on plans for
an extranet server farm design. You are outlining Microsoft’s recommended plan for extranets, and
you are asked what part of the plan addresses custom port numbers and communication paths
between server types. Of the following options, what is the best answer?
A. The firewall plan
B. The authentication and logical architecture plan
C. The domain trust relationships plan
D. The availability plan
E. The security hardening plan
8. You are the SharePoint administrator for an enterprise-level software company. You have created
a single server farm for the organization’s employees. You have deployed five separate, customdesigned
web applications in the farm that the software engineers you support need for development
and testing purposes. You’ve noticed that two of the applications are used heavily while the
other three are accessed with the same but much lighter frequency. This has caused a performance
slowdown in the entire server farm. What is the best plan for improving performance based on the
application profile?
A. Create a second server farm, place the two web applications that are more heavily used in
the second farm, and leave the other three on the first farm.
B. Create a separate server farm for each custom-made web application.
C. Upgrade the processing and memory capacity of the hardware server hosting the more
heavily used applications, and add a second network interface card.
D. Install a higher-speed switch in the data center to improve access speeds.
9. You are the SharePoint site administrator for a company called Applepaste, Inc. The site collection
at Applepaste is organized by department. Brad, the manager of the engineering department,
has asked you to create a subsite for his department called projects. He specifies that he
needs a special projects site and that the first special project for his team is the Tantalis Project.
This special project will need to contain a list of links entitled Plouto Research. Once you create
this resource, Brad wants you to send him an email containing the managed path to the lowestlevel
resource. What is the path you will send him?
A. /applepaste/engineering/projects/special_projects/tantalis_project/links/plouto_research
B. /applepaste/engineering/projects/special_projects/tantalis_project/plouto_research
C. /applepaste/engineering/projects/tantalis_project/plouto_research
D. /applepaste/projects/special_projects/tantalis_project/plouto_research
E. /engineering/projects/special_projects/tantalis_project/plouto_research
10. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You are working with Mary Jean,
who is the security specialist in your company’s IT department, to develop a new SharePoint
site collection for the HR department. All of the content for the HR department must be kept
separate from the rest of the company’s SharePoint intranet sites. What form of security
isolation would be most suitable?
A. Process-level isolation
B. Application-level isolation
C. SSP isolation
D. Database isolation
Review Questions 37
11. You are a consultant hired by the Magnotrontics Corporation to upscale their SharePoint 2007
server farm. Magnotrontics has seen extremely rapid growth in the past two years and has
quickly outgrown its current server farm, based on a small-scale model. Currently, the farm has
only two hardware servers, one running MOSS 2007 and IIS and the other running SQL Server
2005. You determine that its needs can be met by scaling up its server farm based on a large-scale
model. Of the following options, what is your recommendation based on the minimal requirements
for this model?
A. Add several load-balanced front-end web servers running MOSS 2007, two application
servers running MOSS 2007, and at least one more server running SQL Server 2005.
B. Add several application servers running MOSS 2007, one load-balanced front-end web
server running MOSS 2007, and two or more clustered database servers running SQL
Server 2005.
C. Add one load-balanced front-end web server running MOSS 2007, one application server
running MOSS 2007, and one server running SQL Server 2005.
D. Add five load-balanced front-end web server running MOSS 2007, three application servers
running MOSS 2007, and three clustered database servers running SQL Server 2005.
12. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You have just finished installing MOSS
2007 and are on the Home tab of the Central Administration page. Under Administrator Tasks,
you click the More Items link to view the entire list of post-installation tasks. What items are
included on that list? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Create SharePoint sites.
B. Enable SSP in the farm.
C. Configure workflow settings.
D. Incoming Email Settings.
E. Outgoing Email Settings.
13. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You have just finished installing
MOSS 2007 and are on the Home tab of the Central Administration page. Under Administrator
Tasks, you click the Incoming Email Settings link to open this task. You are going to assign
this task to Mike. What do you have to do to add Mike’s name to the Assigned To column?
A. Click the New Item button.
B. Click the Edit Item button.
C. Click the Modify Item button.
D. Click the Assigned To button.
14. You are the SharePoint administrator working at your company’s main office in Seattle. You
have been tasked with creating a SharePoint server farm topology for a new regional office in
Nashville. You start by sketching a very simple intranet topology where only a firewall separates
the Internet from the corporate network. This is usually an unrealistic design. In a production
intranet model, what area would exist between the Internet and the corporate network?
A. The parameter network
B. The security network
C. The perimeter network
D. The distribution network
38 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
15. After you have finished the intranet design for the Nashville office, you are asked by your manager
to design a simple extranet farm topology for a branch office in Oklahoma City. You present the
design to Sue, the branch manager, and she asks you about the different layers in the perimeter
network containing the extranet server farm. Of the following options, which one is the best
explanation?
A. Layer 1 contains the web servers for the extranet, Layer 2 contains the application and
database servers, and Layer 3 contains the DNS server and domain controller. ISA servers
separate Layer 1 from the Internet and Layer 3 from the corporate network.
B. Layer 1 contains the web and application servers, Layer 2 contains database servers,
and Layer 3 contains the DNS server and domain controller. ISA servers separate Layer 1
from the Internet and Layer 3 from the corporate network.
C. Layer 1 contains the web servers for the extranet, Layer 2 contains the application and
database servers, and Layer 3 contains the DNS server and domain controller. ISA servers
separate Layer 1 from the Internet, Layer 2 from Layer 3, and Layer 3 from the corporate
network.
D. Layer 1 contains the web and application servers, Layer 2 contains the database servers
and the domain controller, and Layer 3 contains the DNS and DHCP servers. ISA servers
separate Layer 1 from the Internet and Layer 3 from the corporate network.
16. After you present your initial design to the Oklahoma City branch manager, she consults with
her CIO and IT security specialist, and they ask you to modify your design and present an alternative
topology. You create a split back-to-back topology with both the extranet and the intranet
sharing database services located on a SQL Server in the corporate network. Since the perimeter
and corporate networks exist inside different Active Directory domains, what options can you
present that will allow the perimeter network to access the database server in the corporate network?
(Choose all that apply.)
A. Establish a trust relationship between the domains for the extranet and intranet.
B. Use SQL authentication.
C. Use SSO authentication.
D. Place the extranet and the intranet in the same domain.
17. Once you have finished reviewing extranet topology designs for the Oklahoma City branch office,
they ask you to take a look at their current intranet structure. Loren, the server administrator, tells
you that recently their SharePoint sites have been experiencing some performance slowdowns. You
discover that their intranet is based on a small server farm design. You review the logs and discover
that there are areas where they have exceeded the limits of this design. Of the following options,
which ones exceed small server farm limitations? (Choose all that apply.)
A. 3,000 SharePoint users
B. 10,111 site collections with an average of 1,500 subsites per website
C. 5,000 documents per document library with each document being an average of 20MB in size
D. An average of 150 web parts per web part page
Review Questions 39
18. In reviewing the extranet topology plans with Sue and Loren at your company’s Oklahoma City
branch office, they seem to be leaning toward a simple extranet design setup with Layer 1 containing
the web servers for the extranet, Layer 2 containing the application and database servers,
and Layer 3 containing the DNS server and domain controller. ISA servers separate Layer 1 from
the Internet and Layer 3 from the corporate network. Of the following options, which ones
describe the advantages of a simple extranet topology? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Ease in sharing resources between layers in the perimeter network
B. Improved performance
C. Separate domains for the perimeter and corporate networks
D. Significant network infrastructure for the perimeter network
19. Given the recent issues your company’s Oklahoma City branch office has been having monitoring
the growth of their intranet, you recommend that they implement the Microsoft
Office SharePoint Server 2007 Management Pack in order to better keep tabs on critical
events occurring on the system. You are asked to describe the advantages of using this tool.
Of the following options, which are advantages to using Microsoft Operations Manager
(MOM) for MOSS 2007? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Sends an alert when shared services provider (SSP) provisioning has failed
B. Monitors the available space in databases, configurable by percent or megabyte
C. Monitors the health of replication and sends an alert on failures
D. Sends an alert when the Central Administration site for the SSP is missing
E. Sends an alert when the Office Document Conversions Launcher service is not running
20. You are a SharePoint consultant and are giving a presentation on the advantages of deploying
MOSS 2007 to the executives of the Minos Development Group. They are particularly interested
in the Business Intelligence (BI) capacities of SharePoint and want to hear more details about this
area. Nicole, the chief marketing manager, wants to hear about which BI features would help track
progress made toward specific business goals. You mention that SharePoint BI uses specialized lists
and web parts that let the user visually track these indicators. Which BI feature are you describing?
A. Key performance indicators (KPIs)
B. Dashboards
C. Business Data Catalog (BDC)
D. Report Center site
40 Chapter 1 Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Answers to Review Questions
1. B, C, and D. A shared services provider is the logical environment that contains all of the particular
services that you want to make available across your web applications and SharePoint
sites. Those services include Excel Calculation Services, Index Services, Search Services, and Web
Services. Database services are usually provided by some version of Microsoft SQL Server.
2. C. You can create an extranet site on the server farm that is hosting your company’s Internet
site and using the Internet Sites license. This option doesn’t require you to purchase CALs for
partners, customers, or internal employees working on collaborative projects. However, you
will not be able to create sites in this server farm that are accessed only by internal employees.
3. B. Although options B, C, and D will all support MOSS 2007, option B will do so at the least
financial and administrative cost.
4. A and C. Options A and C are the only two viable options. Although option B, installing
another SQL server for mirroring, will provide a fault tolerance solution should the primary
database server fail, it does nothing to solve the database storage problem. Although option D
is a possibility if you are running MOSS 2007 in a single-server design, you cannot run WSS
database services on the server hosting SharePoint and use a separate database server to
increase storage capacity.
5. C. All of the servers in your SharePoint server farm must be running the same server software.
You cannot add a physical server to the farm that is running different server software such as
Project Server 2007 or Forms Server 2007. If you need Project Server or Forms Server to run
in your server farm, you must install MOSS 2007, Project Server, and Forms Server on each of
your web servers.
6. B. The warm server solution is the best option for restoring service within two hours and with
a minimal loss of data since the warm server is almost immediately available and can restore
data from the most recent period of replication. Although option A, the hot server solution,
would return service nearly at once with no loss of data, it is not the most economical option,
and the SLA did specify that some data loss was acceptable. Option C, the cold server solution,
is not viable since two hours would not be enough time to repair or replace failed server hardware
and restore data from a tape backup.
7. E. Option E, the security hardening plan, can include specific firewall and router configurations
such as the use of custom port numbers, domain trust relationships, communication
paths between server types, and other factors.
8. A. Options C and D would likely improve performance, but not based on the application profile
that requires grouping applications in different server farms based on similar usage, as
stated in Option A. Option B would likely improve performance but at a much greater administrative
cost than option A.
9. B. Based on the stated requirements, option B is the correct answer. The root to the managed
path is typically the company name, which is Applepaste. Since the SharePoint site collection
for Applepaste is organized by department, engineering is the next level. Brad requested a subsite
named projects and within projects another site named special projects. The first project
in the special projects container is named Tantalis Project, and the links list is called Plouto
Research. Links or any other list does not have to be located in a container such as links found
in Option A.
Answers to Review Questions 41
10. C. To isolate the HR sites from the rest of the corporate intranet at the audience and content
level, create a separate SSP for the HR department in the server farm.
11. A. The minimum configuration for the large-scale server farm model includes several loadbalanced
front-end web servers running Office SharePoint Server 2007, two or more application
servers running Office SharePoint Server 2007, and two or more clustered database
servers running SQL Server 2000 or 2005.
12. A, C, D, and E. All of the options are on the list except option B, which is bogus. If option B
were Enable SSO (Single Sign-On) in the farm instead of Enable SSP (Shared Source Provider)
in the farm, it would have been correct.
13. B. Click the Edit Item button to open the task for editing, and then type Mike’s name into the
Assigned To field. You would click the New Item button if you wanted to add a new task to
the Administrator Task list. The other two options are bogus.
14. C. Generally, in any intranet or extranet scenario, you would place the perimeter network
between the Internet and the corporate network, as in option C. The perimeter network is
sometimes called the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Options A and B are bogus.
15. A. Option A describes a simple extranet design with three layers in the perimeter network.
Although option C is also a valid extranet design, it is more security hardened than the simple
topology you were asked to create. Options B and D are bogus.
16. A and B. By default, the extranet and intranet domains do not have a trust relationship, but as
in option A, you can create this. You can also use SQL authentication as a viable solution
as in option B. Option C, single sign-on authentication (SSO), would not apply in this case, and
option D, placing the extranet and intranet in the same domain, would potentially give extranet
users unauthorized access to intranet resources.
17. A and D. The small server farm design can support up to 2,000 SharePoint users only and
100 web parts per web part page.
18. A, B, and C. Both the physical and logical server farm topology of the extranet exist in the
perimeter network, making it easier to share resources and reducing administrative overhead.
DNS and Active Directory for the extranet are managed within the perimeter network, which
both improves performance and protects the active directory domain of the corporate network.
The only real disadvantage of this design is that it requires a significant network infrastructure
built exclusively to support the extranet.
19. A, D, and E. Options A, D, and E are available on MOM for MOSS 2007. Options B and C are
available on MOM for SQL Server 2005.
20. A. Key performance indicators (KPIs) use specialized lists and web parts in SharePoint that let
you visually track progress made toward specific business goals.
Chapter
2
Installing
and Deploying
SharePoint 2007
MICROSOFT EXAM OBJECTIVES COVERED
IN THIS CHAPTER
Configure Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Portal
Configure Site Management
Manage Administration
Manage Central Admin UI
Manage the Shared Service Provider
Deploy/Upgrade Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Configure Shared Services
Now that you’ve been introduced to Microsoft Office Share-
Point Server (MOSS) 2007 and its basic features, as well as
learned the details of designing a SharePoint Server architecture,
it’s time to start actually working with SharePoint. The first task in this chapter is to plan for
the installation of SharePoint. This includes learning about all of the hardware and software
requirements.
The requirements for installing SharePoint can be tailored to either a stand-alone/single-server
installation or a server farm installation. Since it is unlikely that the average candidate for this exam
has access to a production-level server farm, many of the exercises will focus on the stand-alone
installation model. Equal time will be given to the server farm installation model because it represents
the actual environment in which you will be working.
Each installation model will present both the hardware and software requirements, but
since both models are substantially different from one another, they will also have individual
variables such as how database components and server role types are configured.
The chapter will conclude with brief introduction to some post-installation tasks.
Requirements for SharePoint
Server 2007 Installation
There is a great deal of variance in the requirements for the stand-alone and server farm models.
This chapter will present Microsoft’s official minimum and recommended requirements
for each installation model. For example, when you learn about the hardware and software
requirements for a server farm in this chapter, you will learn how these requirements vary
depending on how you want to optimize certain SharePoint features and services.
The hardware and software requirements discussed in this chapter apply to x32-bit and
x64-bit systems; Itanium-based systems are not supported.
Stand-Alone Server Installation
Installing SharePoint Server 2007 in a single-server environment has a number of advantages.
Installing SharePoint on a stand-alone server can let you quickly get up and running.
The most likely scenarios for performing this kind of installation are to evaluate Share-
Point 2007 as part of an upgrade or rollout plan or to make SharePoint available for testing,
experimentation, and learning purposes.
Requirements for SharePoint Server 2007 Installation
45
See Chapter 16, “Upgrading and Deploying Microsoft Office SharePoint
Server 2007,” for more information about deploying a test environment for
upgrading SharePoint.
As mentioned previously in this chapter, it’s for the latter reason that many of the exercises
in this chapter will focus on the stand-alone server installation model. In your pursuit of the
70-630 certification, you will need to have a great deal of hands-on practice with MOSS 2007.
Even if you are an experienced administrator on SharePoint Server 2003, a number of differences
in 2007 will not allow you to completely leverage your prior knowledge in learning this
newer technology.
Besides using the stand-alone model as an evaluation or learning tool, a stand-alone installation
is a valid production environment in its own right for smaller businesses. You can
use just one piece of hardware to meet all the requirements for deploying a SharePoint 2007
site collection.
When you deploy MOSS 2007 on a single server and use the default settings, Microsoft
SQL Server 2005 Express Edition is automatically installed for you and creates configuration
and content databases for your sites. The default Setup program also creates a shared
services provider (SSP), installs SharePoint Central Administration, and creates your first
SharePoint site.
There is no direct upgrade from a stand-alone installation to a server farm
installation. If you plan on using the stand-alone installation as an evaluation
platform prior to deploying a full server farm, you will still need to perform
the complete server farm installation.
Stand-Alone Installation Hardware Requirements
The following are the minimum and recommended hardware requirements for deploying
Office SharePoint Server 2007, which includes the deployment of Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Express Edition, for a stand-alone installation:
Processors
The minimum requirement is 2.5GHz, with dual processors at 3GHz or faster
recommended.
Memory
The minimum requirement is 1GB, with 2GB recommended.
Disk space and formatting
The minimum is an NTFS-formatted partition with 3GB of free
space; an NTFS-formatted partition with 3GB of free space and additional free space for
websites is recommended.
Installation source
The minimum requirement is a DVD drive; it is recommended you use
either a DVD drive or the installation source copied to the hard drive or a network share.
Display
The minimum requirement is a resolution of 1024
×
768; Microsoft recommends
using the minimum or higher resolution.
46
Chapter 2
Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
Network speed
The minimum requirement is a 56Kbps connection between the server and client
computers; again, Microsoft recommends the network speed to be the minimum or faster.
This book assumes you have the necessary skills to determine whether the computer you
plan to use to install SharePoint 2007 in a stand-alone server deployment meets the necessary
hardware requirements. You might be able to fudge a bit with the RAM, but you’ll see
noticeable performance slowdowns. I recommend that client computers and the server be
placed on the same LAN segment if possible, leaving the 56Kbps network connection speeds
a moot point.
Stand-Alone Installation Software Requirements
The software requirements for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) and SharePoint
Server 2007 are the same since MOSS 2007 is built on top of WSS 3.0.
Operating System Platform
MOSS 2007 is designed to run on the following editions of Windows Server 2003 with
SP1 or later:
Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition
Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
You can install SharePoint Server on all editions of Windows Server 2003 in either Basic or
Advanced mode except for the Web Edition. A full-fledged edition of Microsoft SQL Server
cannot be installed on Windows Server 2003 Web Edition because of licensing constraints.
This limits your installation option for SharePoint on the Web Edition to Advanced mode.
You will still be able to use SQL Server 2005 Express Edition or SQL Server 2000 Desktop
Engine (Windows) (WMSDE).
The SharePoint Central Administration web interface requires that you use Microsoft
Internet Explorer 6.0 with the most recent service packs or Internet Explorer 7.0.
If you do not have a full-fledged or evaluation copy of Windows Server 2003, you will need
to acquire one before you can install SharePoint Server 2007. To download or order a copy,
go to
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/bb430831.aspx#ELB
. If
you do not have a Windows Live ID, you can acquire one at the following link:
https://
accountservices.passport.net/ppnetworkhome.srf?vv=400&lc=1033
. Once you have
installed Windows Server 2003 on the computer of your choice, make sure to apply all the
critical updates before proceeding.
Required Pre-Installation Components
After installing Windows Server 2003 and applying all the critical updates, you will not be able
to successfully install SharePoint Server 2007 until the following tasks have been completed:
Windows components
You must enable Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 so that your
computer can function as a web server.
Microsoft .NET Framework
You must install the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and then
enable ASP.NET 2.0, which is necessary for Windows Workflow Foundation.
Requirements for SharePoint Server 2007 Installation
47
Once you install and configure the .NET Framework, make sure you apply all of the critical
updates for ASP.NET.
Exercises later in this chapter will walk you through these processes in detail.
Database Services
When you install SharePoint Server 2007 in Basic mode, SQL Server 2005 Express Edition will
automatically be installed. You can also use a full-fledged version of SQL Server on the same
server. As previously mentioned, if you install SharePoint 2007 on Windows Server 2003 Web
Edition, you must use Advanced mode to specify a database to use, and you cannot use a fullfledged
version of SQL Server on the same server. You will still be able to use either SQL Server
2005 Express Edition or SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (WMSDE).
Networking
For the purposes of installing and running SharePoint Server 2007, you will need to not only
be able to access the server interface directly but also to connect to SharePoint over a network
using a client computer such as Windows XP. The typical network scenario for learning situations
such as the one illustrated in this book is to have MOSS 2007 installed on one computer
and Windows XP or another compatible client system installed on a separate PC.
The computers can be connected on a small LAN using an inexpensive switch. Internet
access is required to install any of the critical updates required by the various applications
already mentioned. Also, DNS services should be available for name-to-address resolution
between network nodes (computers). If you have a typical home network setup, your DSL or
cable modem will likely provide DNS services. Although servers typically have static rather
than dynamically assigned IP addresses, for study purposes, you can allow your modem to act
as a DHCP server and assign addresses to both your server and client computers.
Installing on a Stand-Alone Server
Now that you are aware of the hardware and software requirements for installing SharePoint
Server 2007 as a stand-alone server, it’s time to get to work. This part of the chapter assumes
you already have either an evaluation copy or a full-fledged version of Windows Server 2003
installed on your computer or server hardware.
For the purposes of this chapter and the rest of the book, any PC that meets the hardware
requirements already laid out will be sufficient. You also have the option of installing MOSS 2007
on a virtual Windows Server 2003 using software such as Microsoft Virtual PC or VMware Workstation.
If you choose to go this route, you will be responsible for learning the additional hardware
and software requirements of your virtualization application.
If you choose a virtual scenario, you can either use a virtual client computer to access Share-
Point or use your host computer or other PC on the LAN to interact with SharePoint Server.
Both devices, actual or virtual, must be on the same subnet or be connected via a router if on
separate subnets.
48
Chapter 2
Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
If you uninstall Office SharePoint Server 2007 and then later install Office SharePoint Server
2007 on the same computer, the Setup program could fail when creating the configuration database,
causing the entire installation process to fail. To prevent this, either delete all the existing
Office SharePoint Server 2007 databases on the computer or create a new configuration database.
You can create a new configuration database by running the following command:
psconfig -cmd configdb -create -database <uniquename>
Web Server Configuration
On your Windows Server 2003 device, before installing SharePoint Server 2007, you must
configure the server as a web server. This involves installing and enabling IIS 6.0, installing the
Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0, and enabling ASP.NET 2.0.
IIS is not installed or enabled by default on Microsoft Windows Server 2003, so you are
required to install and enable web services. Exercise 2.1 will take you through this process.
You must be at your Windows Server 2003 device to complete this exercise.
E X E R C I S E 2 . 1
Installing and Configuring IIS
1.
Click Start
Administrative Tools
Configure Your Server Wizard.
2.
