SharePoint 2013 Farm Configuration

Before you start, verify that you are logged on and running as the SharePoint farm account.

Important: The initial server that you run the wizard on to create a new farm will be the default server name to access the SharePoint Central Administration site. For example, if the initial server is SHAREPOINT1, then Central Admin will behttp://sharepoint1:15000

If you are ready, run the SharePoint 2013 Products Configuration Wizard located on the Windows Start menu and follow these steps to create a farm:

1. On the Welcome to SharePoint Products page, click Next.
2. In the dialog box that notifies you that some services might have to be restarted during configuration, click Yes.
3. On the Connect to a server farm page, click Create a new server farm, and then click Next.
4. On the Specify Configuration Database Settings page, do the following:
   1. In the Database server box, type the name of the computer that is running SQL Server.
   2. In the Database name box, type a name for your configuration database, or use the default database name.
   3. In the Username box, type the user name of the SharePoint farm account in DOMAIN\user name format.
   4. In the Password box, type the service account’s password.
5. Click Next.
6. On the Specify Farm Security Settings page, type a passphrase, and then click Next.
   Note: Although a passphrase resembles a password, it is usually longer to improve security. It is used to encrypt credentials of accounts that are registered in SharePoint 2013. Ensure that the passphrase contains at least eight characters and at least three of: uppercase letters; lowercase letters; numbers; non-alphabetic characters.
7. On the Configure SharePoint Central Administration Web Application page, do the following:
   1. Select the Specify port number check box and type 15