When the Welcome to the Configure Your Server Wizard dialog box appears, click Next.
3.
On the Preliminary Steps page, click Next.
4.
On the Server Role page, select Application Server (IIS, ASP.NET), and then click Next.
5.
On the Application Server Options page, click Next.
6.
On the Summary of Selections page, click Next.
7.
Click Finish.
8.
Click Start
Administrative Tools
Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
9.
In the IIS Manager tree, click the plus sign (+) next to the server name to expand the
options under the server. You should see folders for Applications Pools, Web Sites, and
Web Services Extensions.
10.
Right-click the Web Sites folder, and then click Properties.
11.
In the Web Sites Properties dialog box, click the Service tab.
Requirements for SharePoint Server 2007 Installation
49
Installing Microsoft .NET Framework Version 3.0
Your next step is to install the Microsoft .NET Framework. This is a free download from
Microsoft available at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=72322&clcid=0x409
.
Once you are on the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Redistributable Package page, follow the
instructions for downloading and installing the .NET Framework version 3.0. Packages for both
x86- and x64-based computers are available, so make sure to choose the correct selection for
your computer. Save the package to a folder on the computer on which you intend to install
SharePoint Server 2007.
The Microsoft .NET Framework URL will result in the download of a 3MB
installation file that is used to download a 54MB package.
Once the package has been downloaded, run the
dotnetfx3setup.exe
package, and
follow the instructions in the installation wizard. When you have completed the wizard, the
.NET Framework 3.0 will be installed.
12.
In the Isolation mode section, shown here, verify that the Run WWW Service in IIS 5.0 Isolation
Mode check box is empty, and then click OK.
EXERCISE 2.1
( c o n t i n u e d )
50
Chapter 2
Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
After the .NET Framework is installed, you will need to enable ASP.NET 2.0. Exercise 2.2
will take you through the steps of this task.
Installing SharePoint Server 2007
At this point, you’ll need to have either a full-fledged version of MOSS 2007 or an evaluation
copy. Evaluation copies are available for both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms:
Find the evaluation copy for MOSS 2007 32-bit at
http://www.microsoft.com/
downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2E6E5A9C-EBF6-4F7F-8467-
F4DE6BD6B831&displaylang=en
.
Find the evaluation copy for MOSS 2007 64-bit at
http://www.microsoft.com/
downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3015FDE4-85F6-4CBC-812D-
55701FBFB563&displaylang=en
.
EXERCISE 2.2
Enabling ASP.NET 2.0
1.
Click Start
Administrative Tools
Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
2.
In the IIS Manager tree, click the plus sign (+) next to the server name to expand the
options under the server.
3.
Click the Web Service Extensions folder to select it.
4.
In the details pane, click ASP.NET v2.0.50727, and then click Allow. ASP.NET 2.0 will be
enabled, as shown here.
Before you proceed, go to the Windows Update site, and make sure all the critical updates for
Windows Server 2003 and ASP.NET are applied. This process can take some time.
Requirements for SharePoint Server 2007 Installation
51
You can also go to
http://office.microsoft.com
, click the Products tab, click Share-
Point Server under Servers in the menu on the left, and then click the appropriate free trial link
in the Try Office SharePoint Server 2007 box.
Before the actual download begins, you will be presented with product keys for
both the Standard Edition and the Enterprise Edition of SharePoint Server. Make
sure to write these down. Once the download begins, you will not be given the
opportunity to record these keys. This is the only time they will be presented.
Once you have your copy of Office SharePoint Server 2007 available, launch the executable,
and start following the instructions provided by the Setup program. Exercise 2.3 will show you
how to begin the installation process by running the Setup program. Subsequent exercises will
take you through the other steps leading to a completed installation of MOSS 2007.
In order to be able to participate in all of the exercises presented in this book,
please install the Enterprise version of SharePoint 2007.
EXERCISE 2.3
Running the Setup Program
1. If you are installing from a CD, run Setup.exe; if you are installing from a download, run
Officeserver.exe.
2. On the Enter Your Product Key page, enter the product key in the available text field, and
then click Continue.
When you enter the product key you were previously provided with, Setup automatically
places a green check mark next to the text field and enables the Continue button (assuming
the key is correct). Also, depending on whether you use the Standard Edition or Enterprise
Edition product key, that edition will be the one installed.
3. On the Read the Microsoft Software License Terms page, review the terms of the agreement,
tick the I Accept the Terms of This Agreement check box, and then click Continue.
4. On the Choose the Installation You Want page, click Basic to install to the default location.
You can install to a different location by clicking Advanced and then clicking the File Location
tab to specify the location you want to install to and finish the installation. However,
we will be using the default option in this step.
5. When the dialog box appears prompting you to finish the configuration of your server, tick
the Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard Now check box.
6. Click Close to start the configuration wizard.
52 Chapter 2 Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
On the Welcome to SharePoint Products and Technologies page, when you click Next, a dialog
box telling you that some services might need to be restarted or reset during configuration
appears. Click Yes, and then click Finish on the Configuration Successful page. The basic Share-
Point Server installation is complete when the default SharePoint portal site appears, as shown
in Figure 2.1.
FIGURE 2 . 1 The default SharePoint portal site web page
Initial Post-Installation Tasks
You may encounter one or two issues post-installation that will require your intervention
before you continue:
If you are prompted for a username and password after SharePoint Server installs, you
may have to add the SharePoint site to the list of trusted sites and configure user authentication
settings in Internet Explorer.
If you get a proxy server error message after SharePoint Server installs, you may need to
configure your proxy server settings so that local addresses bypass the proxy server.
Exercise 2.4 will walk you through the steps of adding your SharePoint site to the list of
trusted sites in Internet Explorer. Exercise 2.5 will take you through the process of configuring
proxy server settings to bypass your proxy server for local addresses.
Requirements for SharePoint Server 2007 Installation 53
If you need to use Internet Explorer on the server to access other web pages,
you may need to use the procedure in Exercise 2.4 to add them to the list of
trusted sites.
EXERCISE 2.4
Adding Your SharePoint Site to the List of Trusted Sites
1. In an open Internet Explorer web browser, click Tools Internet Options.
2. Click the Security tab, and in the Select a Web Content Zone to Specify Its Security
settings box, click Trusted Sites, and then click Sites.
3. Clear the Require Server Verification (https:) for All Sites in This Zone check box.
4. In the Add This Web Site to the Zone text field, type the URL to your site, and then click Add.
5. Click Close to close the Trusted Sites dialog box.
6. Click OK to close the Internet Options dialog box.
EXERCISE 2.5
Configuring Proxy Server Settings to Bypass the Proxy Server
for Local Addresses
1. In an open Internet Explorer web browser, click Tools Internet Options.
2. Click the Connections tab, and in the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings area, click LAN
Settings.
3. In the Automatic Configuration section, clear the Automatically Detect Settings check box.
4. In the Proxy Server section, tick the Use a Proxy Server for Your LAN check box.
5. Type the address of the proxy server in the Address text field.
6. Type the port number of the proxy server in the Port field.
7. Tick the Bypass Proxy Server for Local Addresses check box.
8. Click OK to close the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings dialog box.
9. Click OK to close the Internet Options dialog box.
54 Chapter 2 Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
Site Management of SharePoint 2007
Now that SharePoint Server 2007 is installed as a stand-alone server, you are ready to begin the
initial site management tasks using the Central Administration site you first visited in Chapter 1,
“Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.” You will begin site management
administration in detail starting in Chapter 3, “Configurating SharePoint 2007.” To get ready to
perform those tasks, click Start All Programs Microsoft Office Server SharePoint 3.0 Central
Administration. The Central Administration home page will open. This is where you’ll begin
in Chapter 3.
Server Farm Installation
As you’ve seen in the stand-alone server installation, all of your server and application software
is installed on one physical machine. In a server farm topology, you can install your software on
multiple machines. Since you are dealing with different server role types, you will have different
hardware and software requirements for each type. Three main server roles are contained within
the server farm:
Application server
Database server
Front-end web server
As with the stand-alone server installation section, the hardware and software requirements
in the following sections will present the minimum and recommended specifications for
each server role type.
Application Server (IIS and ASP.NET)
The application server role contains all the functionality and other services for development,
deployment, and runtime management of XML web services, web applications, and distributed
applications. Services that run on the application server are IIS 6.0, COM+, and ASP.NET. In
addition, SharePoint Server 2007 is installed on the application servers in the server farm.
Application Server Hardware Requirements
The following list illustrates Microsoft’s minimum and recommended hardware requirements
for an application server in a SharePoint 2007 server farm. Remember, these are the official
guidelines; the practical requirements for your server farm may vary.
Processor The minimum required CPU speed is 2.5GHz; processors of 2.5GHz or faster are
recommended.
Memory The minimum requirement is 2GB; 4GB is recommended.
Disk space and formatting The minimum requirement is an NTFS partition with 3GB of
free space; Microsoft recommends an NTFS partition with 3GB of free space plus additional
space for data storage.
Installation source The minimum is a DVD drive; the recommendation is for a DVD drive
or installation source copied to either the hard drive or a network share.
Requirements for SharePoint Server 2007 Installation 55
Display The minimum required resolution is 1024×768; the recommended resolution is the
minimum or higher.
Network speed The minimum requirements are a 56Kbps connection between the server
and client computers and a 100Mbps connection between the computers and the server farm;
the recommended speeds are a 56Kbps or faster connection between the server and client computers
and a 1Gbps connection between the computers and the server farm.
Application Server Software Requirements
The software requirements for WSS 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007 are the same since
MOSS 2007 is built on top of WSS 3.0.
Operating System
MOSS 2007 is designed to run on the following editions of Windows Server 2003 with
SP1 or later:
Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition
Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
The SharePoint Central Administration web interface requires that you use Microsoft
Internet Explorer 6.0 with the most recent service packs or Internet Explorer 7.0.
Required Pre-installation Components
After installing Windows Server 2003 and applying all the critical updates, you will not be able
to successfully install SharePoint Server 2007 until the following tasks have been completed:
Windows components You must enable IIS 6.0 including Common Files, Simple Mail
Transfer Protocol (SMTP), and WWW services so that your computer can function as a web
server. When configuring IIS 6.0, you must specify an SMTP mail server to enable email alerts
and notifications. You must also specify that the server is running in IIS 6.0 worker process
isolation mode; however, this is the default configuration for new IIS 6.0 installations.
Microsoft .NET Framework You must install the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and then
enable ASP.NET 2.0. The instructions for enabling ASP.NET 2.0 were shown previously in this
chapter. If ASP.NET 2.0 is installed on the computer before IIS, you must enable ASP.NET 2.0
by running the command aspnet_regiis -i.
Database Server
Unless you are installing SharePoint as a stand-alone server, as we are in our example, you will
require at least one database server for your SharePoint deployment. The following sections
describe the hardware and software requirements for a database server installation.
Database Server Hardware Requirements
Table 2.1 lists the hardware requirements for the server. These are based on the SQL Server 2005
Standard Edition. To see a listing of the hardware requirements for all versions of SQL Server
2005, go to http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/sysreqs/default.mspx.
56 Chapter 2 Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
TABLE 2 . 1 Database Server Hardware Requirements
Components 32-bit Bus 64-bit Bus Itanium
CPU The minimum required is
a 600MHz Pentium III or
compatible with a recommended
processor of
1GHz or faster.
A 1GHz processor Pentium
IV or compatible
with EM64T support is
recommended.
1GHz or faster Itanium
processor.
Operating
system
The minimum required
OS can be Microsoft Windows
2000 Server with
SP4 or newer, Windows
2000 Professional Edition
with SP4 or newer, or
Windows XP with SP2,
with the recommended
being Windows Server
2003 Enterprise, Standard,
or Datacenter Edition
with SP1 or newer or
Windows Small Business
Server 2003 with SP1 or
newer.
The required OS can
be Microsoft Windows
Server 2003 Standard
x64, Enterprise x64, or
Datacenter x64 Edition
with SP1 or newer or Windows
XP Professional x64
Edition or newer.
The required OS is
Microsoft Windows
Server 2003 Enterprise
or Datacenter Edition for
Itanium-based systems
with SP1 or newer.
Memory 512MB of RAM is the
minimum requirement,
with 1GB or more
recommended.
512MB of RAM is the
minimum requirement,
with 1GB or more
recommended.
512MB of RAM is the
minimum requirement,
with 1GB or more
recommended.
Hard disk
drive
350MB of available
hard disk space is recommended
for installation
with 425MB of additional
hard disk space for SQL
Server Books Online,
SQL Server Mobile Books
Online, and the sample
databases.
350MB of available
hard disk space is recommended
for installation
with 425MB of additional
hard disk space for SQL
Server Books Online,
SQL Server Mobile Books
Online, and the sample
databases.
350MB of available
hard disk space is recommended
for installation
with 425MB of additional
hard disk space for SQL
Server Books Online,
SQL Server Mobile Books
Online, and the sample
databases.
Optical drive CD-ROM or
DVD-ROM drive.
CD-ROM or
DVD-ROM drive.
CD-ROM or
DVD-ROM drive.
Display Super VGA with
1,024×768 or higher
resolution.
Super VGA with
1,024×768 or higher
resolution.
Super VGA with
1,024×768 or higher
resolution.
Requirements for SharePoint Server 2007 Installation 57
Database Services Software Requirements
The limitations of running SQL Server on Windows Server 2003 Web Edition previously mentioned
continue to apply. All versions and platforms for SQL Server require that you use Internet
Explorer 6.0 SP1 or newer.
For SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition for Reporting Services, you need IIS 5.0 or newer
and ASP.NET 2.0 or newer on all platforms.
Front-End Web Server
Front-End Web Servers are the workhorse of a SharePoint 2007 deployment since they host
the web applications required to support the user interface and access to the system as a whole.
Front-End Web Server Hardware Requirements
Table 2.2 displays Microsoft’s minimum and recommended hardware requirements for
running SharePoint Server 2007 on a front-end web server.
Front-End Web Server Software Requirements
The software requirements for WSS 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007 are the same since MOSS
2007 is built on top of WSS 3.0.
TABLE 2 . 2 Front-End Web Server Hardware Requirements
Components Minimum Requirements Recommended Requirements
CPU 2.5GHz Dual 3GHz processors or faster
Memory 2GB of RAM 2GB of RAM or more
Hard disk drive NTFS-formatted volume with 3GB
of free space
NTFS-formatted volume with 3GB
of free space or more plus additional
space for your data storage
requirements
Installation source DVD drive DVD drive or an installation
source on the hard drive or on a
network share
Display 1024×768 resolution 1024×768 or higher resolution
Network speed 56Kbps connection between client
computers and the server and
100Mbps connection between the
server and the server farm
56Kbps or faster connection
between client computers and the
server and 1Gbps or faster connection
between the server and the
server farm
58 Chapter 2 Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
The operating system and required pre-installation components for the front-end web server are
identical to the application server since the web server is a subset of the application server. Additional
resources may be required on your web servers as demand increases.
Requirements for Server
Farm Deployment
Hardware and software requirements for deploying a server farm go beyond planning for
SharePoint Server 2007 running on a stand-alone server. There are hardware and design
elements that affect availability, capacity, and performance that do not have to be taken into
consideration when you are running a single-server environment. The following sections will
illustrate the requirements for your server farm based on factors such as processors, bus architecture,
and farm size.
System Architecture
Although SharePoint Server 2007 can run on a 32-bit system, Microsoft recommends, based
on its testing of MOSS 2007, using 64 bit-platforms for your server farm. Here are some of
the advantages of using 64-bit:
64-bit chipsets are faster and wider, passing more data to the cache and processor.
The 64-bit architecture supports up to 64 processors and close to linear scalability with
each additional processor.
Windows Server 2003 SP1 running on a 64-bit system architecture supports up to 1,024GB
of both physical and addressable memory as opposed to 32-bit systems, which can address
only 4GB of addressable memory.
If you are planning to deploy your server farm on a mix of 32-bit and 64-bit architecture,
you might want to prioritize the server role types in the following order, with those server roles
higher on the list being given more consideration to being run on 64-bit platforms than those
lower on the list:
1. Computers running SQL Server
2. Application servers
3. Front-end web servers
If you need to prioritize among application server roles which types are deployed on 64-bit
systems, use the following list, with those types higher on the list being given more preference.
1. Index
2. Excel
3. Search
Requirements for Server Farm Deployment 59
You cannot mix 32-bit and 64-bit architectures within server type roles. For
instance, all servers running the Query server role type must be using either
a 32-bit or 64-bit architecture.
System Redundancy
In Chapter 1 you learned about system availability and redundancy in server farm architecture
design. This section of Chapter 2 will expand on that knowledge. As you recall, availability is
defined as the system’s ability to respond to requests in a predictable manner; that is, availability
is the way you expect the system to respond to service requests. You may also recall that
the definition of high availability is that the system is accessible for 99.999 percent of the time
it is in operation (also known as the five 9s). Table 2.3 illustrates in more detail availability
metrics as defined by Microsoft.
Availability depends on a number of hardware components including hard disk drives, processors,
RAM, and network cards. The greater the capacity and the more robust hardware
components are, the greater the likelihood that system resources will be available when called
upon. Of course, even the biggest, baddest, most resourceful server in the world may not be
enough to meet demand if it is the only server in your farm. In that eventuality, you’ll need to
add more servers, but how many more?
The level of system availability you need to provide can be addressed by the level of redundancy
built into your server deployment. The following sections will describe different server
deployment scenarios and how they address availability and redundancy.
TABLE 2 . 3 System Availability Metrics
Acceptable Uptime
Percentage
Acceptable Downtime
per Day
Acceptable Downtime
per Month
Acceptable Downtime
per Year
95 72 minutes 36 hours 18.26 days
99 14.40 minutes 7 hours 3.65 days
99.9 86.40 seconds 43 minutes 8.77 hours
99.99 8.64 seconds 4 minutes 52.60 minutes
99.999 0.86 seconds 26 seconds 5.26 minutes
60 Chapter 2 Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
Physical Server Farm Topology
In Chapter 1 you learned a great deal about logical server farm topology. The following will
present the differences between actual physical server farm designs including advantages, disadvantages,
and how server role types are deployed on hardware.
Two-Server Farm
This design is generally not meant to be taken into production and is typically deployed for the
following reasons:
Deploying SharePoint Server 2007 for educational purposes
Deploying SharePoint Server 2007 for evaluation purposes
Deploying SharePoint Server 2007 for a limited environment (such as a single department
within a company)
Deploying SharePoint Server 2007 with only a subset of features (rather than all available
features)
Deploying Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 only
This minimal server farm requires only two physical servers, as illustrated in Figure 2.2:
One physical server acting as a front-end web server and application server
One physical server acting as a dedicated SQL server
FIGURE 2 . 2 Two-server farm
Three-Server Farm
This design actually employs two different possible redundancy architectures, depending on
your specific needs. Referring to the two-server farm design, you can add either a second frontend
web server or a second dedicated SQL Server to create a clustered or mirrored SQL Server.
Database
User Requests
Web Server
Application Server
Requirements for Server Farm Deployment 61
By adding a second web server, as shown in Figure 2.3, you create redundancy and improve
the performance of the overall system, unfortunately at the cost of availability. This also does
little or nothing for data redundancy, so deploy this particular scenario when system performance
is more important than data redundancy. You have the option to install the Query and
Index server roles on both web servers or install Query on one and Index on the other.
FIGURE 2 . 3 Three-server farm with web server redundancy
On the other hand, if data redundancy is more important than performance in a small-scale
scenario, add a second SQL server to create a mirrored or clustered database, as shown in
Figure 2.4. This scenario also does nothing to enhance the availability of services.
FIGURE 2 . 4 Three-server farm with SQL Server redundancy
Dedicated SQL Server
User Requests
Each Server Includes:
Web Server
Application Roles
Clustered or Mirrored
SQL Server
User Requests
Web Server
Application Server
62 Chapter 2 Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
Four-Server Farm
This is the minimum server farm design that addresses system availability; it deploys two servers
as front-end web servers and the other two as a SQL Server cluster, as shown in Figure 2.5.
Although there is no variability as to where servers are placed, the Index and Query server roles
are another story. In fact, performance will be impacted differently depending on which servers
run Index and Query.
Index and Query installed on the same physical server The Index server role will no longer
propagate content indexes to external Query servers.
Index role installed on one of the physical web servers You will not be able to host the
Query role on both web servers.
Index role installed on the database server This allows you to make the Query role available
on both web servers, but the database server will take a performance hit.
Five-Server Farm
So far, all of the server farm designs have involved two levels, the web/application server level
and the database server level. The five-server farm architecture adds a level by splitting out the
web and application servers to their own areas, as shown in Figure 2.6.
This server farm topology is the most common design for SharePoint and allows you to
install application server roles on dedicated physical hardware. The result of this action is
improving the performance of the front-end web servers since the hardware doesn’t have to
pull double duty, processing both web and application server activity. This particular design
can be tweaked for either performance or availability.
FIGURE 2 . 5 Four-server farm
Clustered or Mirrored
SQL Server
User Requests
Web Server
Application Roles
Each Server Includes:
Requirements for Server Farm Deployment 63
FIGURE 2 . 6 Five-server farm
To maximize performance, move Excel Services to one application server and the Query
role to the other.
To maximize availability using redundancy, move the following application server roles to
the application server hardware:
Excel Calculation Services
Query
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 (if in use)
See the “Server Role Type Redundancy” section later in this chapter for more
on this particular option.
Six-Server Farm
This is the design of choice for maximum redundancy and application server load balancing
with the minimum number of physical servers. It is also the optimal design if maximizing availability
of Excel Calculation Services and Office Project Server 2007 is your goal. The Query
server role is installed on the web servers for redundancy of that role and provides for better
overall performance of the server farm as a whole compared to the other topologies. You can
see this design in Figure 2.7.
Clustered or Mirrored
SQL Server
User Requests
Web Servers
Application Server
64 Chapter 2 Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
FIGURE 2 . 7 Six-server farm
Server Role Type Redundancy
Not all application server roles can be made redundant in the server farm. In general, a server role
can be made redundant if the application programming deployed on each physical server is identical
to one another and no data is stored on the application servers. This provides for failover and
load balancing. If one server containing a redundant role should fail, the other would continue
responding to web server requests with no interruption of services and no loss of data.
Server roles that can be made redundant are as follows:
Excel Calculation Services
Query
Office Project Server 2007
Application server roles that cannot be made redundant are those designed to crawl specific
content and create content indexes. Although you can deploy these server role types on multiple
physical application servers, the role on a particular server will crawl the data related only to that
server. For example, if you deployed this role on two different physical servers, it would crawl
the content on those two servers and thus generate two separate and conflicting indexes. When the
content indexes are subsequently searched, erroneous results would occur.
Server roles that cannot be made redundant are as follows:
Index
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Search
Clustered or Mirrored
SQL Server
User Requests
Web Servers
Application Servers
Requirements for Server Farm Deployment 65
Server Farm Installation Process
The process of installing all the applications on multiple pieces of hardware to create a productionlevel
server farm is beyond the scope of both this book and exam 70-630, Microsoft Office Share-
Point Server 2007, Configuring. This section will present the steps of installing SharePoint 2007
and creating a server farm:
1. If you are installing from CD, run Setup.exe; if you are installing from a download, run
Officeserver.exe.
Designing a Small Server Farm
You are the SharePoint administrator for a small company. For the past several months you have
deployed and have been testing a small two-server server farm with one physical server running
both web and application services and the other physical server running SQL Server 2005. You
are now ready to deploy a small production server farm for SharePoint 2007. The results of your
evaluation indicate that you should start by adding only one more physical server. Eventually you
plan to execute a design that ensures both good performance and data redundancy. For now,
your company’s CTO has determined that performance is more important than optimizing availability
or data redundancy. You decide to add a second web server to the farm to achieve these
goals. The diagram shown here illustrates how to implement this.
Two Servers Both Running Web and Application Services
SRV01 SRV02
High-Speed
Switch
Dedicated SQL
Server
66 Chapter 2 Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
2. On the Enter Your Product Key page, enter the product key in the available text field, and
then click Continue.
When you enter the product key you were previously provided with, Setup
automatically places a green check mark next to the text field and enables the
Continue button (assuming the key is correct).
3. On the Read the Microsoft Software License Terms page, review the terms of the agreement,
tick the I Accept the Terms of This Agreement check box, and then click Continue.
4. On the Choose the Installation You Want page, click Advanced, click the Server Type tab,
and select Complete. If you want to specify a different location for the installation files,
click the File Location tab, and add the desired location.
5. When the dialog box appears prompting you to finish the configuration of your server, tick
the Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard Now check box.
6. Click Close to start the configuration wizard.
7. On the Welcome to SharePoint Products and Technologies page, click Next.
8. When the dialog box notifying you that some services might need to be restarted or reset
during configuration appears, click Yes.
9. On the Connect to a Server Farm page, click No, I Want to Create a New Server Farm.
Then click Next. (Select Yes if you want to connect the new SharePoint Server you are
installing to an already existing server farm.)
10. On the Specify Configuration Database Settings page, perform the following tasks:
a. Type the name of the database server in the Database Server field.
b. Type the name of the actual database in the Database Name field.
c. Type the name of a valid user account in this server or a valid domain account in the
Username field.
d. Type the password for this account in the Password field.
e. Click Next.
11. On the Configure SharePoint Central Administration Web Application page, either
accept the default port number that the system chooses at random or tick the Specify Port
Number check box and type a port number in the available field. The field will accept any
number from 1 to 65535.
12. On the same page under Configure Security Settings, select either NTLM or Negotiate
(Kerberos) as the authentication method for this web application, and then click Next.
(Kerberos is the recommended method.)
The installation process will now proceed. This could take some time.
Exam Essentials 67
Initial Post-installation Tasks
After the installation is complete and the configuration specifications are committed to the
database server, you will be taken to the Services configuration screen in Central Administration
where you can continue to configure the server farm.
Summary
In this chapter, you learned about the installation and deployment methods for SharePoint
Server 2007. I covered the following topics:
The hardware and software requirements for installing SharePoint Server 2007 on a
stand-alone physical server.
The required pre-installation tasks before installing SharePoint 2007, including installing
IIS 6.0 and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and enabling ASP.NET 2.0.
The step-by-step process of installing SharePoint 2007 on a single hardware server.
The hardware and software requirements for installing SharePoint Server 2007 on a
server farm. This includes information on the operating system requirements, database server
requirements, web server requirements, and application server requirements.
The server farm deployment requirements including the type of bus platform, system
redundancy specifications, and physical server farm topologies.
The server role types including Index, Query, and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Search, and which roles can be made redundant in the server farm.
The step-by-step process of installing SharePoint 2007 and creating a server farm.
Exam Essentials
Understand how to manage administration. Understand the basic tasks in installing Share-
Point Server 2007 from the planning and design stages to completing the installation and performing
initial post-installation tasks, including the minimum and recommended hardware
and software requirements of installation and operation. Also understand the requirements
for installation and operation on a stand-alone server deployment vs. a server farm.
Know how to manage the Central Administration user interface. Understand how to organize
post-installation administrator tasks using the Central Administration (CA) web application,
including completing the basic administrator tasks listed on the CA home page and knowing the
purposes of the Operations and Application Management tabs in CA.
68 Chapter 2 Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
Review Questions
1. You are the newly hired SharePoint administrator for your company. Your company’s CIO
has tasked you with developing a plan for installing Office SharePoint Server 2007 on a single
stand-alone server. This server will be used to evaluate the product and develop a plan for eventual
deployment across the enterprise. As part of your plan, you need to present the hardware
requirements for installing SharePoint on a server. Of the following choices, which ones represent
the minimum hardware requirements for installation? (Choose all that apply.)
A. A 2.5GHz processor
B. 2GB of RAM
C. A DVD drive
D. A display with a screen resolution of 1024×768
2. As part of your preparation for developing an installation plan for SharePoint Server 2007,
you discover that you will need to install MOSS 2007 on a server running Windows Server
2003 SP1 or better. You plan to use SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition for SharePoint’s database
needs. Of the following options, which edition of Windows Server 2003 will you not be
able to use for the installation?
A. Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
B. Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
C. Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition
D. Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
3. As you prepare your plan for installing SharePoint Server 2007 on a stand-alone server, you have
specified your intent to use SQL Server 2005 for your database needs. You will be installing
SharePoint 2007 on a Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition machine. How do you intend to
use SQL Server 2005 for your database requirements?
A. When you install SharePoint Server 2007 in Basic mode, SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition
is automatically installed.
B. When you install SharePoint Server 2007 in Advanced mode, SQL Server 2005 Standard
Edition is automatically installed.
C. Install SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition on the same physical server as SharePoint 2007.
D. Install SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition on a separate physical server from SharePoint 2007.
4. As you continue to prepare your SharePoint Server 2007 stand-alone installation plan, you
develop the networking specifications for single-server deployment. You refer to Microsoft’s
recommendations for this requirement. Of the following options, what are the officially recommended
networking specifications?
A. 56Kbps or faster connection between the client computers and the server
B. 56Kbps connection between the client computers and the server
C. 100Mbps connection between the client computers and the server
D. 100Mbps or faster connection between the client computers and the server
Review Questions 69
5. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You have installed SharePoint
Server 2007 on a single stand-alone server in order to evaluate this product and to develop
a strategy for deploying MOSS 2007 across the enterprise. You are at the end of your
evaluation period and are creating a plan for the production deployment. Of the following
options, which is the correct upgrade path from a stand-alone server to a server farm?
A. Add a separate physical server running SQL Server 2005.
B. Add a separate server running IIS 6.0 and .NET Framework 3.0.
C. Add a separate physical server running SQL Server 2005, and then rerun the Setup routine
on the first server, selecting Advanced mode and choosing Complete instead of stand-alone.
D. There is no direct upgrade from a stand-alone installation to a server farm installation.
6. You are the SharePoint administrator for the Wiredwriter Authoring and Publications Company.
You are almost finished with the installation of their new server farm and are on the
Configure SharePoint Central Administration Web Application page. You must configure a
port number for the Central Administration site. Of the following options, which are viable
solutions? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Type 65535 in the available field.
B. Tick the Specify Port Number check box, and type 26350 in the available field.
C. Tick the Specify Port Number check box, and type 75000 in the available field.
D. You do not need to configure the port number. The system will automatically select a number
at random.
7. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You are in the process of preparing
a Windows Server 2003 machine to serve as a test box for evaluating SharePoint Server 2007.
You are at the stage of installing and configuring IIS 6.0 to enable web services. Of the following
options, which ones represent actual steps in the installation and configuration process?
(Choose all that apply.)
A. In the IIS Manager tree, click the plus sign (+) next to the server name, and then right-click
the Application Pools folder.
B. In the IIS Manager tree, click the plus sign (+) next to the server name, and then right-click
the Web Sites folder.
C. In the Isolation mode section, verify that the Run WWW Service in IIS 5.0 Isolation Mode
check box is ticked.
D. In the Isolation mode section, verify that the Run WWW Service in IIS 5.0 Isolation Mode
check box is clear.
70 Chapter 2 Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
8. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You are developing a SharePoint
Server 2007 installation plan for a production server farm. You have been tasked by your CTO
with developing different installation scenarios involving both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.
Of the following options, which are viable scenarios? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Run your web and application servers on 32-bit platforms and your SQL servers on 64-bit
platforms.
B. Run your web servers on 32-bit platforms and your application servers on a mix of 32- and
64-bit platforms.
C. Run your front-end web servers using Index server role types on 64-bit platforms, the web
servers using Query server role types on 32- and 64-bit platforms, and your application
and database on a mix of 32- and 64-bit platforms.
D. Run your web servers on 32-bit platforms and your application and web servers on 64-bit
platforms.
9. You have been tasked by your CIO to design a physical server farm topology that will maximize
performance and redundancy. After doing some research, you present her with the topology that
will best fit the request, along with the rationale for the design. Of the following options, which
is the most optimal design and why?
A. A five-server farm because it separates server roles into three levels—web server, application
server, and database cluster—and then lets you move Excel Calculation Services,
Query, and Microsoft Office Project Server to the application server hardware
B. A four-server farm because it uses the minimum amount of server hardware to address
system availability
C. A six-server farm because it maximizes redundancy and application server load balancing
with the minimum number of physical servers and is the optimal design for maximizing the
availability of Excel Calculation Services and Office Project Server 2007
D. A four-server farm because it allows you to install Index and Query server roles on the
same physical server, maximizing query access to indexed data on application servers
10. As part of your design of a physical server farm, you must build in system and services redundancies.
In the case of a server failure, you want services to continue to be provided to Share-
Point consumers including company employees, partners, and customers. After doing your
research, you determine that only some server role types can be made redundant. Of the following
options, which can be redundant on application servers? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Excel Calculation Services
B. Index
C. Office Project Server 2007
D. Query
E. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Search
Review Questions 71
11. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You are in the process of preparing
a Windows Server 2003 machine to serve as a test box for evaluating SharePoint Server 2007.
You are at the stage of enabling ASP.NET 2.0. Of the following options, which are valid steps
in this process? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Click the Web Service Extensions folder to select it.
B. Right-click the Web Service Extensions folder, and then click Properties.
C. In the details pane, click ASP.NET v2.0.50727, and then click Allow.
D. In the details pane, right-click ASP.NET v2.0.50727, and then click Allow.
12. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You are meeting with the IT department
staff to determine a plan for evaluating SharePoint Server 2007 prior to full-scale deployment.
Brian, one of the system admins, believes that a single stand-alone server would be the
best evaluation platform. You disagree, stating that a two-server server farm would offer more
advantages. As part of your argument, you present these advantages. Of the following options,
which one is valid?
A. Your plan allows you to test a small server farm with a dedicated web server and dedicated
application/database server.
B. Your plan allows you to test a small server farm with a dedicated web/application server
and a dedicated database server.
C. Your plan allows you to test a small server farm with a dedicated web/database server and
a dedicated application server.
D. Your plan allows you to test a small server farm by deploying Windows SharePoint
Services 3.0 only.
13. When presenting your plan to deploy a two-server server farm for SharePoint Server 2007
evaluation, you are discussing the hardware and networking requirements for this design
with members of your company’s IT department. You outline Microsoft’s recommendations
for client/server connections and server/server connections. Of the following options,
which one represents the recommended network speeds for these connections?
A. A 56Kbps or faster connection between the client computers and the servers and a 1Gbps
connection between the servers
B. A 56Kbps connection between the client computers and the servers and a 1Mbps connection
between the servers
C. A 1Mbps connection between the client computers and the servers and a 1Gbps connection
between the servers
D. A 128Kbps or faster connection between the client computers and the servers and a 1Gbps
connection between the servers
72 Chapter 2 Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
14. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You are working on a service-level
agreement (SLA) with your organization’s newest partner. In terms of availability for the
SharePoint extranet site you will provide them, they state the following system downtime limitations:
downtime per day at 86.40 seconds, downtime per month at 43 minutes, and downtime
per year at 8.77 hours. Of the following percentages, which one matches the partner’s
requirements?
A. 99 percent
B. 99.9 percent
C. 99.99 percent
D. 99.999 percent
15. You are designing the physical server farm topology for the SharePoint server farm you plan
to deploy for your company. You would like to deploy the three primary server roles—web,
application, and database—as three separate levels within the farm. Of the following selections,
which server farm topology or topologies will allow this?
A. Both four- and five-server farm topologies
B. Both five- and six-server farm topologies
C. Only the six-server farm topology
D. The four-, five-, and six-server farm topologies
16. You have just finished installing SharePoint Server 2007 on a stand-alone server. Internet
Explorer opens, but instead of showing the default index page of the SharePoint Server portal,
you are prompted for your username and password. What is the most likely problem?
A. You need to configure your proxy server settings so that local addresses bypass the
proxy server.
B. You need to set your privacy settings to Medium in Internet Explorer.
C. You need to add the SharePoint site to the list of trusted sites in Internet Explorer.
D. You need to clear your cookies from your Temporary Internet Files folder.
17. You are reviewing the database options available for the stand-alone server and server farm
options in SharePoint Server 2007. You discover that both designs can use almost the identical
database options with one exception. What is that exception?
A. SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (Windows) (WMSDE)
B. SQL Server 2005 Express Edition
C. SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition
D. SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition SP3a
18. You are installing SharePoint Server 2007 on a new server farm. As you go through the installation
and configuration process, you arrive at the Specify Configuration Database Settings
page. You are required to enter specific information on this page. Of the following options,
which must you enter on this page? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Database server name
B. Database server IP address
C. Username
D. Password
Review Questions 73
19. As you continue the process of installing and configuring SharePoint Server 2007 on a new
server farm, you arrive at the Configure SharePoint Central Administration Web Application
page. You need to select a method of authentication under Configure Security Settings. With
what options are you presented? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Internet Key Exchange
B. Kerberos
C. NTLM
D. SSL
20. You have just completed installing SharePoint Server 2007 on a new server farm. What screen
or web page appears at this stage of the process?
A. Configuration status bar screen in the SPPT Wizard
B. Services administration screen in Central Administration
C. Search configuration screen in Central Administration
D. SSP management interface screen
74 Chapter 2 Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007
Answers to Review Questions
1. A, C, and D. Options A, C, and D are all minimum hardware requirements for installation.
Option B represents the recommended amount of RAM. The minimum requirement for RAM
is 1GB.
2. D. A full-fledged edition of Microsoft SQL Server cannot be installed on Windows Server 2003
Web Edition because of licensing constraints. This limits your installation option for Share-
Point on the Web Edition to Advanced mode so that you can select a database server. You will
still be able to use SQL Server 2005 Express Edition or SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (Windows)
(WMSDE).
3. C. Option C is the only possible answer. Options A and B are incorrect because SQL Server
2005 Express Edition is automatically installed when you use Basic mode. In Advanced mode,
you can specify a database server to use, but installing Standard Edition is not automatic. You
could install SQL Server on a separate physical server, but then you would not be using the
stand-alone server model.
4. A. Microsoft’s official hardware requirements for a stand-alone server installation include a
network connection of 56Kbps or faster between the client computers and the server. The “or
faster” option is easily accomplished on any LAN environment.
5. D. There is no direct upgrade path you can use to migrate from a stand-alone to a server farm
installation. You will have to initiate a new installation process to install SharePoint 2007 and
create a server farm.
6. B and D. If you want to specify a port number, you must tick the Specify Port Number
check box and type a number between 1 and 65535 in the available text field. If you do
not tick the check box, the system will assign an appropriate number automatically, selecting
one at random.
7. B and D. Right-clicking the Web Sites folder and clicking Properties and then clicking the Service
tab is the correct way to reach the Run WWW Service in ISS 5.0 Isolation Mode check box. This
check box is not ticked by default in new IIS 6.0 installations. You would tick this check box only
if you were upgrading from IIS 5.0 to IIS 6.0.
8. A and D. Server farms can run mixed 32-bit and 64-bit server platforms, but each server type must
be run on the same platform. For that reason, Options A and D are the only correct answers.
9. C. The six-server farm design allows you to maximize performance and redundancy with the
least number of physical servers.
10. A, C, and D. Server roles can be made redundant only if the application programming deployed
on each physical server is identical to one another and no data is stored on the application servers.
This provides for failover and load balancing. Application server roles cannot be made redundant
if they are designed to crawl specific content and create content indexes such as Index and Search.
11. A and C. Clicking the Web Service Extensions folder lets the list of web service extensions
become visible, including ASP.NET v2.0.50727. When you click ASP.NET v2.0.50727, you
select it, and when it’s selected, you can click the Allow button, enabling ASP.NET.
Answers to Review Questions 75
12. B. The two-server server farm model uses two dedicated hardware servers, one running web
and application services and the other running SQL Server.
13. A. Option A is Microsoft’s recommended network connection speeds for the previously stated
connection types.
14. C. Option C matches the stated requirements.
15. B. Only the five- and six-server farm topologies will allow you to separate all three server roles
into three separate levels in a server farm.
16. C. If you are prompted for a username and password after SharePoint Server installs, you may
have to add the SharePoint site to the list of trusted sites and configure user authentication settings
in Internet Explorer.
17. A. SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (Windows) (WMSDE) is only a database option for a single
stand-alone server deployment.
18. C and D. You are required to enter the database server, the database name, a valid username,
and the password for that account.
19. B and C. Kerberos and NTLM are the only two authentication options available for the
Central Administration Web Application.
20. B. Once the installation process is complete, you are taken to the Services administration
screen in the Central Administration Web Application.
Chapter
3
Configuring
SharePoint 2007
MICROSOFT EXAM OBJECTIVES COVERED
IN THIS CHAPTER:
Manage Administration
Manage Central Admin UI
Manage the Shared Service Provider
Configure Usage Analysis & Reporting
Deploy/Upgrade Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Configure Shared Services
Now that you have Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
(MOSS) 2007 installed and running, it’s time to get to work.
As you’ll recall from the previous two chapters, once the
installation is complete, you still need to perform multiple configuration tasks for Share-
Point to perform to its fullest capacity. To do this, your first stop on this journey is the
SharePoint Central Administration site.
The SharePoint Central Administration site is the most important tool you’ll use in configuring
and managing MOSS 2007. It’s run on a dedicated Internet Information Server (IIS) 6.0 virtual
server and is accessible through a unique port number that you set up near the end of your installation
routine in Chapter 2, “Installing and Deploying SharePoint 2007” (any number between
1 and 65535). When you install SharePoint in a server farm, Central Administration is installed on
the first server created in the farm.
This chapter will begin with a tour of the Central Administration interface, which consists
of three tabs: Home, Operations, and Application Management. Next, I’ll talk about the
Quick Start Guide for deploying Office SharePoint Server 2007 on a single server and complete
each of the tasks for this server type. Finally, I’ll cover the configuration tasks for Share-
Point on a server farm.
The SharePoint Central Administration
Web Application
To take the tour of the Central Administration (CA) site, you’ll need to have SharePoint Server
2007 running on the Windows Server 2003 you set up in Chapter 2, “Installing
and Deploying SharePoint 2007.” To open the CA interface, click Start
All Programs
Microsoft Office Server
SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration. If prompted, type your
username and password in the dialog box, and press Enter. When Central Administration
opens, you should be taken to the Home tab, as illustrated in Figure 3.1.
As mentioned, the CA interface has three tabs:
The Home tab lists the initial administrative tasks you will need to perform subsequent to
installing SharePoint. If you are working with a server farm, this tab will also list all the
servers in your farm.
The Operations tab allows you to manage a variety of critical activities including topology
and services, security configuration, and global configuration. These tasks are the heart and
soul of server and server farm management.
The SharePoint Central Administration Web Application
79
FIGURE 3 . 1
The Central Administration website Home tab
The Application Management tab is where you manage the web applications running in
SharePoint Server 2007. Whereas the functions governed by the specific categories contained
on the Operations tab are mostly transparent to the end user, the services managed
on this tab are the very features your consumers will be using on a day-to-day basis. Items
you can configure here include workflow, site collection creation, and search.
The Central Administration Home Tab
You’ll recall that this is where we left off at the completion of your installation of SharePoint
2007 on a stand-alone server in Chapter 2. Before you and your customers can begin to use
all of MOSS 2007’s features and services, you have some work to do here. To do that, you
have to understand more about what options are available to you on the Home tab.
Although you may not realize it yet, the Central Administration Home tab is organized like
most SharePoint portal sites. The menu on the left offers you the option of viewing all site content
and contains links to each web page that leads off this main page:
Central Administration
Operations
Application Management
80
Chapter 3
Configuring SharePoint 2007
Shared Services Administration
SharedServices1
Recycle Bin
The top-right side of the page also contains links leading to various features and services:
Welcome SRV01\administrator
My Site
My Links
Site Actions
Let’s take each area one at a time.
View All Site Content
When you click the View All Site Content link, you are taken to a web page containing links
to all the containers of information and services related to this site. You can see an example
of this page in Figure 3.2.
Here are the general areas contained on this page:
Document libraries
Picture libraries
FIGURE 3 . 2
All Site Content page
The SharePoint Central Administration Web Application
81
Lists
Discussion boards
Surveys
Sites and workspaces
Recycle Bin
Although you may not make complete use of all the available options, these are SharePoint
Server features that your customers will explore to their fullest on the sites they will access in
SharePoint. Subsequent chapters will address the configuration and management of each of
these services, although the Recycle Bin might not need a great deal of explaining.
The Central Administration, Operations, and Application Management links lead to the same
content located on the main tabs at the top of Central Administration, so we’ll skip those for now.
Shared Services Administration
When you click the Shared Services Administration link, you are taken to the default shared
services provider (SSP) page shown in Figure 3.3. Here, you can configure and manage various
aspects of SSP functionality.
FIGURE 3 . 3
Manage This Farm’s Shared Services page
82
Chapter 3
Configuring SharePoint 2007
The two links under SharedServices1 (Default) are the web application representing the Central
Administration site and the SharePoint Server site; those web applications are associated with this
SSP. Clicking either of them takes you to the Web Application General Settings page for that site.
There, you can manage a variety of services and features related to the web application including
the following options: Default Time Zone, Default Quota Template, Maximum Upload Size,
Alerts, and Web Page Security Validation. You can also click to the right of the SharedServices1
(Default) link and access the Edit Properties or Open Shared Services Admin Site link, as shown
in Figure 3.4.
The Delete option in the SharedServices1 (Default) link is grayed out because
this SSP is the only one in existence. You can delete an SSP only if there is
at least one more available for SharePoint for the stand-alone server or the
server farm.
To create a new SSP, click the New SSP button. You can change the default SSP (assuming
there is more than one) by clicking the Change Default SSP button. To move web applications
between different SSPs, click the Change Associations button. You can rebuild an SSP from
backup components by clicking the Restore SSP button.
FIGURE 3 . 4
SharedServices1 (Default) links
The SharePoint Central Administration Web Application
83
You will learn more about the SSP button operations later in this chapter.
If you take a look at the tabs at the top of the page, you’ll see that you are no longer on the
Home tab but are on the Application Management tab. Later, you will see how to get to this
page directly from the Application Management tab.
SharedServices1
By clicking the SharedServices1 link, either in the menu to the left or in the main pane, you are
taken to the Home tab of the Shared Services Administration page for this SSP. Here you can
administer areas such as the following:
User Profiles and My Sites
Search
Office SharePoint Usage Reporting
Audiences
Excel Services Settings
Business Data Catalog
You can return to the Central Administration site by clicking Back to Central Administration
or return to the Shared Services Administration page by clicking Shared Services
Administration.
Welcome SRV01\administrator
On your computer, this will read as the name of the server and whoever is logged in to Central
Administration. For the purpose of this illustration, it’s the administrator of server SRV01.
You can manage this user account by clicking just to the right of the name to show the dropdown
menu items:
My Settings
Sign In as Different User
Sign Out
Personalize This Page
In Central Administration, you will always log in as an administrator, but on many other
SharePoint sites you’ll take advantage of the Sign In as Different User option to work in Share-
Point both as an admin and with your end user account.
My Sites
Clicking the My Sites link will initiate the process of creating a My Sites site for the user, if
one does not yet exist. You’ll learn more about My Sites in Chapter 4, “Building Sites and Site
Collections,” so we’ll bypass this topic for now.
84
Chapter 3
Configuring SharePoint 2007
My Links
When you open the My Links menu, if no links have been configured for this user, you’ll see
just the Add to My Links and Manage Links menu items.
Chapter 5, “Managing Users and Groups,” will discuss My Links in the context of
My Sites, and Chapter 7, “Configuring and Maintaining Lists and Libraries,” will
tell you more about Links lists.
Site Actions
Clicking Site Actions will give you access to different tools that you can use to manage this web
page and the website. The menu items are as follows:
Create
Create will let you make a new library, list, or web page. Figure 3.5 shows a complete
listing of what is available.
Edit Page
Edit Page will allow you to edit the contents of the current web page including the
web parts.
Site Settings
Site Settings lets you configure the various properties of this website including
the following categories:
Users and Permissions
Look and Feel
Galleries
Site Administration
Site Collection Administration
Resources
This is an empty links list that you can use to add links to any resources that will help you
in administering this site. You’ll learn more about adding and managing links in Chapter 7,
“Configuring and Maintaining Lists and Libraries”; however, you will be adding links to this
list later in this chapter.
The Central Administration Operations Tab
When you click the Operations tab in Central Administration, you are taken to a list of links
that allow you to manage every feature and aspect of server and server farm administration,
as listed in the following categories and shown in Figure 3.6:
Topology and Services
Security Configuration
Logging and Reporting
Upgrade and Migration
The SharePoint Central Administration Web Application
85
Global Configuration
Backup and Restore
Data Configuration
Content Deployment
FIGURE 3 . 5 The Create page
As we proceed through this chapter and the chapters that follow, we’ll revisit this tab and
delve into its contents in a lot more detail.
The Central Administration Application Management Tab
As you can see in the following list and Figure 3.7, the Application Management tab also contains
a collection of links to tools that let you administer all of the applications and components
installed in your server farm:
SharePoint Web Application Management
SharePoint Site Management
Search
InfoPath Forms Services
86 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
Office SharePoint Server Shared Services
Application Security
External Service Connections
Workflow Management
FIGURE 3 . 6 The Operations tab
FIGURE 3 . 7 The Application Management tab
Central Administration Post-Installation Tasks 87
As with the Operations tab, I’ll address the contents of the Application Management tab
more completely as we progress through the rest of this book.
Central Administration
Post-Installation Tasks
Before you actually get down to the specific tasks you need to perform to get SharePoint 2007
up and running for your customers, you’ll need to get organized. This means gathering your
resources, assigning the first task, and managing task status. The next three sections will take
you through these parts of the process.
Organizing Post-Installation Tasks
In Central Administration on the Home tab, click the READ FIRST – Click This Link for Deployment
Instructions link under Administrator Tasks to begin configuring the newly created Share-
Point server. Once on the Administrator Tasks: READ FIRST page, you will see a notice in the
Description area stating that the SharePoint Products and Technologies deployment is not yet complete.
The description refers you to the Administrator Tasks list.
Just above the Description area is the Action area, which contains a link called Read the Quick
Start Guide. This is your first post-installation task. Exercise 3.1 will show you how to proceed.
Troubleshooting Central Administration Access
You get the following error message when you try to connect to SharePoint Central Administration:
“You are not authorized to view this page.” None of your current documentation has
any information about this issue, and you are certain you are using the correct username and
password to log in. You suspect that your web browser is configured to use a proxy server,
and the proxy server settings are blocking access to the Central Administration website; however,
you need to do some checking to make sure.
You go to the Microsoft Office System page in TechNet at http://technet.microsoft.com/
en-us/office/default.aspx and click the Support tab. Type SharePoint Central Administration
in the search text field, and click Search. Click the Error Message When You Connect to the Share-
Point Central... search result, which should be at the top of the search results list (you can also find
it at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/829065).
Review the web page, and under Resolution, Method 2: Configure Proxy Server Settings
for the Web Browser, follow the steps listed. This should resolve the problem and give you
access to Central Administration.
88 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
The topics displayed in the bulleted list in Exercise 3.1 will be the basis for the exercises that follow
and will help you get SharePoint up and running quickly. Before you do that, in Exercise 3.2
you’ll add the links you discovered in the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Deployments section of
the Quick Start Guide to the Resources list on the Central Administration Home tab so that they’ll
be handy when you need them. You’ve already seen how useful these resources can be in the
“Troubleshooting Central Administration Access” sidebar.
EXERCISE 3.1
Using the Quick Start Guide
1. Click the Read the Quick Start Guide link.
2. When the Quick Start Guide opens, read the first paragraph, and then click the Learn How
to Deploy Office SharePoint Server 2007 on a Single Server link.
3. Review the following topics in this section:
Configure Incoming Email Settings
Configure Outgoing Email Settings
Create SharePoint Sites
Configure Diagnostic Logging Settings
Configure Antivirus Protection Settings
4. Scroll back to the top of the page, and click the Find More Information about Office Share-
Point Server 2007 Deployments link.
5. Record both the names and the URLs of the links you find there including Office SharePoint
Server TechCenter, Office SharePoint Server Technical Library, and Office System Center.
(You can copy and paste them into a Notepad document temporarily.)
6. Click the back arrow in your browser to return to Central Administration.
E X E R C I S E 3 . 2
Adding Resource Links
1. On the Home tab of the Central Administration site, under the Resources web part, click
Add New Link.
2. In the Type the Web Address field of the URL area, type or paste the URL to Office Share-
Point Server TechCenter.
Central Administration Post-Installation Tasks 89
As previously mentioned, this section doesn’t just cover doing post-install tasks, but tracking
their status as well. Since you’ve just completed the READ FIRST task, you’ll need to update its
status. You could just delete it, but the information contained in the task might come in handy
later. Exercise 3.3 will show you how to edit a task item.
3. In the Type the Description field, type or paste Office SharePoint Server TechCenter.
4. Click OK to add the link.
5. Repeat steps 1 through 4 to add links to the Office SharePoint Server Technical Library
and Office System Center.
You now have easy access to these resources from Central Administration. These web pages
have a great deal of useful information about SharePoint 2007, so take a look when you get
a moment.
When you first visit these sites from Central Administration, you will likely be prompted to
add them to your trusted sites in Internet Explorer.
E X E R C I S E 3 . 3
Managing Tasks
1. On the Home tab of Central Administration, click the READ FIRST – Click This Link for
Deployment Instructions link.
2. Click the Edit Item button.
3. In the Status area, click the drop-down menu arrow, and select Completed.
4. In the Assigned To area, click the Browse icon to the right of the text field.
5. In the Find field of the Select People and Groups dialog box, type administrator, and click
the Find magnifying lens icon.
6. When the list of matches appears, select the administrator for your server (which should
be the account you are currently using), and click OK.
7. In the % Complete area, type 100 in the available field.
8. In the Start Date area, either type the starting date for this task or click the calendar to the
right and select a date, and then click the hours and minutes arrows to select a time.
EXERCISE 3.2 ( c o n t i n u e d )
90 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
Performing Post-Installation Tasks
for a Stand-Alone Server
Now that you’ve become familiar with the Central Administration site and finished the preliminaries,
it’s time to get SharePoint 2007 configured and ready to use. As you’ll recall from
Exercise 3.1, when you were reviewing the Quick Start Guide, you saw a list of five tasks to
perform in the Learn How to Deploy Office SharePoint Server 2007 on a Single Server section.
Most of the items on that list are the next several exercises you will perform on your Share-
Point server.
9. In the Due Date area, repeat the tasks you performed in step 8 to specify a date and time
for the completion of this task. Your changes should look like the screen shown here.
10. Click OK.
You are taken back to the Central Administration Home tab after you click OK, and you can see
that the READ FIRST task no longer appears in the Administrator Tasks list. If you click the
More Items link at the bottom of the list, you’ll see that the READ FIRST task is still present and
is marked Completed in the Status column.
EXERCISE 3.3 ( c o n t i n u e d )
Central Administration Post-Installation Tasks 91
Installing SMTP Service in SharePoint Server 2007
The first task listed in the Quick Start Guide is Configure Incoming E-mail Settings; however,
you won’t be able to do this without access to a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server.
Although in a production environment, you would use Exchange Server, for the purposes of
configuring email on a stand-alone computer, you can install the SMTP service on the same
machine running SharePoint Server 2007.
The reason for installing SMTP on your server and performing the subsequent email-related
tasks is to give SharePoint the ability to process emails and add email content to SharePoint elements
such as lists and libraries. SharePoint can use its own built-in SMTP virtual server to perform
these tasks and accept mail from other mail servers including those running Exchange. Since your
users will likely be accessing their emails using the Microsoft Office Outlook email client, you will
also be installing the Post Office Protocol (POP) 3 service. Exercise 3.4 will take you through the
steps of installing the SMTP and POP 3 services. This activity cannot be performed in Central
Administration; instead, you’ll be installing these services on your Windows Server 2003 machine.
E X E R C I S E 3 . 4
Installing the SMTP and POP 3 Services on Windows Server 2003
1. Click Start Control Panel Add or Remove Programs.
2. Click the Add/Remove Windows Components button to the left of the Programs list. The
Windows Components Wizard will appear.
3. Click Application Server to select it, as shown here, and then click the Details button (you
don’t have to tick the check box).
92 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
Configuring Incoming Email
Now that SMTP has been installed on your server, you’ll be able to configure incoming emails
for SharePoint. Once this feature has been enabled, SharePoint will be able to accept and archive
emails and email discussions, save email messages, and display emailed meetings on SharePoint
site calendars. If you enable SharePoint Directory Management Service, SharePoint will be able
to provide email distribution list creation and management services.
SharePoint Directory Management Service can be enabled only on a Share-
Point server that is a member of an Active Directory domain.
Exercise 3.5 will take you through the process of configuring SharePoint’s incoming
email settings.
4. When the Application Server dialog box appears, click Internet Information Services (IIS)
to select it, and then click the Details button. (Again, you don’t have to tick the check box.)
5. Tick the SMTP Service check box, and click OK. Then click OK again in the Applications
Server dialog box.
6. Click OK, and in the Windows Components Wizard dialog box, tick the E-mail Services
check box. Then click the Details button.
7. Verify that both the POP 3 Service and the POP 3 Service Web Administration check
boxes are ticked, and click OK.
8. In the Windows Components Wizard dialog box, click Next (insert your Windows Server
2003 installation CD if prompted to do so).
9. When the Completing the Windows Components Wizard dialog box appears, click Finish.
(Remove the Windows Server 2003 installation CD if you previously inserted it.)
10. Close Add or Remove Programs.
Depending on your server’s configuration, SMTP and POP 3 may already have been installed.
E X E R C I S E 3 . 5
Configuring Incoming Email Settings
1. On the Central Administration site, click the Operations tab.
2. Under Topology and Services, click the Incoming Email Settings link.
3. Under Enable Sites on This Server to Receive Email, click Yes.
EXERCISE 3.4 ( c o n t i n u e d )
Central Administration Post-Installation Tasks 93
Configuring Outgoing Email
When you configure outgoing email settings, you allow SharePoint’s SMTP service to send
email alerts and notifications to site administrators. Also, SharePoint users can receive email
alerts from the system when they elect to be notified if there is a change in their SharePoint content.
An example is a user named Mary receiving an email alert when one of her documents
is approved or rejected in the workflow process.
4. Under Settings, click Automatic to accept the default settings. (If you click Advanced, you
have to specify an external mail server to provide SMTP services for SharePoint.)
5. Under Use the SharePoint Directory Management Service to Create Distribution Groups
and Contacts, click No.
6. Under Email Server Display Address, the hostname for your server should already be
populating the available text field. If not, type in the hostname for your server.
7. Click Accept Mail from All Email Servers. (If you click Accept Mail from These Safe Email
Servers, you would have to add the IP addresses, one per line, of each email server from
which to accept mail.)
8. Click OK. You are taken back to the Operations tab in Central Administration.
If you had clicked Yes in step 5 to use Directory Management Service, you would have been
required to specify an Active Directory container where distribution groups and contact
objects would be created in SharePoint. After clicking Yes, you would have gone through
the following steps:
1. In the Directory Management Service URL box, type the URL of the SharePoint Directory
Management Service.
2. In the E-mail Server Display address box, type the email server name, such as
mail.sharepoint.wiredwriter.net.
3. Click either Yes or No next to Does the Directory Management Service Manage
Distribution Lists?
4. Click either Yes or No next to Should Distribution Lists Accept Mail Only from Authenticated
Senders?
5. In the Incoming Email Server Display Address section, type a display name for the email
server, such as mail.wiredwriter.net, in the Email Server Display address box.
Once you have completed this task, it’s a good idea to go back to the Administrator Tasks list
on the Home tab and mark this job as completed and to continue this practice for all subsequent
exercises. See Exercise 3.3 for the details.
EXERCISE 3.5 ( c o n t i n u e d )
94 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
Configuring outgoing emails can actually involve two processes: setting up the default outgoing
email settings for SharePoint users and overriding the default settings for web applications.
Exercise 3.6 will show you how to configure the default settings for outgoing emails.
Setting the outgoing mail settings for SharePoint web applications is nearly identical to
what’s shown in Exercise 3.6. (You need to perform this task only if you want web applications
to use different outgoing mail settings than those you configured in Exercise 3.6.)
Simply click the Application Management tab on the Central Administration website,
and under SharePoint Web Application Management, click the Web Application Outgoing
E-mail Settings link. Then, perform steps 3 through 7 in Exercise 3.6, specifying the SMTP
server, From Address, Reply-to Address, and Character Set options you want for outgoing
web application emails.
The next task on the list is Create SharePoint Sites; however, since Chapter 4, “Building Sites
and Site Collections,” covers this activity in a great deal of detail, we’ll step out of order and move
on to configuring diagnostic logging. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to create and manage
SharePoint sites as we progress.
Configuring Diagnostic Logging
If something goes wrong, you will want to know about it, and your customers will want
you to quickly fix any SharePoint service or feature that goes awry. Enabling diagnostic
logging will allow you to use a number of troubleshooting tools on your server including
event messages, trace logs, user-mode error messages, and Customer Experience Improvement
Program events.
Exercise 3.7 will show you the steps in enabling this important server management feature.
EXERCISE 3.6
Configuring Outgoing Email Settings
1. If you aren’t there already, click the Operations tab on the Central Administration website.
2. Under Topology and Services, click the Outgoing Email Settings link.
3. On the Outgoing Email Settings page under Outbound SMTP Server, type the hostname for
the SMTP server managing outbound mail, such as mail.wiredwriter.net, in the text field.
4. Under From Address, type the email address you want to appear to email recipients.
5. Under Reply-to Address, type the email address to which you want email recipients
to reply.
6. Under the Character Set menu, select the character set appropriate for your language
(accept the default setting for English).
7. Click OK.
Central Administration Post-Installation Tasks 95
E X E R C I S E 3 . 7
Configuring Diagnostic Logging
1. Click the Operations tab in the Central Administration website.
2. Under Logging and Reporting, click the Diagnostic logging link.
3. On the Diagnostic Logging page under Sign Up for the Customer Experience Improvement
Program, click Yes, I Am Willing to Participate Anonymously in the Customer Experience
Improvement Program (Recommended) if you want SharePoint users to have the
option of reporting customer experience improvement program events to Microsoft.
4. Under Error Reporting, click Collect Error Reports, and then tick either or both of the check
boxes below depending on your requirements. (Changing the computer’s default error collection
policy to send all reports by ticking the second check box will be very resource intensive.)
5. Under Event Throttling, use the Select a Category drop-down menu to choose a category
of events on which you want to control throttling such as All, Administration, Communication,
and so on.
6. Under Least Critical Event to Report to the Event Log, use the drop-down menu to choose
an event type such as Information, Warning, Error, and so on.
7. Under Least Critical Event to Report to the Trace Log, use the drop-down menu to choose
an event type such as Medium, High, Unexpected, and so on.
8. Under Trace Log in the Path field, either accept the default path or type the path where
you want the trace log to be written.
9. Under Number of Log Files, type the maximum number of log files for the system to maintain,
and under Number of Minutes to Use a Log File, type how long you want events to be
captured to a single log file. Your screen should look like the one shown here.
96 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
Configuring Antivirus Protection
You must already have an antivirus application installed on your Windows Server 2003 machine
to set up this feature, and the antivirus program must be designed to work with SharePoint
Server 2007. Microsoft’s TechNet site for SharePoint Server doesn’t yield any information about
which antivirus programs would work with SharePoint, but information under Beta 2 Updates
and Compatibility at the following URL seems to indicate that one such program is Symantec’s
Norton AntiVirus scanner: http://www.microsoft.com/uk/office/preview/faq.mspx.
Configuring antivirus lets SharePoint scan documents for viruses on upload to and download
from the system. If you don’t have such an application installed on your Windows Server 2003
machine, you will not be able to successfully perform Exercise 3.8.
10. Click OK.
You can repeat steps 5 through 7 to individually configure separate event categories, or select
All in step 5 and let the settings you made in steps 6 and 7 apply to all event categories.
E X E R C I S E 3 . 8
Configuring Antivirus Protection in SharePoint Server
1. If you aren’t already there, click the Operations tab on the Central Administration website.
2. Under Security Configuration, click the Antivirus link.
3. Under Antivirus Settings, tick the Scan Documents on Upload check box if you want
documents to be scanned before being uploaded into SharePoint.
4. Tick the Scan Documents on Download check box if you want documents to be scanned
before being downloaded from SharePoint.
5. Tick the Allow Users to Download Infected Documents check box if you want SharePoint
users to be able to perform this action. (You really don’t want to allow users to be able
to download infected documents. The only time this would be appropriate is if you need to
recover the content, and the only way to do so is to download the infected document to an
isolated machine and then delete the infection.)
6. Tick the Attempt to Clean Infected Documents check box if you want SharePoint to
perform this action.
7. In the Time Out Duration (in Seconds) field, type the number of seconds you want the
antivirus program to run before it times out. You should usually accept the default values
unless the vendor of your antivirus solution has other recommended settings.
EXERCISE 3.7 ( c o n t i n u e d )
Central Administration Post-Installation Tasks 97
Configuring Usage Analysis and Reporting
Although this task wasn’t on the list for stand-alone server configuration, it is one of the objectives
for the certification exam and does tie in with the other tasks we’ve been performing.
Exercise 3.9 will show you the steps to configure usage analysis and reporting.
Performing Post-Installation Tasks for a Server Farm
Although you have finished most of the initial post-installation tasks for a stand-alone Share-
Point server, there are still a number of additional jobs for SharePoint on a server farm. In a
server farm configuration, SharePoint Server 2007 must be installed on all front-end web servers,
and then the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard must be run on all of
8. In the Number of Threads field, type the number of execution threads on the server that
the virus scanner may use.
9. Click OK.
If you do not have an antivirus program running on your server, the options in steps 6 through 8
will not be available.
EXERCISE 3.9
Configuring Usage Analysis and Reporting
1. In Central Administration, click the Operations tab.
2. Under Logging and Reporting, click the Usage Analysis Processing link.
3. On the Usage Analysis Processing page under Logging Settings, tick the Enable Logging
check box.
4. In the Log File Location field, either specify a location where you want the log file to write
or accept the default location.
5. In the Number of Log Files to Create box, specify the number of log files (between 1 and 30)
you want to create.
6. Under Processing Settings, tick the Enable Usage Analysis Processing check box.
7. Under Run Processing Between These Times Daily, use the drop-down menus to choose
a starting and ending time.
8. Click OK.
EXERCISE 3.8 ( c o n t i n u e d )
98 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
those servers. Once that is done, Microsoft recommends that the following post-installation
tasks be performed:
Configure the shared services provider.
Configure services.
Configure indexing.
Create a web application and site collection.
Start and configure Excel Calculation Services.
Create alternate access mappings.
Configure incoming email settings.
Configure outgoing email settings.
Configure diagnostic logging settings.
Configure antivirus protection settings.
As you can see, you’ve already completed a number of these actions in the previous sections
of this chapter. We’ll address creating a web application and site collection in Chapter 4,
“Building Sites and Site Collections,” and starting and configuring Excel Calculation Services
in Chapter 12, “Using Excel Services and Business Intelligence.”
Configuring the Shared Services Provider
As you probably recall from Chapter 1, “Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint
Server 2007,” unless you have a very good reason to do so, you should use just one SSP for
your server farm. That said, you will also recall that there are a number of good reasons to
create more than one SSP. In addition to creating SSPs, there are a number of other related
tasks to perform:
Create a new SSP.
Restore an SSP.
Edit SSP settings.
Delete an SSP.
Change the default SSP.
Change SSP associations.
Most of the tasks in this list can’t be performed if you are running only one SSP. You can’t
restore an SSP unless one was previously deleted or delete an SSP if you have only one running
in the server farm. The same is true for changing the default SSP or changing web application
associations to SSPs. The only task you would be likely to perform from the list on a single SSP
running on a stand-alone server is editing its properties.
Editing SSP Settings
In terms of how your stand-alone server running SharePoint Server 2007 is set up, there is no
practical reason to change the default SSP settings. However, walking through the properties
of your current SSP will help you understand more about how it works:
1. In Central Administration, click the Application Management tab.
Central Administration Post-Installation Tasks 99
2. Under Office SharePoint Server Shared Services, click the Create or Configure This Farm’s
Shared Services link.
3. Use the drop-down arrow to the right of SharedServices1 (Default), and in the menu click
Edit Properties. Not every property in your existing SSP will be available for modification.
Under SSP Name in the SSP Name field, you can edit the name of your SSP, but you
can’t change the SSP Administration Site URL.
Under My Site Location, you can’t change the My Site Location URL.
Under SSP Service Credentials, you can change the username and password in the
available fields.
Under SSP Database, you can’t change the Database Server and Database Name as
shown in Figure 3.8, but you can switch between Windows and SQL authentication
and specify an account name and password.
The same is true under Search Database.
Under Index Server, you can’t change the index server, but you can edit the path for the
index file location. (You must use stsadm to actually move the index.)
To learn more about the stsadm command line utility, see Chapter 14, “Performing
Advanced SharePoint Management.”
Under SSL for Web Services, you can choose to enable SSL by selecting Yes. (The
default is No.)
4. Click OK when you’re done editing the SSP properties.
FIGURE 3 . 8 Edit Shared Services Provider page
100 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
Creating a New SSP
Although a default SSP is created when you install SharePoint Server 2007 on a stand-alone
server, this isn’t necessarily the case when you install a server farm. It is possible at the end of the
installation process to configure other features first. After Configuring SharePoint Products and
Technologies wizard has run, you can start the SharePoint Server Search service, set up Search
Configuration Administration, create a web application for the portal site, and create the first
SSP. After that, you can create the first SharePoint portal.
The steps leading up to the creation of the SSP must be followed in the order presented, or it
won’t be possible to create the SSP. Only after all those steps including SSP creation are complete
are you able to create the portal site:
1. In Central Administration, click the Application Management tab.
2. Under Office SharePoint Server Shared Services, click the Create or Configure This Farm’s
Shared Services link.
3. On the Manage this Farm’s Shared Services page, click the New SSP button.
4. Under SSP Name, you can specify the name of the new SSP and the web application you
want associated with the SSP, or if the web app doesn’t exist, you can create it.
5. Under My Site Location, you can specify a web application, create a new web application,
and specify a relative URL to the My Site location.
6. Under SSP Service Credentials, either type the name of an authorized account in the Username
field and click the Check Names icon or click the Browse icon and search for an
account name. Type the password in the Password field.
7. Under both SSP Database and Search Database, you can specify the database server, the
database name, and the type of authentication to use to connect to the database.
8. The options under Index Server and SSL for Web Services are the same as when you edit
SSP settings.
You’ll learn more about creating web applications as referenced in steps 4
and 5 in Chapter 4, “Building Sites and Site Collections.”
Restoring an SSP
If your SSP becomes corrupt or is compromised, it will be necessary to restore it from the most
recent backup. The following describes the restoration process:
1. On the Manage This Farm’s Shared Services page, click Restore SSP.
2. Under the SSP Name section, in the SSP Name text field, type a name for the restored SSP.
3. On the Web Application menu, click a web application that will host an administration
site for the restored SSP.
4. If you want to create a new web application to host an administration site for the restored
SSP, click Create a New Web Application.
Central Administration Post-Installation Tasks 101
5. Under the SSP Service Credentials section, in the Username box and Password box, type
the user name and password that will be used by SSP web services for communications
between servers and the SSP timer service for running jobs.
6. Under the SSP Database section, in the Database Server text field, type the name of the
database server.
7. In the Database Name text field, type the name of the database. (Using the default is
recommended.)
8. Under Database Authentication, select one of the following:
Windows Authentication (recommended).
SQL Authentication. If you select SQL authentication, type the account credentials in
the Account and Password boxes.
9. Under the Search Database section, in the Database Server text field, type the name of the
database server.
10. In the Database Name text field, type the name of the search database. (Using the default
is recommended.)
11. Under Database Authentication, select one of the following:
Windows Authentication (recommended).
SQL Authentication. If you select SQL authentication, type the account credentials in
the Account and Password boxes.
12. Under the Index Server section, click an index server on the Index Server menu.
13. In the Path for Index File Location field, type the path of the index server that will be used
by the restored SSP to crawl content. (You must use stsadm to actually move the index.)
14. The options under Index Server and SSL for Web Services are the same as when you edit
SSP settings.
15. Click OK.
Deleting an SSP
If you delete an SSP, any web applications that are associated with that SSP become associated
with the default SSP. You cannot delete the default SSP.
1. On the Manage This Farm’s Shared Services page, select the SSP you want to delete, and
click Delete.
2. Click OK in the message box confirming you want to delete the SSP.
Changing the Default SSP
Web applications are automatically associated with the default SSP when they are created to
ensure they have access to necessary shared services. You can change which SSP is the default
SSP by following these steps:
1. On the Manage This Farm’s Shared Services page, click Change Default SSP.
2. On the Change Default Shared Services Provider page, on the SSP Name menu in the
Shared Services Provider section, click the SSP you want to set as the default SSP.
102 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
3. Click OK. A Warning page will appear where you can read the implications of changing
the default SSP.
4. If you want to change the default SSP, click OK.
Changing SSP Associations
Each web application is associated with a single SSP. More than one web application can be
associated with the same SSP:
1. On the Manage This Farm’s Shared Services page, click Change Associations.
2. On the Change Associations between Web Applications and SSPs page, in the SSP Name
menu under the Shared Services Provider section, click the SSP with which you want to
associate web applications.
3. Under the Web Applications section, tick the check boxes for each web application you
want to be associated with the specified SSP. To select all of the web applications, tick the
Select All check box.
4. Click OK.
Configuring Services
The primary service to configure in this section is Search, which will be covered in detail in
Chapter 9, “Managing SharePoint Navigation and Search.” The other major task in this area
is to determine which services are hosted by which servers.
The following takes you through the process of enabling various services within the
server farm:
1. In Central Administration, click the Operations tab.
2. Under Topology and Services, click the Services on Server link.
3. On the Services on Server for the current server under Server, click the down arrow next
to the server name, and then click Change Server.
The action in step 3 isn’t necessary if you are already on the desired server.
4. Under Select Server Role to Display Services You Will Need to Start in the Table
Below, you can select the role you want for the currently selected server. Your options
are as follows:
Single Server or Web Server for Small Server Farms
Web Server for Medium Server Farms
Search Indexing
Excel Calculation
Custom
Central Administration Post-Installation Tasks 103
5. Next to View, click the down arrow, and select either All or Configurable to see a list of
all the services running on the server or just a list of services that can be configured.
6. View the names of the running services in the list as well as their status (Started or Stopped)
and an action (Stop or Start).
7. Click the When Finished, Return to the Central Administration Home Page link when you
are done on this page.
If you walked through these steps on your stand-alone server, you probably noticed that
all the selections in step 4 were unavailable and Single Server or Web Server for Small Server
Farms was selected by default. If you suspect that one of the services on the server was stopped
and you wanted to start it, this would be the appropriate place to visit.
Configuring Indexing
As you recall from Chapter 1, “Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007,”
Index is a service that crawls content in SharePoint and creates searchable index tables, allowing
you to locate and access content more easily. For indexing to function, you need to configure the
default content access account. To do so, follow these steps:
1. In Central Administration, click the Application Management tab.
2. Under Office SharePoint Server Shared Services, click the Create or Configure This Farm’s
Shared Services link.
3. On the Manage This Farm’s Shared Services page, click the arrow to the right of
SharedServices1 (Default) or the name of the desired SSP, and select Open Shared
Services Admin Site.
4. On the Shared Services Administration Home page under Search, click the Search
Settings link.
5. On the Configure Search Settings page under Crawl Settings, click the Default Content
Access account link.
6. Under Default Content Access Account in the Account field, type a valid account name.
7. In the Password field, type the password for the specified account, and type it again in the
Confirm Password field.
8. Click OK.
For your stand-alone server, the account NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE
has already been set up for indexing.
9. To manage content sources, under Crawl Settings click the Content Sources and Crawl
Schedules link.
104 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
10. Click the arrow to the right of Local Office SharePoint Server sites, and choose from
among the following menu items:
Edit
View Crawl Log
Start Full Crawl
Start Incremental Crawl
11. Add a new content source by clicking the New Content Source button.
12. The status of the service, the next full crawl scheduled, and the next incremental crawl
scheduled are also visible on this page.
13. Click the Shared Services Administration: SharedServices1 link in the upper left of the
page to return to Shared Services Administration Home.
14. Click the Shared Services Administration link to return to the Manage This Farm’s Shared
Services page.
15. Click the Central Administration link to return to Central Administration’s Home tab.
Chapter 9, “Managing SharePoint Navigation and Search” will cover indexing
in more detail.
Creating Alternate Access Mappings
If you install and configure Office SharePoint Server 2007 on a single front-end web server and
a user browses to your server, the server will render the content that is in your web application.
However, if you add subsequent front-end web servers to your server farm, the newly added
servers will not have alternate access mappings configured to your web application.
It would be as if you took your current setup and started adding more web servers. Right
now, this task is unnecessary, but it becomes necessary if you try to grow your server farm.
Actually, as you recall, you can’t directly upgrade a stand-alone server installation
to a server farm installation.
To map newly added front-end web servers to your existing web application, you need to
perform several different tasks, depending on your exact goal. To get started, go to Central
Administration, and click the Operations tab. Then, under Global Configuration, click the
Alternate Access Mappings link.
Editing an Internal URL
To edit an internal URL to create a mapping between a newly added front-end web server and
a web application, follow these steps:
1. On the Alternate Access Mappings page, and click one of the internal URLs to open it.
Central Administration Post-Installation Tasks 105
2. In the URL Protocol, Host and Port box, edit the server name and port number, such as
http://svr01:27391.
3. Use the Zone drop-down menu to select a zone type. Your options are as follows:
Default
Intranet
Internet
Custom
Extranet
4. Click OK.
Editing a Public URL
To create a mapping between a newly added web server and a web application on a public URL,
follow these steps:
1. On the Alternate Access Mappings page, click the Edit Public URLs button.
2. If the mapping collection that you want to modify is not selected, on the Edit Public Zone
URLs page, in the Alternate Access Mapping Collection section, click Change Alternate
Access Mapping Collection on the Alternate Access Mapping Collection menu.
3. On the Select an Alternate Access Mapping Collection page, click a mapping collection.
4. In the Public URLs section, you may add new URLs or edit existing URLs in any of the
following text boxes:
Default
Intranet
Extranet
Internet
Custom
5. Click Save.
Creating an External Resource Mapping
To create a mapping between a newly added web server and a web application that exists
outside of the SharePoint server farm, follow these steps:
1. On the Alternate Access Mappings page, click the Map to External Resource button.
2. In the Resource Name field, type the name of the resource.
3. In the URL Protocol, Host and Port box, type the relevant information for the new source
such as http://svr01:27391.
4. Click Save.
106 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
Adding an Internal URL
The following will show you how to add a new internal URL mapping to a newly added
web server:
1. On the Alternate Access Mappings page, click the Add Internal URLs button.
2. If the mapping collection that you want to modify is not selected, on the Add Internal
URLs page in the Alternate Access Mapping Collection section, select Change Alternate
Access Mapping Collection from the Alternate Access Mapping Collection menu.
3. On the Select an Alternate Access Mapping Collection page, click a mapping collection.
4. In the Add Internal URL section, in the URL Protocol, Host and Port box, type the new
internal URL, such as http://svr01:27391.
5. In the Zone list, click the zone for the internal URL.
6. Click Save.
Summary
In this chapter, you learned about how to use the SharePoint Central Administration web
application to perform the initial configuration tasks for both a SharePoint stand-alone server
and a server farm. The chapter covered the following topics:
The features available on the Home, Operations, and Application Management tabs in
Central Administration
Organizing post-installation tasks including how to manage tasks, add resource links, and
consult the Quick Start Guide
Installing the SMTP and POP 3 services so that you can set up outgoing and incoming
mail services in SharePoint
Configuring incoming mail services so SharePoint can receive and archive email content
and add it to lists and libraries
Configuring outgoing mail services so that SharePoint administrators and users can
receive email alerts and notifications
Configuring diagnostic logging and Usage Analysis and Reporting so that SharePoint
administrators can use these tools for management and troubleshooting in SharePoint
Configuring antivirus protection so that documents can be scanned when being uploaded
to or downloaded from SharePoint
Setting up and editing SSPs
Managing and editing services on a server or server farm
Configuring the content access account so that the Indexing Service can crawl data in
SharePoint and create a searchable index table
Creating an alternate access mapping to allow for data crawling as you add front-end
web servers
Exam Essentials 107
Exam Essentials
Know how to manage the Central Administration user interface. When configuring features
and services in SharePoint Server 2007, know which tasks must be performed first in both a
stand-alone server installation and a server farm. Be familiar with what resources are available
on the Home, Operations, and Application Management tabs. Know how to manage and track
administrative tasks.
Know how to manage the shared services provider. Know how to locate the Manage This
Farm’s Shared Services page from the Home and Operations tabs and what features are located
on that page. Be able to locate the default SSP administration web page, and understand how to
configure and manage shared services from this interface. Finally, know how to create, edit, and
perform other tasks related to SSPs.
Understand how to configure Usage Analysis and Reporting and diagnostic logging.
Know how to configure diagnostic logging so that you can access troubleshooting tools
such as event messages, trace logs, user-mode error messages, and Customer Experience
Improvement Program events. Understand how to configure Usage Analysis and Reporting
so you can enable logging, specify the number of log files you want created, and set a
start and stop time for process logging.
108 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
Review Questions
1. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You have been tasked by your CTO with
making several configuration changes in the SharePoint server farm in Central Administration.
You use Remote Desktop to connect to a server and then click Start All Programs Microsoft
Office Server SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration. What appears on the monitor?
A. The Central Administration site at the Home tab
B. The Central Administration site at the Operations tab
C. The Central Administration site at the Application Management tab
D. The Central Administration site at the Configuration tab
2. You are a SharePoint administrator, and you want to modify some of the site settings in the
SharePoint Central Administration site. You know you can click Site Actions in the upper-right
corner of the home tab and click Site Settings to begin your work. Is there any other location
where you can find Site Actions in Central Administration?
A. No, you can find only Site Actions on the Home tab.
B. Yes, you can find Site Actions on the Operations tab.
C. Yes, you can find Site Actions on the Application Management tab.
D. Yes, you can find Site Actions on the Home, Operations, and Application Management tabs.
3. You are the SharePoint Server 2007 administrator for the Callisto Software Applications
Company. In response to Callisto having recently purchased both Ananke Dynamics, Inc.,
and Elara Development Corp, you need to create an entirely new shared services provider
(SSP) in your server farm to meet the changing requirements for SharePoint. You plan to
delete the single existing SSP and create a new one. What are the first steps you must take?
A. You must create a new SSP first before you can delete your only currently existing SSP in
the server farm.
B. On the Shared Services Admin Site under Manage Shared Services, click the Create and
Delete link, and then click the Delete Current SSP button. The SSP will be deleted, and
you’ll automatically be taken to the Create a New SSP page.
C. On the Manage this Farm’s Shared Services page, click to the right of SharedServices1
(Default), and then click Delete. The default SSP will be deleted, and you’ll be taken to the
Create a New SSP page.
D. You cannot create a second SSP in a server farm. You must either edit this SSP to meet your
needs or create a new server farm with an SSP that meets your needs. Then you must connect
the web applications in the original server farm to the SSP in the new server farm.
Review Questions 109
4. You are the SharePoint Server 2007 administrator for the Callisto Software Applications company.
You have assigned the task of configuring diagnostic logging in the server farm to Jamie,
a member of your staff. She has just sent you an email telling you that the task has been completed.
You want to update the percentage of completion for this task in the Administrator
Tasks list in Central Administration. What do you need to do?
A. Click the task in the task list, click the Edit Item button, click the Status button, use the
drop-down arrow, and select Completed.
B. Click the task in the task list, click the Edit Item button, and in the % Complete area, type
100 in the available field.
C. Click the task in the task list, click the Edit Item button, and in the % Complete area, use
the drop-down arrow to select Completed.
D. Click the task in the task list, click the Edit Item button, and in the % Complete area, use
the drop-down arrow to select 100.
5. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You want to change the event throttling
configuration for the Communication events category and switch the Under Least Critical
Event to Report to the Event Log Setting from Warning to Error. Of the following options,
which task allows you to do this?
A. Configuring Usage Analysis and Reporting
B. Configuring Logging and Reporting
C. Configuring Diagnostic Logging
D. Configuring Event Throttling
6. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You have just installed a SharePoint
Server 2007 stand-alone server for evaluation purposes. You want to configure incoming mail
services. What must you do before you are able to perform this task?
A. Install SMTP services on SharePoint’s Virtual SMTP Server.
B. Install POP 3 services on Windows Server 2003.
C. Install SMTP and POP 3 services on Windows Server 2003.
D. None of the above.
7. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company, and you are configuring a newly
installed SharePoint Server 2007 server farm. You are in the process of setting up incoming
email services and want to enable SharePoint Directory Management so you can create email
distribution lists in SharePoint. What services must be present for you to accomplish your goal?
(Choose all that apply.)
A. Active Directory
B. Mail Services
C. SNMP
D. PHP
110 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
8. You are the SharePoint administrator for the Sinope Financial Group. Michael, a member of
your staff, is working with you to develop the plans for installing both a stand-alone Share-
Point server for evaluation and a full server farm that will subsequently be put into production.
You are discussing the differences in services that must immediately be configured after installation
in these two scenarios. You task Michael with creating a list of these services. Of the following
options, which ones must be configured only on a server farm immediately after
installation? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Configure diagnostic logging settings.
B. Configure antivirus protection settings.
C. Configure the shared services provider.
D. Configure indexing.
9. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company, and you have recently installed a Share-
Point server farm. You are performing several post-installation tasks and are about to configure
antivirus protection for SharePoint documents. Of the following options, what condition must be
met for you to be able to configure antivirus? While both a stand-alone and server farm deployment
require shared services, in a stand-alone installation, the shared services provider is created and
given a default configuration automatically.
A. A suitable antivirus software scanner must be installed on your Windows Server 2003 servers.
B. A suitable antivirus software scanner must be installed in Office SharePoint Server 2007.
C. Symantec’s Norton AntiVirus software scanner must be installed on your Windows
Server 2003 servers.
D. Symantec’s Norton Antivirus software scanner must be installed in Office SharePoint
Server 2007.
10. You are a trainee being instructed by Lin, the SharePoint administrator at the Lysithea Sporting
Goods Company. You are logged into SharePoint 2007 and are currently on the Home tab in
Central Administration. You are currently touring the different services and features available
and click the View All Site Content link. What are some of the categories you can see on this
page? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Lists
B. Discussion Boards
C. Shared Services Administration
D. Recycle Bin
11. You are the SharePoint Server 2007 administrator for the Callisto Software Applications
company. In response to Callisto having recently purchased both Ananke Dynamics, Inc.,
and Elara Development Corp, you need to edit some of the properties of the default SSP for
your server farm. Of the following selections, which are options that you are able to edit in
an SSP? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Under SSP Name, you can edit the name of your SSP in the SSP Name field.
B. Under SSP Name, you can change the SSP administration site URL.
C. Under SSL for Web Services, you can choose to enable SSL by selecting Yes.
D. Under Index Server, you can move the index from one server to another.
Review Questions 111
12. You have just configured the content access account for your SharePoint 2007 server farm in
order to enable the indexing service. You want to perform a test by manually starting a full
crawl. Of the following options, which one would you perform to do this?
A. On the Configure Search Settings page under Crawl Settings, click the Content Sources and
Crawl Schedules link. Then click the arrow to the right of Local Office SharePoint Server
sites, and click Start Full Crawl.
B. On the Manage This Farm’s Shared Services page, click the arrow to the right of
SharedServices1 (Default), and click Edit Properties. On the Service Settings Provider
Administration page, click the Crawl Schedules link under Local Office SharePoint
Server sites, and then click the Start Full Crawl button.
C. On the Configure Search Settings page under Crawl Settings, click the Content Sources and
Crawl Schedules link. Then click the Local Office SharePoint Server Sites link, and click the
Start Full Crawl button.
D. On the Configure Search Settings page under Crawl Settings, click the Content Sources and
Crawl Schedules link. Then click the arrow to the right of Local Office SharePoint Server
Sites, and select Edit Properties. Click to the right of the Schedule Properties link, and click
Start Full Crawl.
13. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company, and after having installed a Share-
Point stand-alone server, you are performing post-installation tasks. You want to restrict the
mail servers that the SMTP server running on your server will accept. Of the following choices,
which is the correct method of accomplishing this task?
A. Click Accept Mail from These Safe E-mail Servers, and add the IP addresses in the available
text box one address per line.
B. Click Accept Mail from These Safe E-mail Servers, and add the IP addresses in the available
text box using commas to separate addresses.
C. Click Accept Mail from the Following E-mail Servers Only, and add the IP addresses in the
available text box one address per line.
D. Click Accept Mail from the Following E-mail Servers Only, and add the IP addresses in the
available text box using commas to separate addresses.
14. You have recently added a number of new servers to your SharePoint 2007 server farm. As
a result, you need to change the roles some of your servers play in the farm. You are on the
Operations tab in the Central Administration site on a server named SRV03. Of the following
options, which are available server roles for this server? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Single Server or Web Server for Small Server Farms
B. Web Server for Medium Server Farms
C. Web Server for Large Server Farms
D. Custom
112 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
15. You are the new SharePoint administrator for the Ganymede Import-Export Company.
Ganymede has a preexisting SharePoint 2007 server farm, and you are currently familiarizing
yourself with how it’s set up. You want to take a look at the current User and Permissions
settings for the Central Administration (CA) site. You are currently logged in to
CA on the Home tab. What do you do next?
A. Click View All Site Content, and under Sites and Workplaces click the Security link. Then
on the Security Properties page, you’ll find the Users and Permissions category there.
B. Click the Operations tab, and Under Security Settings click Site Settings. You’ll find the
Users and Permissions category on that page.
C. Click Site Actions, and then click Site Settings. You’ll find the Users and Permissions
category on the Site Settings page.
D. Click View All Site Content. You’ll find the Users and Permissions category on that page.
16. You have installed a new SharePoint Server 2007 server farm, and Configuring SharePoint
Products and Technologies has just finished executing and committing the configuration to
SQL Server 2005. Of the following options, which ones must be in place before a SharePoint
portal site can be created? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Start the Office SharePoint Server Search service.
B. Start the Windows SharePoint Services Help Search service.
C. Create a web application for the portal site.
D. Create the first SSP.
17. You have just installed a SharePoint server farm and are performing post-installation tasks.
Right now, you are about to set up outgoing mail services so SharePoint can send out alerts and
notifications to administrators and users. You have decided to create a separate configuration
for outgoing emails for web applications. To start this configuration process, what should you
do first?
A. In Central Administration, click the Operations tab, and under Topology and Services
click the Outgoing Email Settings link.
B. In Central Administration, click the Application Management tab, and under SharePoint
Web Application Management click the Web Application Outgoing Email Settings link.
C. In Central Administration, click the Operations tab, and under Topology and Services
click the Web Application Outgoing Email Settings link.
D. In Central Administration, click the Application Management tab, and under SharePoint
Web Application Management click the Outgoing Email Settings link.
Review Questions 113
18. You are the new SharePoint administrator for the Ganymede Import-Export Company. You
have familiarized yourself with how the server farm and the SharePoint site collection have
been organized. You have several ideas for improving the site structure but want to check with
the technical and content managers in the company to see what options they’d prefer. The
relevant managers are located in a dozen offices around the world, and they all have access to
SharePoint Central Administration. You decide to create a survey on the CA site to allow these
managers to give input on the changes they’d like to see. Of the following options, which one
represents the steps to start creating a survey?
A. In Central Administration on the Operations tab, locate the Surveys category.
B. In Central Administration on the Operations tab, under Sites and Workspaces, click Surveys.
C. In Central Administration on the Home tab, click View All Site Content, and locate the
Surveys category.
D. In Central Administration on the Home tab, click View All Site Content, and under Sites
and Workspaces click Surveys.
19. You want to enable SharePoint Directory Management Service in SharePoint so you can create
email distribution lists. In one of the steps, you are required to specify a display name for the
incoming server. Although the name can be anything, what is the proper expression of the hostname
for an incoming mail server?
A. mail.adrastea.com
B. email.adrastea.com
C. exchange.adrastea.com
D. adrastea.mail.com
20. You have just finished restarting services on one of your web servers on the Services on Server
page and want to return to the Central Administration Home tab. Of the following options,
which one will accomplish this?
A. Clicking OK
B. Clicking Save
C. Clicking the When Finished, Return to the Central Administration Home Page link
D. Clicking the Save Work and Return to the Central Administration Home Page link
114 Chapter 3 Configuring SharePoint 2007
Answers to Review Questions
1. A. When you take the actions described in the question, you’ll arrive on the Central
Administration site at the Home tab. The tabs referred to in options B and C are valid, but
neither is opened by default when you open Central Administration. The tab mentioned in
option D is bogus.
2. D. Site Actions is a major feature on SharePoint sites including the Central Administration site
and can be accessed from all three tabs.
3. A. You cannot delete an SSP if it is the only SSP for your server farm. You must first create a
new SSP if you intend on deleting the original.
4. B. The steps presented in option B describe the correct way to update the percentage of completion
for this task. You can also change the status of this task to Completed, but that is in a
separate column.
5. C. Option C is the correct answer. When you configure Diagnostic Logging, you can select different
event categories and determine the minimum critical event type to write to a log.
6. D. None of the solutions presented in options A, B, and C is correct. For you to be able to configure
incoming mail services, you must install SMTP services on Windows Server 2003. POP 3
services are not necessary for incoming emails, and SMTP must be installed on the Windows
Server 2003 machine, not in SharePoint. POP 3 is a protocol used to transfer mail on a mail
server to a mail client such as Microsoft Office Outlook.
7. A and B. Distribution lists must be created in an Active Directory Organizational Unit (OU),
so Active Directory must be available. Mail Services includes SMTP and POP 3, and SMTP is
required for incoming mail. SNMP stands for Simple Network Management Protocol, and
PHP stands for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor. Neither of these services is related to incoming
mail, and they are not required.
8. C and D. Diagnostic logging and antivirus protection need to be set up in both stand-alone server
and server farm environments soon after installation. Shared services provider and indexing configurations
must be set up only in a server farm as initial post-installation tasks. While both a standalone
and server farm deployment require shared services, in a stand-alone installation, the shared
services provider is created and given a default configuration automatically.
9. A. You must install a software scanner application that is designed to work with SharePoint
Server 2007 on all your Windows Server 2003 machines. Although Symantec’s Norton Anti-
Virus scanner is suitable, it is not the only program that can be used.
10. A, B, and D. Shared Services Administration is not a category on the View All Site Content
page. The other answers are correct.
11. A and C. Under SSP Name, you can edit the text in the SSP Name field, but you can’t change the
SSP Administration Site URL. You can enable SSL under SSL for Web Services by choosing Yes.
Under Index Server, you can’t change the index server, but you can edit the path for the index
file location. To move the index, you need to use the stsadm command-line utility.
Answers to Review Questions 115
12. A. Option A correctly describes the sequence that will manually start a full crawl. The other
options are bogus.
13. A. After clicking Accept Mail from These Safe E-mail Servers, you must add the IP addresses
of the desired servers in the available text box, one address per line.
14. A, B, and D. There is no option for a web server role on a large server farm. The roles listed
are Single Server or Web Server for Small Server Farms, Web Server for Medium Server Farms,
Search Indexing, Excel Calculation, and Custom.
15. C. You can get to the Users and Permissions category and the links under it by following the
steps shown in option C.
16. A, C, and D. To create the first portal site in a SharePoint server farm, you need to start the
Office SharePoint Server Search service, create a web application for the portal site, and create
the first SSP if it doesn’t yet exist. Then you can create the portal site.
17. B. Although the steps in setting up outgoing mail and outgoing mail for web applications are
practically the same, outgoing mail is configured on the Operations tab, and outgoing mail for
web applications is set up on the Application Management tab.
18. C. Option C is the correct process for beginning to create a survey in the Central Administration
website. You can also click View All Site Content from any top-level site in SharePoint and
follow the same instructions to create a survey on that site.
19. A. Typically, the hostname of a mail server is in the format mail.domain.com.
20. C. Rather than presenting the traditional OK or Save button to save changes and return you
to a higher-level web page, you must click the link shown in option C to leave the Services on
Servers page and return to the Home tab in Central Administration.
Chapter
4
Building Sites and
Site Collections
MICROSOFT EXAM OBJECTIVES COVERED
IN THIS CHAPTER:
Configure Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Portal
Configure Site Management
Configure Personalization
Up to this point in the book, you’ve been introduced to Microsoft
Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, you’ve learned how to
plan for and install SharePoint Server in both a stand-alone and
server farm setup, and you’ve learned how to perform the initial configuration tasks to get Share-
Point up and running. However, right now you have SharePoint 2007 operating as a potential
rather than a realized resource for your customers.
In this chapter, you will be introduced to the concept of sites and site collections and then
take a tour of the default site templates. This will give you enough of a picture to move on to
actually planning a site collection by type and purpose. You’ll take a look at planning My Site
sites as a special situation.
After you have made all of your planning decisions, you’ll start the work of creating
sites and site collections in SharePoint 2007, which includes using different site templates
for different audiences and deploying your site collection plan into production.
This chapter will wrap up by showing you how to create a unique site and save it as a template.
Although many of the routine site maintenance tasks will be covered in other chapters, you’ll take
a tour of the Site Directory and see many of the site administration tools.
SharePoint Site and Site
Collection Overview
The concept of a website is fairly straightforward to people familiar with surfing the Web,
and if you consider it for a moment, so is a site collection. If you open a web browser and
go to
www.microsoft.com
, you’ll be taken to the main page for the site. Clicking any of the
links on the main page will take you to web pages that are underneath the main page. Unless
Microsoft changes its main page between the time I’m writing this chapter and the time you
get to read it, you should be able to look to the right side of the page and see a box called
“All Microsoft Sites.” That’s right, Microsoft.com isn’t a single, very big website but a
collection of websites.
Let’s take a look at this concept from the perspective of SharePoint. A site is the basic
container for all content presented by SharePoint, from quarterly reports to pictures of the
company picnic. SharePoint offers you the opportunity to organize all of your company’s
content in whatever structure best fits your corporate needs. It also lets you design and
create different websites for different customers or purposes.
SharePoint Site Templates
119
A single site is a container for various SharePoint elements such as libraries, lists, and other
information containers. A site can also be designed for particular uses or users such as when
creating a portal site, a team site, a document workspace site, and many others.
You’ll get a complete tour of SharePoint’s default site templates later in
this chapter.
All of this means you can create a main portal site within SharePoint for your business and
create any number of special-purpose websites beneath the portal site to suit your needs. You can
also use a hierarchy for site design, giving divisions, departments, and teams their own sites.
Each website beneath the portal and top-level sites is considered a subsite, and all of the sites and
subsites together make up the SharePoint site collection.
So, you can have a main portal site for your company, top-level sites for each major division
or group, and then specific, purpose-driven sites beneath the top-level sites. You can continue
to drill down the SharePoint site structure and create whatever subsites you need to fulfill your
requirements.
This may seem very abstract, so let’s take a more direct look at the specific building blocks
of your site collection, the default site templates.
SharePoint Site Templates
In previous versions of SharePoint, if you wanted to create a site for a specific purpose, you
had to take a basic template and heavily modify it to have it serve your needs. MOSS 2007
ships with a series of default site templates you have access to out of the box. Although you
can modify any default template so that it meets your requirements, very often you won’t have
to do so. The tools offered by the templates available will be more than sufficient most of the
time. Let’s take a closer look.
The Portal Site
When you installed SharePoint 2007 in a stand-alone server configuration, the default portal
site was automatically created, as you can see in Figure 4.1. The default portal site is not a template
as such, but it is designed to provide a standard structure to present information and
resources as the gateway site to your organization.
In Chapter 3, “Performing the Initial Site Management of SharePoint 2007,” you had
the opportunity to tour the SharePoint Central Administration (CA) site. The CA site uses the
same basic structure and organization as any other SharePoint site. Using the CA site as a starting
point, let’s take a moment to compare the appearance and features of the portal with the
Central Administration site on the Home tab.
120
Chapter 4
Building Sites and Site Collections
FIGURE 4 . 1
The default portal site
Both sites have tabs toward the top left of the page, and both sites, by default, open at the
Home tab. There is a set of navigation links in a list on the left side of the page known as Quick
Launch, and the top item in each list is View All Site Content. At the top right of each page is a
link for the account logged into the site, a My Site link, and a My Links link. There is also a Site
Actions link present on both sites.
Although there isn’t an Administrator Tasks list on the portal page, there are a number of
items suggesting what can be done to get started with SharePoint Server 2007 including creating
sites, pages, lists, and users.
View All Site Content
When you click View All Site Content, you see a page such as the one shown in Figure 4.2.
It is somewhat, but not exactly, the same as the All Site Content page in SharePoint Central
Administration. The specific categories and links underneath each one are shown in Table 4.1.
TABLE 4 . 1
Categories Under View All Site Content
Document Libraries Lists
Documents Contacts
Form Templates Content and Structure Reports
Images Events
SharePoint Site Templates
121
FIGURE 4 . 2
All Site Content page
Pages Links
Site Collection Documents Reusable Content
Site Collection Images Tasks
Style Library Workflow Tasks
Picture Libraries Discussion Boards
None (have to create) Team Discussion
Sites and Workspaces Surveys
Document Center None (have to create)
News
Reports
Search
Sites
TABLE 4 . 1
Categories Under View All Site Content
(continued)
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All of the same categories are present on the All Site Content pages for both the default portal
and Central Administration sites, but there are more options under some of the categories
for the portal page.
Tabs
Besides the Home tab, several other tabs are available on the portal site that aren’t in Central
Administration:
Document Center
News
Reports
Search
Sites
You’ll notice this list is identical to what appears under the Sites and Workspaces category
on the All Site Content page. I will discuss these areas in more detail as we progress.
Other Site Links and Site Actions
The links at the top right of the page, Welcome SRV01\administrator, My Site, and My Links,
respond the same way here as they do in CA; however, Site Actions offers additional menu
items, as shown in Figure 4.3.
FIGURE 4 . 3
Site Actions menu
SharePoint Site Templates
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As you can see, in addition to the Create Page, Edit Page, and Site Settings options, several
other selections appear.
The View All Site Content selection is just another link to the content I discussed previously.
The View Reports and Site Settings options have other menu options underneath them.
As we progress through this chapter and the rest of the book, you’ll have a chance to learn
more about them.
A few more options are available on this page:
I Need To…
Use this drop-down menu to select a particular task. By default, the only task
available when the portal site is first deployed is Setup MySite.
Employee Lookup
You can quickly look up any employee who is a registered SharePoint
user by typing their name in the available text field and clicking the Go Search button.
Top Sites
Top Sites is a content query tool part and is designed to display a dynamic set
of items based on a query you build using a web browser. You use the query to specify which
items are displayed, and you can set presentation options to determine how those items are displayed
on the finished page.
Site collections consist of portal sites, sites, and subsites. The building blocks for the sites in
the collection under the main portal site are the default SharePoint Server site templates.
News
Three sample links appear under News on the main page. These are bogus news items,
but you can replace them with authentic news by binding the news page web part with an RSS
feed. If you were to click one of the sample links, it would take you to a sample page on the
News tab.
You’ll learn more about web parts in Chapter 8, “Configuring Web Part Pages,
Web Parts, and Web Pages.”
Site Template Categories
There’s a specific organization to SharePoint site templates. This makes it easier to identify a
general purpose for the site you want to create and then look within that category for the particular
site that best fits your intent. Later in this chapter, when you actually start to create
sites, you’ll see the procedures for how to find each template, but first, let’s take a brief tour.
Each template contains different site and workspace elements, depending on the
purpose of the site template. Some contain a top-level site, which is like the index
page of a website. They can also contain subsites, which are like child sites to a
main website. They can also contain specialized sites such as those configured
with web parts and other design elements specifically for news sites, search
sites, and other specialized elements. You’ll learn the details about such elements
as libraries and lists in Chapter 7, “Configuring and Maintaining Lists and
Libraries,” and web parts and web part pages in Chapter 8, “Configuring Web
Part Pages, Web Parts, and Web Pages,” that will help you understand many of
these specifics.
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Collaboration
This collection of site templates is available to help your business by providing a platform for
sharing information and allowing collaborative efforts to be made by teams working together
on common documents and resources. The default site templates in the Collaboration category
are as follows:
Blank Site
A blank site for you to customize based on your requirements.
Document Workspace
A site for colleagues to work together on documents. It provides
a document library for storing the primary documents and supporting files, a tasks list for
assigning to-do items, and a links list to point to resources related to the documents.
Team Site
A site for a team to quickly organize, author, and share information. It provides a
document library and lists for managing announcements, calendar items, tasks, and discussions.
Blog Site
A site for a person or team to post ideas, observations, and expertise that site visitors
can comment on.
Wiki Site
A site for a community to brainstorm and share ideas. It provides web pages that
can be quickly edited to record information and then linked together through keywords.
Enterprise
This collection of site templates provides features designed for use in enterprises, either
because of their scale or because they provide features commonly used in large organizations.
The default site templates in the Enterprise category include the following:
Document Center
A site to centrally manage documents in your enterprise.
My Site Host
A site used for hosting personal sites. The home page will always redirect to
the user’s My Site.
Records Center
A site designed for records management. Records managers can configure
the routing table to direct incoming files to specific locations. The site prevents records from
being modified after they are added to it.
Search Center
A site for delivering the Office SharePoint Server 2007 advanced search options
including searching by information attributes such as file format, searching with Boolean logic,
and searching by some or all words in the search string.
Search Center with Tabs
A site for delivering the search experience. The welcome page
includes a search box with two tabs: one for general searches and another for searches for
information about people. You can add and customize tabs to focus on other search scopes
or result types.
Site Directory
A site for listing and categorizing other sites in your organization.
Meetings
This collection of site templates provides various site platforms that can be used to organize
many types of business meetings, from a weekly staff meeting to an annual stockholders’
report. The default site templates in the Meetings category are as follows:
SharePoint Site Templates
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Basic Meeting Workspace
A site to plan, organize, and capture the results of a meeting. It
provides lists for managing the agenda, meeting attendees, and documents.
Blank Meeting Workspace
A blank meeting site for you to customize based on your
requirements.
Decision Meeting Workspace
A site for meetings that track status or make decisions. It provides
lists for creating tasks, storing documents, and recording decisions.
Multipage Meeting Workspace
A site to plan a meeting and to capture the meeting’s decisions
and other results. It provides lists for managing the meeting agenda and attendees, along
with two blank pages for you to customize based on your requirements.
Social Meeting Workspace
A site to plan social occasions such as a birthday party or the
company picnic.
Publishing
This is a collection of site templates used for presenting information to a large group. These
templates include features that support creating and publishing pages based on page layouts.
The templates available here are portal sites used to present information to Internet or intranet
audiences. The default site templates in the Publishing category are as follows:
Collaboration portal
A starter site hierarchy for an intranet divisional portal. It includes
a home page, a news site, a site directory, a document center, and a search center with tabs.
Typically, this site has an equal number of contributors and readers. Collaboration portals
often include subsites based on templates in the Collaboration category.
Publishing portal
A starter site hierarchy for an Internet-facing site or a large intranet portal.
This site can be customized easily to supply distinctive branding. It includes a home page, a
sample press releases subsite, a search center, and a login page. Typically, this site has many
more readers than contributors.
This particular template category needs a bit more of an introduction since its role is so
significant to large audiences. Both templates are designed to operate as portal sites in the
same way as the default portal site. Portal sites are the entry point of an entire site collection
to underlying content. Although the default portal is constructed to be a general gateway,
the Collaboration and Publishing portals have more specific purposes.
The Collaboration portal contains the top-level site and four subsites, including a Document
Center site, a News site, a Search site, and a Site Directory site. Site collection features
include Collect Signatures Workflow, Disposition Approval Workflow, Office SharePoint
Server Publishing Infrastructure, Office SharePoint Server Standard Site Collection Features,
Reporting, Routing Workflows, and Translation Management Workflow.
The Publishing portal includes a top-level site and two subsites, which are a Press Releases
site and a Search site. Site collection features include Collect Signatures Workflow, Disposition
Approval Workflow, Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure, Routing Workflows,
and Translation Management Workflow.
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You can end up with multiple portal sites in your SharePoint site collection. The very toplevel
portal is the general gateway into your organization. Branching off, you can have a Collaboration
portal for your internal employees and a Publishing portal for the general public or
an extranet for customers or partners.
Planning a Site Collection Structure
A site collection is a grouping of websites with a number of common elements:
A shared top-level website
One or more subsites under the top-level site
A common owner for the collection
Shared administration settings
A common navigation structure
Other common features and elements
Based on what you learned in your tour of site templates, there are two primary areas where
decisions need to be made about the SharePoint site collection structure—the portal site structure
and the subsite structure.
Portal Sites
The following presents the different portal site decisions you can make based on your needs.
Collaboration
If you are deploying a MOSS 2007 site collection for the exclusive use of your company’s staff,
create a single Collaboration portal site. You can also accommodate interactions between
partners and employees on a single portal site by controlling content access based on which
privileges each group is assigned, or you can create two separate Collaboration sites, one for
only employees and another for partner-employee common projects.
Publishing
If you are deploying a SharePoint site collection for an external audience such as customers or
the general public, create one or more Publishing portal sites. A common scenario is to create
a Publishing site collection as an extranet for customers and another as an Internet site for the
general public. Of course, you can create links between the two sites, but customers will have
to authenticate before accessing the extranet.
Since Publishing portals are outward-facing by design, SharePoint administrators often create
the basic types such as production, authoring, and application:
The production site is the one your customers and the public see and use for business.
The authoring site is never viewable from the outside and is for the exclusive use of your
internal designers and authors. Changes to the Publishing site are made and tested on the
Planning a Site Collection Structure
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authoring site. Once approved, those changes can be deployed to the production site. This
gives SharePoint administrators and owners a chance to test and debug any changes
before they are released to an external audience.
The application portal site is used to provide external audiences with web-based access
to business information based on Microsoft application solutions such as Project Server,
Microsoft Excel Web Access, or some other business application. This type of portal is
used to view schedules and processes. Shared spreadsheets can be made available that
often include other business data from sources such as the data connection library, the
business data catalog, or some other source such as a timecard reporting application.
Sites and Subsites
Site collections, sites, and subsites are usually built from the top down. You started at the top
with your portal sites. The next step is to look at the site template level.
Templates
Referring to the earlier tour of SharePoint’s default site templates, you have a lot of options in
terms of site and subsite design elements. Once you’ve selected the required portal or portals, you
can create sites and subsites beneath the portal to service the customer. Start by defining the site
template category that best fits the needs of your audience.
For instance, let’s say you’ve just deployed a Collaboration portal for your intranet. You
have five departments, each of which needs its own sites beneath the portal, so you look in the
Collaboration template category and use the Team Site template to create sites for each department.
You can give each department its own blog and wiki sites for internal communication.
You can also create multiple sites for a department using different site templates.
You can create a unique site out of different elements such as web parts and
web part pages and save that site as a custom-made template. You’ll learn
more about this later in this chapter and in Chapter 8, “Configuring Web Part
Pages, Web Parts, and Web Pages.”
Users and Groups
Even though you’ve chosen an audience to serve with each of your portal site decisions, within
a single general group such as company employees, there will be smaller groups such as divisions,
departments, and teams that will need to have access to specific resources and will also need
security restrictions so that one team’s confidential data cannot be accessed by other groups.
You’ll learn more about users and groups in Chapter 5, “Managing Users and
Groups,” and more about security in Chapter 6, “Configuiring Authentication
and Security.”
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Site Navigation
What websites and web pages a particular audience is aware of depends on their security settings.
You may be surfing a site, whether on the company’s intranet or on the Internet, and
believe you are accessing all of its content, but your privileges on that site determine just how
far you can go, or even how much you can see.
Site navigation can be configured to display a unique set of links in each part of your site’s
hierarchy that reflects the relationships among the sites and subsites in a site collection. This
means you’ll need to plan your navigation link structure at the same time as your site and
subsite structure.
Search
Along with site navigation, site and subsite search can be configured so that only a subset of
the entire site collection contents is presented in the results of a search run from a certain location
in the collection. For example, you can specify that a particular subsite should never
appear in search results run from another subsite.
You’ll learn more about navigation and search in Chapter 9, “Managing
SharePoint Navigation and Search.”
Site Layouts and Web Pages
You can further customize individual sites and web pages within a site by making unique
layouts or master pages available in a subsite. You can also create a unique Welcome page
and other pages for sites and subsites.
You’ll learn more about web part pages, web parts, and web pages in
Chapter 8, “Configuring Web Part Pages, Web Parts, and Web Pages.”
Planning Site Collection Implementation
Once you’ve decided which types of portals, sites, and subsites you need to fulfill your goals,
you need to determine how to implement your decision across the site collection. Every site in
your site collection exists in an overall, hierarchical structure, and they are stored in the same
SQL Server. Often, sites within the collection will draw upon common resources such as document
and graphics libraries, links lists, permissions, template galleries, and content types.
Site collection structure is usually planned from the top down, as previously mentioned.
You’ve already made some portal site decisions based on the audience. The following are some
ways to implement those decisions.
Planning Site Collection Implementation 129
Implementing Portal Sites and Site Collections
The plan for portal sites is usually based on the scale and structure of your organization. Plan
to create one portal site for an entire small organization or one for every division or project
of 50 to 100 people within a medium to large organization. In large organizations, there might
be several levels of portal sites, with each portal site focusing on the content created and managed
at its level of the organization.
The scope of your portal sites depends on how you need to structure portals and the site
collection as a whole. Much of the way you implement your portal site will drive how the
site collection as a whole is deployed. The following are some options.
Rollup Portal Site
A rollup portal site type ignores the hierarchical structure of the company and presents information
for the organization as a whole. Subsites are not structured by teams, departments, or
divisions, but they can be mapped to divisional portals. The overall goal is to allow resources,
information, and subject-matter experts to be accessible to all levels of the corporation. This
portal site type is typically implemented for the intranet and is not accessible from the outside.
Hierarchical Portal Site
The structure for a hierarchical portal site is designed along organizational lines. This can be
a reflection of the company’s official organizational chart or defined by different company
processes or functions. This is the traditional way intranet sites and site collections tend to be
built. Often each major division of the company has its own portal with departments underneath
each division also with their own portals. Portal sites don’t tend to be implemented
below the level of the department, but technically, each group and team in the company could
have its own unique portal site and subsites.
Internal portal sites usually are deployed to both collaborate and share resources with other
portals and to contain certain internal data and services within the portal. For instance, HR
needs to cooperate with the IT department to develop network usage policies for employees,
but both HR and IT perform tasks and operations that cannot be exposed to other parts of the
company.
Extranet sites also tend to take on this structure with separate hierarchical portals being
deployed for partners and customers. This allows internal employees to collaborate with other
company stakeholders in separate site collections without compromising the barrier between
corporate data and either partners or customers. Separate extranets also protect the barrier
between partners and customers.
Because both partner and customer extranets are outward pointing, deploying and maintaining
separate authoring portals is advisable. As you have already learned, this lets the internal designers
and content managers develop and test content and resources prior to releasing any portal changes
to extranet consumers. You learned from the previous section that outward-facing sites are also
known as Publishing sites.
130 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
Application Portal Sites
This portal site type can be deployed for either internal or external customers; however, its
structure is different because of the nature of the information presented. Application portals
often include digital dashboards and other features for viewing and manipulating data related
to the portal’s purpose. The information presented in an application portal site usually comes
from diverse sources, such as databases or other SharePoint sites.
All application portals are at least somewhat collaborative in that they are presenting business
information to either employees or partners. For example, HR could design an application
portal site to provide employees with general information such as employee handbooks
and career opportunities. Also, corporate management could use an application portal to
present the latest manufacturing, sales, and profit data to major investors.
Application portal design would have to include the specific types of information, the
specific web parts, and other tools with which you intend to display that information and
the databases and other sources you intend to access in order to create the display.
Business intelligence solutions used in application portals will be discussed
more in Chapter 12, “Using Excel Services and Business Intelligence,” and in
Chapter 13, “Using Business Forms and Business Intelligence.”
Web Presence Portal Sites
Web presence portal sites are Publication sites that are usually designed with a tightly controlled
theme, branding, and appearance and contain the data, services, and links you want to publicly
offer and have represent your company. Although many of the appearance elements remain stable
over time, public sites are often very dynamic as to specific content in order to keep customers,
partners, shareholders, and everyone else informed about and attracted to the company.
Because the company’s web presence must be many things to many people, design elements
can include those from application portals as well as blogs, wikis, newsfeeds, and many other
data presentation elements. Like other public sites such as customer and partner extranets, it
is common to keep an authoring site mirroring the production site to test any changes you plan
to make before deploying them.
Security planning is also important for this portal since it is your most publicly accessible site.
You’ll learn more about security in Chapter 6, “Configuring Authentication
and Security.”
Customization and Personalization
Depending on the audience and the function of your portal site and site collection, you can modify
not only how everyone sees the collection but also how specific individuals and groups see it.
Planning My Sites 131
Customization is the modification of the theme, style, branding, layout, and other visible
elements of a site collection. Often the customization of your company’s web presence site is
different from the corporate intranet site. Partner and customer extranet site collections may
also have their own, unique appearances.
Personalization is customization for the individual. You can configure content filters that
present only the information and features targeted to specific audiences based on their roles or
interests. For instance, you can create a filtered view of the corporate portal site that presents
only sales-related data and a separate filter aimed at the marketing staff. Each department in
your organization can be presented with a somewhat different view of the portal based on
their focus within the company.
Planning My Sites
MOSS 2007 gives each SharePoint user the option of creating a personalized website for their
individual use. This feature is enabled by default at the web application level, and users can
create both public and private content on their My Site.
Setting a Quota for Site Collection Content
Amber, the CIO for your company, has expressed concern about how much storage the
SharePoint site collection is occupying on the server farm. As the SharePoint site collection
administrator, you investigate and discover that the majority of sites in the site collection are
composed of an excessive number of subsites. Since no limitation was originally issued to
corporate staff regarding how each department should construct their sites, many site owners
have taken carte blanche and created sites with a great deal of excessive content. You
inform Amber that the best course of action is to set a quota on the amount of content for each
site in the collection. You develop a plan with your staff and have it approved by the CIO and
the management staff. A policy is issued to all site owners informing them of the new quota
limitations and requiring each department head to make sure that site content is reduced
below the established quota.
Once you are informed that the department heads have complied with the new policy, you go
through the process of establishing a new quota template to enforce policy. You accomplish
this by creating a new quota template for the site collection. On the Quota Templates page
under Template Name, you click Create a New Quota Template and accept the default of new
blank template as the basis for the new quote template. Under Storage Limit Values, you set
a value in megabytes to limit the maximum amount of storage for each site in the collection
and set a slightly lesser value to trigger an email to be sent to any site owner whose site is
approaching the maximum quota limit.
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My Sites Overview
Before designing and implementing your My Site plan, let’s take a look at the three default
templates used to make up My Site sites.
Public Profile Page
This is the My Site page that is visible to anyone with access to the SharePoint site collection.
The user can publish whatever information about themselves they want to be publicly available.
The public profile page is also known as the My Site Public Page and is the public view
of each user’s User Profile and My Site. Anyone can access a user’s public profile by clicking
any link to a user within a portal site or site collection, including links in search results.
Each user can access their My Site by clicking the My Site link at the upper right of the
SharePoint portal site page. If the user’s My Site hasn’t been created, clicking the link will
initiate the creation process. A user’s My Site contains the following elements.
My Links
Navigation Tabs
Quick Launch menu
As Seen By drop-down menu
Site Actions
You’ll recognize these elements as being the same as those shown on the Central Administration
and default SharePoint portal site. This page also contains four web part zones. Users can
edit their own public profiles on the My Profile link in their My Site. From their own public profile
pages, users can return to the personal site by clicking My Home on the My Site top link bar.
Users who view public profiles for other users will not see a My Site top link bar because they
are not viewing pages in their own My Site.
Personal Site
This is the heart of the user’s My Site and contains all of the content relevant to the user,
including document libraries, picture libraries, and links. Anyone can use their personal site to
collaborate with other users, but there’s also a private home page only the user can access by
default. This site functions as the user’s My Site home page. Each user who has a personal site
is an administrator of the site and can create and edit other pages, change the default layout
or customize the page to personal taste, and change site settings.
The Quick Launch menu on the left side of the page has items you are familiar with, such
as View All Site Content, but also contains the following links:
My Profile
Documents
Pictures
Lists
Discussions
Planning My Sites 133
Surveys
Sites
The My Profile section contains links to details about your profile, your links list, your list
of colleagues, and your memberships. Under Documents, you’ll find links to both Personal
and Shared Documents.
Personalization Site
A personalization site is actually owned by the SharePoint administrator and is used to disseminate
targeted data to My Site users. For instance, if you wanted to publish a link to the HR department’s
Company Network Use Policy document to all SharePoint My Site users, you would use the personalization
site to do so. Once published to My Site, users cannot modify or remove the link.
Personalization sites target information personalized for every member of the site by using
personalized web parts and user filter web parts. Each personalization site is created by a site
collection administrator or another user who has site creation permissions. Links to personalization
sites can be added to the My Site top link bar by SSP administrators and can appear
for every member of each site or can be targeted to specific audiences.
Links to personalization sites can also appear in the top navigation pane and the left pane of
the All Site Content page of the main site. Personalization sites are registered by the shared services
provider (SSP) so that personalization sites from all site collections that use the same shared
service all appear in My Site, depending on the targeted audience of the personalization site link.
Individual users can add links to other personalization sites that have not been registered
by an administrator, but those sites appear only on that user’s My Site top link bar. Personalization
sites can be branded by using either the main site logo or the My Site logo.
Planning and Implementing My Sites
The number-one planning consideration for My Sites is their purpose in the site collection and
in your organization. Although users may like the idea of having their own personal sites in
SharePoint, does this feature figure in to your overall design and to the goals the company has
for SharePoint? Your plan may determine that only certain sites (and thus, certain groups
of users) will benefit from having My Sites available. Although My Sites may be enabled by
default, you as the SharePoint administrator can disable the My Site feature. If your decision
is to disable the My Site feature for your site collection, your planning process ends here.
Beyond the decision of whether to disable My Site, the following are the key planning
consideration points for this feature:
Purpose What company goals does having My Site enabled across the site collection meet?
Scope Should My Site be enabled for the entire site collection or only certain specific sites?
SSP scope Should My Site be stored in a single SSP, or should they span multiple SSPs in the
server farm (assuming more than one exists)?
Policies Which policies will you apply to content appearing on user My Sites?
Personalization sites Which personalization sites will be created, and who will own these sites?
134 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
Purpose and Scope
These two decision points are interrelated, so it’s best to present them together. The primary
purpose of the My Site feature is to let individual employees collaborate and share information
and resources across team, departmental, or divisional boundaries. You can create a My Team
site to let people working in the same team or department collaborate, but if you need people
from diverse areas of your company to be able to find each other and interact, My Sites should
be one of the business goals for your company’s use of SharePoint.
Site collections that wouldn’t benefit from the My Site feature would be those that primarily
offer documentation or other data storage, with little or no need for collaboration between
users. A Publication portal would be a good example of a site collection that doesn’t need My
Site functionality. Also, although My Site is a web application and doesn’t typically affect Share-
Point’s performance by consuming a large amount of resources, if you have an unusually large
number of SharePoint users or if the users intend to use their My Sites to store huge amounts of
content, you will want to consider limiting the My Site feature’s scope or disabling the feature.
SSP Scope and Personalization Sites
Personalization sites are modified within the SSP, so these two decision points are presented
together. Any user who has permission to create sites within a site collection can select the personalization
site template, but not all of these sites will be relevant for all users in the site collection,
much less all users within the same SSP. Personalization sites that are relevant for users across the
SSP can be added as links to the My Site top link bar. Every user who uses My Site will see links
to all personalization sites that were linked by the SSP administrator, regardless of site collection,
except for personalization site links that are targeted to specific audiences.
Personalization sites planned for initial deployment are important enough to add to the My
Site link for the users who use the corresponding site collection, but not all users in the SSP will
consider the same personalization sites to be relevant. My Site links to personalization sites
can be targeted to specific audiences so they are seen only by relevant users.
For information that applies to everyone in an organization, such as human resources information,
a My Site link to the personalization site might make sense for everyone. For a personalization
site that shows personalized content to the sales team, it makes sense to target the My Site link so
that it appears only for members of that team or for members of the sales site collection.
From the Shared Services Administration page, you can add more trusted personal site locations.
This enables SSP administrators to select My Site locations from multiple sites. This is
needed in any scenario that has more than one SSP, such as a global deployment that has geographically
distributed sets of shared services, where each SSP contains a distinct set of users.
By listing the trusted personal site locations for all other SSPs, you can ensure that My Sites
are created in the correct location for each user. This also enables you to replicate user profiles
across SSPs.
By default, My Sites are stored on the server that contains shared services. Public profiles
are created and stored on the web application that contains the Shared Services Administration
pages for the SSP; personal sites are stored on the default web application for the server.
However, you can change the web application so that My Sites can be stored on the default
web application, the web application for the SSP, or any other web application.
Creating and Managing Site Collections 135
Personalization sites are created on individual site collections that can be on any farm that
uses the same SSP. The settings for those sites are controlled by the administrators of those
respective sites by using the same Site Settings pages that are available for any site.
Settings for personal sites are managed by the SSP administrator, who can manage settings that
are unique for those sites. Personal site settings appear on the Manage Personal Sites page, which
is available from the My Site settings link on the Shared Services Administration page.
Policies
When considering how to implement My Sites, you must consider how much control you want
to give individual users over the visibility and presentation of their personal information and
which policies you want to set for them based on the needs and policy decisions of your organization.
There are three main decision points in terms of policy settings:
Which users are allowed to create My Sites
Which users are allowed to view and contribute to My Sites
Which users do not have permission to access My Sites content
Permissions on all web applications including My Sites are enforced by policies. Policies
for a web application are enforced regardless of permissions configured on individual sites or
documents within the web application.
You’ll learn more about creating and working with My Sites and user and
group policies in Chapter 5, “Managing Users and Groups.”
Creating and Managing Site Collections
You can use a number of methods to create sites and site collections for the default portal site
and for the Central Administration site. All of these methods require you to be the SharePoint
administrator. Most divisions or departments in your company will likely want one of their
staff to be the SharePoint site administrator for their group.
Enabling Self-Service Site Creation
To allow anyone besides the SharePoint administrator to create and manage sites, you’ll first
need to enable self-service site creation (see Exercise 4.1). Once enabled, you can delegate
the creation of SharePoint sites to other SharePoint users. This service also lets you create
sites and site collections from the Site Directory, as you’ll see later in this chapter. You must
be the administrator to enable this service, and it can be enabled only in SharePoint Central
Administration.
136 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
Chapter 5, “Managing Users and Groups,” and Chapter 6, “Configuring
Authentication and Security,” will cover groups and permissions including
which groups are allowed to create sites in SharePoint.
SharePoint users with the Use Self-Service Site Creation permission will now be able to create
sites within specified URL namespaces. Once this service is enabled, an announcement will
be added to the announcements list on top-level sites, providing a link to the site creation page.
Methods of Creating Site Collections
As an administrator, you can use several methods to create site collections:
You can create a site collection in Central Administration.
You can create a site collection using Site Actions on a top-level site.
You can create a site collection using Site Actions on a subsite.
You can create a site collection from the Site Directory.
You can create a site and save it as a site template.
EXERCISE 4.1
Enabling Self-Service Site Creation
1. Launch the Central Administration website.
2. Click the Application Management tab.
3. Under Application Security, click Self-Service Site Management.
4. Under Web Application, click the drop-down arrow, and then click Change Web Application.
5. Click SharePoint – 80 in the list.
6. Under Enable Self-Service Site Creation, click On.
7. Click OK.
If you had not changed the web application in step 4, you would have attempted to enable this
service in Central Administration rather than on the SharePoint portal site, and you would
have received an error.
After step 6, you could have optionally ticked the Require Secondary Contact check box if you
wanted to require self-service site creation users to supply a secondary contact name on the
sign-up page when creating a site. You can see this option displayed in Figure 4.4.
Creating and Managing Site Collections 137
FIGURE 4 . 4 Enabling self-service site creation
The following exercises will take you through each process. Also, each exercise will show
you how to create a site collection using different site template categories.
Creating a Site Collection in Central Administration
This is the only method of site creation that requires you to use Central Administration to perform
the task. Exercise 4.2 will get you started. You’ll be using the Collaboration site template
category in this exercise and the Team Site template to create the site.
E X E R C I S E 4 . 2
Creating a Site Collection from SharePoint Central Administration
1. Launch the Central Administration website.
2. Click the Application Management tab.
3. Under SharePoint Site Management, click Create Site Collection.
4. On the Create Site Collection page under Web Application, accept the default if it is the
application where you want to create the collection.
138 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
If not, click the drop-down arrow, click Change Web Application, and select the desired web
application from the list.
5. Under Title and Description in the Title text field, type the title you want to give to your
site collection.
6. In the Description field, type an optional description of the site collection.
7. Under Web Site Address, click the drop-down arrow in the URL, and change the setting
from Personal to Sites.
8. In the text field to the right of the drop-down arrow, type a unique name for your site collection’s
URL.
9. In the Template Selection area under Select a Template, click the Collaboration tab, and
then select the Team Site template, as shown here.
10. Under Primary Site Collection Administrator, choose a site administrator for the site collection,
either by typing the name and clicking the Check Names icon or by clicking the
Browse icon and browsing for a name.
EXERCISE 4.2 ( c o n t i n u e d )
Creating and Managing Site Collections 139
The site creation process can take some time, but when it is completed, you are taken to the
Top-Level Site Successfully Created page. You can either click the link http://srv01/sites/
management to visit the new site collection or click OK to return to the Central Administration
Application Management tab. You can see what the new team site looks like in Figure 4.5.
FIGURE 4 . 5 Collaboration team site
In step 12 of Exercise 4.2 you were asked to select a content quota template for the new site
collection. The default is No Quota, and the only other selection you have by default is personal.
If you wanted to set a different quota template for your new site collection, you’d have
to create it as shown in Exercise 4.3.
11. If you want to specify a secondary site administrator, perform the same action as you did
in step 10 under Secondary Site Collection Administrator.
12. Under Quota Template, use the drop-down arrow to select a quota template to limit
resources used in the site collection, or accept the default of No Quota.
13. Click OK to create the new site collection.
EXERCISE 4.2 ( c o n t i n u e d )
140 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
When you are creating a new site collection as in Exercise 4.2 and you know in advance
that you will want to create a new quota template, create the template before configuring the
details for the new site. If you get to step 12 and then decide to create the quota template as
in Exercise 4.3, when you click OK in step 6 and are taken to the Create Site Collection page,
all of your settings will be gone.
Creating a Site Collection Using Site Actions on a Top-Level Site
As we go through the process of creating sites in different exercises, you’ll notice that although
each method starts from a different point, the process of site creation is pretty much the same.
Exercise 4.4 will take you through creating a site using Site Actions. You must be at the top-level
portal site for your SharePoint site collection. In this example, we’ll create an enterprise-level
document center site.
EXERCISE 4.3
Creating a Site Collection Quota Template
1. On the Create Site Collection page under Quota Template, click the Manage Quota
Templates link.
2. On the Quota Templates page under Template Name, click Create a New Quota Template.
Under Template to Start From, accept the default of [new blank template].
3. Type a name for the new template in the New Template Name text field.
4. Under Storage Limit Values, if you want to limit the maximum amount of storage for the site,
tick the Limit Site Storage to a Maximum Of check box, and specify a value in the MB field.
5. If you want to send an email warning when site storage reaches a particular amount, tick
the Send Warning E-mail When Site Storage Reaches check box, and specify a value
in the MB field.
6. Click OK.
E X E R C I S E 4 . 4
Creating a Site Collection from the Site Actions Menu on a Top-Level Site
1. On the Home tab of your top-level portal site, click Site Actions near the upper-left corner
of the page, and click Create Site (see Figure 4.3 earlier in the chapter).
2. On the New SharePoint Site page, in the Title text field, give your new site a name.
3. In the Description text field, give your site collection an optional description.
4. In the URL name field, complete the URL to this site. (The top-level server hostname is
already populated.)
Creating and Managing Site Collections 141
You may want to limit the number of sites you make available on the top
navigation bar. Putting too many tabs there will make it appear cluttered, and
it will be hard to find a specific tab.
5. Under Select a Template, click the Enterprise tab, and select Document Center.
6. Under User Permissions, select Use Same Permissions as Parent Site.
7. In the Navigation Inheritance section under Use the Top Link Bar from the Parent Site,
click Yes.
8. In the Site Categories section, tick the List This New Site in the Site Directory check box
to display this site in the Site Directory.
9. In the same section under Division and Region, tick the check boxes that most closely
describe the nature and locale of this site collection.
10. Click Create.
As you can see, the new document center has been created. Notice that it appears as a tab on
the top navigation bar. This effectively makes the document center a subsite of your portal
site; however, you will not be able to create a subsite under this one. To get to the portal site’s
main page, just click the Home tab.
EXERCISE 4.4 ( c o n t i n u e d )
142 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
Creating a Site Collection Using Site Actions on a Subsite
The process of creating a site collection from a subsite is only a little different from performing
the same action from the portal site. For Exercise 4.5, you’ll need to start from the management
site you created in Exercise 4.2. In this exercise, we’ll create a basic meeting site.
Although the management site is a top-level site, it is still not a portal site. The
Central Administration (CA) site is the portal for management, so management
is considered a subsite to CA.
E X E R C I S E 4 . 5
Creating a Site Collection Using the Site Actions Menu on a Subsite
1. On the management site home page, click Site Actions, and then click Create.
2. On the Create Page under Web Pages, click Sites and Workspaces, as shown here.
3. Perform steps 2 through 4 from Exercise 4.4 to give your new site a name and specify
the URL.
4. Under Select a Template, click the Meetings tab, and then select Basic Meeting Workspace.
5. Under User Permissions, click Use Same Permissions as Parent Site.
6. In the Navigation section under Display This Site on the Quick Launch of the Parent Site,
click Yes.
7. In the same section under Display This Site on the Top Link Bar of the Parent Site, click No.
Creating and Managing Site Collections 143
Configuring Groups for a Meeting Workspace
Although it seems that the site creation should have been completed after step 9 of the previous
exercise, in fact you know this isn’t so. Clicking Create did create the site, but you still aren’t finished.
When you create a meeting site, you need to set up who can access it. Exercise 4.6 will show
you how to do that. This exercise continues immediately after step 9 in the previous exercise.
8. In the Navigation Inheritance section under Use the Top Link Bar from the Parent Site, click Yes.
9. Click Create.
The navigation decisions you made in steps 6 through 8 are largely based on the navigation
plan you have developed for your site collection. You’ll read more about this in Chapter 9,
“Managing SharePoint Navigation and Search.”
E X E R C I S E 4 . 6
Configuring Group Access to a Meeting Workspace
1. On the Set Up Groups for This Site page, in the Visitors to This Site section click Use an
Existing Group, and then click the drop-down menu to choose a group.
2. In the Members of This Site section, select Use an Existing Group, and click the dropdown
menu to choose a group.
3. In the Owners of This Site section, select Use an Existing Group, and click the drop-down
menu to choose a group.
EXERCISE 4.5 ( c o n t i n u e d )
144 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
The new Weekly Management Meeting Site is now available. To return to the management
home page, just click the Home tab. To access the Weekly Management Meeting site from the
management home site, click the Weekly Management Meeting Site link under Sites in the Quick
Launch menu on the left.
You’ll learn more about configuring groups in Chapter 5, “Managing Users
and Groups.”
Creating a Site Collection from the Site Directory
The Site Directory is a catalog for the site collection and allows you to access different sites by division,
region, or other selections. When we created the Policy Document Center in Exercise 4.4, I
selected International under Region. I could use the Site Directory to view all sites in the collection
that are International, as well as the Policy Document Center. The Policy Document Center is an
enterprise-level document center containing all documents relating to corporate policies and procedure;
it is included in the International region by default. You also have the ability to create additional
site collections from the Site Directory.
The Site Directory is accessible either by clicking View All Site Content or Sites in Quick
Launch or by clicking the Sites tab to open it. Exercise 4.7 will show you how to use the first
method. In this example, I’ll begin from the main portal page.
4. Click OK.
If you had selected Create a New Group in steps 1, 2, or 3, you could have specified a name
for the new group in the available text field and then either browsed for or input the names
of the individual members of the group.
E X E R C I S E 4 . 7
Creating a Site Collection from the Site Directory
1. In Quick Launch, click View All Site Content.
2. Scroll down until you can see the Sites and Workspaces section, and then click Sites.
3. On the Site Directory page, click the Create Site tab near the upper-right corner of the page.
4. Perform steps 2 through 4 from Exercise 4.4 to give your new site a name and specify
the URL.
5. Under Select a Template, click the Publishing tab, and select Publishing Site.
6. Under User Permissions, click Use Unique Permissions.
EXERCISE 4.6 ( c o n t i n u e d )
Creating and Managing Site Collections 145
Creating a Site and Saving It as a Template
Through the course of this chapter, you’ve seen how to access some of the default templates
available in SharePoint Server 2007 and how to use them to create sites. If you need
templates not available by default, you can create a unique site and then save it as a template.
Once you’ve done that, you can use the new template to create additional sites. In
this example, we’ll create a simple site on which to base our template. Exercise 4.8 will
start at the point where we’ve completed creating the site and are ready to save it.
7. Under Use the Top Link Bar from the Parent Site, click Yes.
8. Tick the List this New Site in the Site Directory check box.
9. Tick the appropriate check boxes under Division and Region, and then click Create.
Since you selected Use Unique Permissions in step 6, after you perform step 9, you will be
taken to the Set Up Groups for This Site page for your new site. This is identical to the page
you saw in Exercise 4.6.
E X E R C I S E 4 . 8
Saving a Site as a Template
1. On the site you want to save as a template, click Site Actions, and then click Site Settings.
2. On the Site Settings page in the Look and Feel column, click Save Site as Template.
EXERCISE 4.7 ( c o n t i n u e d )
146 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
Now, when you go through the process of creating a new site, Under Select a Template,
there is a new Tab named Custom. When you click it, you can see the new site template you
just created as in Figure 4.6.
FIGURE 4 . 6 Custom Template tab
3. On the Save Site as Template page, give the template file a name in the File Name field.
4. In the Template Name field, type the name of the template.
5. In the Template Description field, type an optional description.
6. If you want to include the content on the site in the template, tick the Include Content
check box.
7. Click OK.
8. On the Operation Completed Successfully page, either click Site Template Gallery to
manage the template or click OK to return to the main site.
EXERCISE 4.8 ( c o n t i n u e d )
Touring the Site Directory 147
Touring the Site Directory
As previously mentioned, the Site Directory is your site toolbox, allowing you as the Share-
Point administrator to access, view, and manage all of the sites in the site collection associated
with the current portal site. You can view the portal’s structure; view individual sites; and add,
delete, approve, and reject sites. In this final portion of the chapter, we’ll take a tour and perform
a few site administration tasks from the Site Directory.
The easiest way to get to the Site Directory is from the portal site. Click the Sites tab across
the top, and you’ll immediately be taken to the Site Directory. Figure 4.7 shows you the default
view of the Site Directory.
FIGURE 4 . 7 The Site Directory
The Site Directory opens on the Categories tab by default. You can see the default categories
available for selection when you create a new site. For instance, under Region, if you had
ticked the Local check box when you created a site, clicking Local in the Site Directory will
take you to a list of all sites in the collection you designated as Local. The same goes for any
of the links under the Division column. Under Tasks and Tools, you can see the Top Tasks
link. Clicking that link will take you to the Sites in Category page, where under Tasks and
Tools: Top Tasks you can see a link called Setup MySite.
You’ll set up My Sites in Chapter 5, “Managing Users and Groups.”
148 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
At the upper right of the pane, you can see two tabs called Create Site and Add Link to Site.
You’ve already used the Create Site tab in Exercise 4.6. Clicking Add Link to Site lets you add
content to the Division, Region, and Tasks and Tools areas and the Top Sites tab. Figure 4.8
shows you the options available to you when you click Add Link to Site.
FIGURE 4 . 8 Add Link to Site page
As your site collection grows, you could end up with hundreds or thousands of sites; however,
there may be a much smaller group of sites that are the most frequently accessed or otherwise
are more important. You can click Add Link to Site and tick the Top Site check box to
designate a site as a top site. Exercise 4.9 will show you how to make a site a top site after it
has been created.
E X E R C I S E 4 . 9
Making a Site a Top Site
1. In the Site Directory, click Site Actions, and then click View All Site Content.
2. On the View All Site Content page, find the Lists section, and click the Sites link.
3. Locate the site you want in the Title column, click to the right of the site name, and in the
menu click Edit Item.
4. Under Tasks and Tools, tick the Top Sites check box, and then click OK.
Now in the Site Directory, if you click the Top Sites tab, the site you designated a Top Site
will appear.
Touring the Site Directory 149
When a site is created, it is not always immediately viewable until it’s published.
If you are the creator of a site that has not been published, you will not
be able to make it a Top Site.
When a site is created, it enters the workflow process with the status of Pending and
will be visible only to you as the administrator and to the creator of the site until it is either
approved or rejected. If the administrator rejects the site, the site creator is advised, and the site
remains unavailable. If it is approved, it becomes accessible in the site collection.
From the Site Directory, approving or rejecting a site takes very few steps, so I won’t create
an exercise for this task. Follow steps 1 through 3 from Exercise 4.9, but in the menu, instead
of clicking Edit Item, click Approve/Reject. Then on the following page, select Approved,
Rejected, or Pending. Add a statement in the Comment field if necessary, and then click OK.
Back on the Sites page in the Approval Status column, the status will have changed from Pending
to whatever option you selected. You can also delete a site by selecting Delete Item in the
menu instead of Approve/Reject.
If you click the Site Map link, you are taken to the site map for the site collection. This functions
the same way a site map does in any website, listing all of the contents in the site and providing links
allowing you to jump to any location within the collection, as you can see in Figure 4.9.
FIGURE 4 . 9 The site map
The final item in the Site Directory is Contact Details. You can add a list of contacts in your
organization to the Site Directory. The most common list of names you can include would be
site owners and administrators.
150 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
Summary
In this chapter, you learned a great deal about planning and implementing site collections in
SharePoint Server 2007. I covered the following topics.
I reviewed the structure of the main portal site.
I introduced the default site templates including the Collaboration, Enterprise, Meetings,
and Publishing site templates.
I presented detailed elements of the planning and implementation of a site collection.
I covered planning for My Sites including planning for the configuration of personalization.
I covered creating site collections including enabling self-service site creation and the
different methods of creating a site collection.
I introduced the various features and services offered by the Site Directory as well as
creating a site and saving it as a template.
Exam Essentials
Be familiar with the default site templates. These are the basic building blocks for creating
site collections. Each template has unique characteristics and features that serve specific purposes
within an organization, and you must know how to create sites and site collections to
meet your business goals.
Understand site collection planning and implementation. SharePoint sites and site collections
will not be utilized effectively if they are created in a haphazard manner. Before creating
your first site under the Portal, you must develop a detailed plan for the structure and function
of your sites. This includes planning for the My Sites to be used by SharePoint members and
configuring personalization.
Know the different methods of site collection creation. Site collections can be constructed
in a number of different ways depending on who will be making sites and the purpose for those
sites. You’ll need to know how to use each method and what circumstances make one method
of site creation preferred over another.
Know how to use the Site Directory. The Site Directory is the central point that gives you
the ability to create and administer any site or site collection under a given portal site. You
must be familiar with all of the functions of the Site Directory and how to use it to manage
SharePoint sites.
Review Questions 151
Review Questions
1. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. The CTO has tasked you with putting
together a justification for enabling the My Site feature for the organization’s site collection. Of
the following decision points, which is the first one you must consider?
A. Policies: Which policies will you apply to content appearing on user My Sites?
B. SSP scope: Should My Sites be stored in a single SSP, or should they span multiple SSPs in
the server farm (assuming more than one exists)?
C. Purpose: What company goals does having the My Site feature enabled across the site
collection meet?
D. Personalization sites: Which personalization sites will be created, and who will own
these sites?
2. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You have been tasked by your supervisor
to create a site for a series of meetings to be held by your organization’s division managers.
The division managers are in the process of determining the restructuring of the corporation, and
they must be able to use the site to create tasks, store documents, and track status. Of the options
presented, which one would best fit these requirements?
A. Use a Meetings site template to create a Decision Meeting Workspace site.
B. Use a Collaboration site template to create a Team Site site.
C. Use a Publishing site template to create a Collaboration Portal site.
D. Use an Enterprise site template to create a Records Center site.
3. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You must create a portal site that
ignores the hierarchical structure of the company and presents information for the organization
as a whole. The overall goal of this portal is to allow resources, information, and subjectmatter
experts to be accessible to all levels of the corporation. Of the following options, which
portal site model best suits these requirements?
A. Application portal site
B. Hierarchical portal site
C. Rollup portal site
D. Web presence portal site
4. As the SharePoint administrator for your company, you have been assigned the task of creating
a hierarchical Internet-facing site primarily to promote the company and present news releases
and other information regarding new products and corporate growth. Some of the elements
the site must include are a home page, a press releases subsite, and a search center. This site will
attract mostly readers rather than contributors. Of the following selections, which default template
most closely matches these requirements?
A. An Enterprise site template Records Center site
B. A Publishing site template Publishing portal site
C. A Publishing site template Collaboration portal site
D. An Enterprise site template Search Center site
152 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
5. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company, and you are creating a site collection from
the Central Administration site. You want to limit the amount of data that can be stored on the new
site. Of the following options, which one will allow you to set a customized quota limit?
A. On the Create Site Collection page, tick the Create a New Quota check box, and then type
the desired value in the available text field.
B. On the Create Site Collection page, click Create a New Quota Template, accept the Default
[new blank template], tick the Limit Site Storage to a Maximum Of check box, and specify
a value in the MB field.
C. On the Quota Templates page, tick the Create a New Quota check box, and then type the
desired value in the available text field.
D. On the Quota Templates page, click Create a New Quota Template, accept the Default
[new blank template], tick the Limit Site Storage to a Maximum Of check box, and specify
a value in the MB field.
6. You are a SharePoint user and are on the personal site of your My Site. You have just created
your My Site, and this is your first opportunity to visit since you created it. You are surveying
the links in the Quick Launch menu on the left side of the page. Of the following, what are the
correct options in this list? (Choose all that apply.)
A. My Profile
B. Discussions
C. Surveys
D. Links
7. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. At the request of the research and
development division of your corporation, you have created a customized site based on their
requirements. They want you to save this site as a template called RandD so that the different
departments in that division will be able to build their own sites using that template. You have
created the site and are now going to save it as a template. Of the following options, which are
part of the process of saving a site as a template? (Choose all that apply.)
A. On the Site Settings page in the Look and Feel column, click Save Site as Template.
B. On the Site Settings page in the Sites and Workspaces column, click Save Site as Template.
C. On the Save Site as Template page, in the File Name field, give the template file a name.
D. On the Save Site as Template page, in the File Name field, either accept the default name
or change the file name.
8. In the Site Directory, when you click Add Link to Site, you can perform numerous tasks.
Of the following list, which actions can you perform? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Add links to Region.
B. Add links to Division.
C. Add tasks to Tasks and Tools.
D. Approve or reject a submitted site.
Review Questions 153
9. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. The SharePoint portal for the company’s
intranet contains content relevant to each department in the organization. Department
managers have complained that it’s too difficult to find the information targeted just
to their departments, so they task you with finding a solution. Of the following options,
which is the appropriate solution?
A. You create sites for each department in your company, move the information relevant
to each department from the portal to their departmental sites, and advise the managers to
have their department employees access the site for their department.
B. You enable the My Site feature in the site collection and advise each department manager
to have their subordinates create individual My Sites and personalize them with the information
they want.
C. You create filtered view web parts for each department, place them on the portal site, and
then label each web part by department so they know where on the portal to look for information
relevant to them.
D. You create filtered views of the corporate portal site for each department so that when they
visit the portal, they will see only the content targeted at them.
10. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. Department managers and team
leads want to be able to create their own sites in SharePoint. You determine the best way to
allow this is to enable self-service site creation. You go to the Central Administration site and
access the shared services provider (SSP) for the server farm. What next steps must you take in
order to begin enabling self-service site creation?
A. Click the Application Management tab, and under Application Management click Self-
Service Site Management.
B. Click the Application Management tab, and under Application Security click Self-Service
Site Management.
C. Click the Application Management tab, and under Application Security click Self-Service
Site Creation.
D. Click the Application Management tab, and under Application Management click Self-
Service Site Creation.
11. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. Typically, you use the default Site
Directory that was created when the portal site was created to manage the site collection. Is
there any method available for you to create another Site Directory for another site collection?
A. Only if you create another portal site first.
B. Yes, you can create a Site Directory from a subsite, but it will be able only to manage that
subsite and any sites beneath it.
C. Yes, use the Enterprise site template to create a Site Directory.
D. No, there is only one default Site Directory for the server farm.
154 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
12. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You are currently planning the
design, structure, and implementation of your organization’s web presence site. Internet-facing
websites are often called Publishing sites because information on them is mainly used to inform
large audiences rather than for purposes of collaboration. As part of your plan, you intend to
also create an authoring site. What is the purpose of doing this?
A. The authoring site will be a companion to the Publishing site that will give customers and
partners the ability to collaborate on mutual projects.
B. The authoring site will allow partners to contribute additional content that you can then
transfer to the Publishing site.
C. The authoring site is a mirror to the Publishing site and allows you to test any changes you
plan to make to your web presence site before making them public.
D. The authoring site is a mirror to the Publishing site and serves as a backup for all your content
and configuration information should anything happen to the Publishing site.
13. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. Your organization’s management
team has been using a Decision Meeting Workspace site to administer a series of meetings they
have been holding regarding a general restructuring of the corporation. The CTO has advised
you that the scope of this workspace is too limited and that they need a site with the same
capacities but more room. What is your solution?
A. Use an Enterprise site template, and create a Records Center site for the management team
so they can have a greater ability to store and manage information related to their project.
B. Use a Meetings site template, and create a Multipage Meeting Workspace site that has the
same capacities as the site they are currently working with and has additional blank web
pages they can use.
C. Use a Publishing site template, and create a Collaboration portal that will provide the management
team with a larger venue for them to continue managing their decisions and tasks.
D. Ask the management team to provide you with a list of elements and abilities they expect
out of the site they need, and then create a customized site based on those requirements.
14. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You have been asked to create several
custom-made sites and save them as site templates. The different divisions have very specific
needs for their site collections that cannot be satisfied by the default templates. You have
created templates called Management, Legal, Development, and Production. You now need to
use these templates to start creating sites. On the New SharePoint Site page, where will you find
these customized templates?
A. Under a new template tab called Custom.
B. When you saved the sites as templates, you were given the option of which template tab to
use to save them.
C. By default, all sites saved as templates are located in the Collaboration tab.
D. Each site saved as a template has its own tab.
Review Questions 155
15. You have been working with the management team to determine whether there is a business
need to enable My Sites in the corporate site collection. Management has determined that
enabling My Sites will meet several business goals, and you are directed to proceed. What must
you do to enable My Sites in SharePoint?
A. In the Site Directory, click Add Link to Site, tick the Enable My Sites check box, and click OK.
B. In SharePoint Central Administration, click the Application Management tab, and under
Application Management click Enable My Sites.
C. From the Portal site, click Site Actions, click Site Settings, and on the Site Settings page
under Sites and Workspaces click Enable My Sites.
D. My Sites are enabled in SharePoint by default at the web application level.
16. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You have been asked by the legal
department to create a site for them that does not inherit permissions from the parent site.
Because of the sensitivity of the information they work with, they need to have a customized set
of permissions. You gather their requirements and begin creating their site collection from the
Site Directory. Under User Permissions, you click Use Unique Permissions. What happens next?
A. A set of permission configuration check boxes and text fields appears that you can use to
set the unique permissions for this site.
B. You are immediately taken to the Set Up Groups for This Site page where you can configure
group permissions and then return to the site creation page and finish the steps to making the
new site.
C. After you click Create, you are taken to the Set Up Groups for This Site page where you
can configure group permissions for the new site.
D. After you click Create, the site is created. After it is created, you are taken to the site’s main
page where you click the Permissions link and configure group permissions on the Set Up
Groups for This Site page.
17. You are the SharePoint administrator for your company. You want to create a new site
collection using a process that will allow you to specifically select a primary and secondary
site administrator. Of the following selections, which method requires this?
A. Creating a site collection in Central Administration
B. Creating a site collection using Site Actions on a top-level site
C. Creating a site collection using Site Actions on a subsite
D. Creating a site collection from the Site Directory
18. You own a consulting company that specializes in installing SharePoint Server 2007 for organizations,
configuring SharePoint, and training staff on how to administer site collections. You
are having your first meeting with the management team at Enceladus Enterprises and are
giving them a basic explanation about SharePoint site collections. Of the following, which correctly
describes the common elements in a site collection? (Choose all that apply.)
A. A shared top-level website
B. At least three subsites under the top-level site
C. A common owner for the collection
D. Shared administration settings
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19. You own a consulting company that specializes in installing SharePoint Server 2007 for organizations,
configuring SharePoint, and training staff on how to administer site collections. You
are having your first meeting with the management team at Enceladus Enterprises and are
showing them a demo site collection you have created by using your laptop to connect to it
over the Internet. Currently, you are on the main portal site. You have just clicked View All Site
Content and are showing them the available categories. Under the Lists category, which of the
following options are available? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Contacts
B. Images
C. Pages
D. Reusable Content
20. You own a consulting company that specializes in installing SharePoint Server 2007 for organizations,
configuring SharePoint, and training staff on how to administer site collections. You
are having your first meeting with the management team at Enceladus Enterprises and are
describing the features of My Site to your audience. Enceladus Enterprises is a vast corporation
with offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia. The CTO is concerned that the vast scope
of their organization will make My Site functionality too difficult to administer. What option
do you offer that addresses this concern?
A. You explain that for very large companies the primary method of managing My Sites is to
create a separate portal site and site collection for each major office and have My Sites
administered in each local server farm.
B. You explain that you can use an Enterprise site template called My Site Host to host all
personal My Sites for all employees in the enterprise.
C. You explain that you can set up a separate SQL Server database just to store all of the My
Site accounts throughout the enterprise.
D. You explain that the My Site feature in SharePoint Server 2007 can host up to a million
individual My Site sites and is completely able to manage their needs.
Answers to Review Questions 157
Answers to Review Questions
1. C. Prior to making any other decision, you must first define the business goals My Sites
will satisfy.
2. A. Since the division managers are meeting to determine how to restructure the company and
need to track those decisions, the features offered by the decision meeting workspace would
best suit their needs.
3. C. A rollup portal site best fits these requirements. An application portal site is designed more for
your internal and external customers and is somewhat structured. A hierarchical portal site would
be inappropriate for obvious reasons, and a web presence portal site is your company’s official
Internet site.
4. B. A Publishing portal best fits the requirements since it is designed to be either a large-scale
intranet- or Internet-facing site that publishes news and other informational items to an
audience of mostly readers. It also includes elements such as a search center and home page.
5. D. You cannot set a custom storage quota for the new site collection from the Create Site Collection
page. On the Quota Templates page, you must follow the procedure outlined in option
D to be successful.
6. A, B, and C. The options in Quick Launch on the personal site of a My Site are My Profile,
Documents, Pictures, Lists, Discussions, Surveys, and Sites.
7. A and C. Options A and C are the only valid selections in the list. Options B and D are bogus.
8. A, B, and C. You can perform all of the listed tasks except option D. To approve or reject a
pending site from the Site Directory, you must click View All Site Content, click Sites under the
Lists section, click next to the name of the site, and select Approve/Reject from the list.
9. D. Although a portal site can contain a great deal of information in a variety of forms, you can
create filtered views for different audiences so that those audiences see only the information
provided in the views targeted at them.
10. B. Option B is the only one that states the correct sequence of actions to begin enabling selfservice
site creation.
11. C. You can use the Enterprise site template to create a Site Directory.
12. C. Since your Publishing site is visible to everyone from the Internet, it’s a good idea to test any
changes you intend to make to it on an authoring site that mirrors your public site.
13. B. Since the management team needs a site very much like the one they are currently using but with
expanded space, the Multipage Meeting Workspace template will satisfy their needs.
14. A. When you save a site as a template, a new site template tab called Custom is created, and
all of the sites you have saved as templates will be found there.
15. D. Option D is the correct answer. All of the other procedures described in answers A, B, and
C are bogus.
158 Chapter 4 Building Sites and Site Collections
16. C. When you select Use Unique Permissions during site creation, you must finish configuring
the site and click Create before you are taken to the Set Up Groups for This Site page, where
you can set up the customized permissions.
17. A. Only when you create a site collection from Central Administration are you required to
select a primary site administrator and also optionally choose a secondary site administrator.
18. A, C, and D. All of the answers in the list are correct except option B. A site collection must
have one or more subsites under the top-level site. The minimum requirement is not three or
more. A site collection also shares a common navigation structure.
19. A and D. Contacts and Reusable Content are found under Lists, whereas Images and Pages are
found under Document Libraries.
20. B. You can use the Enterprise site template My Site Host to host all personal sites for the enterprise.
Whenever a valid SharePoint user with a My Site visits the My Site Host, he or she is redirected
to their own My Site personal site.
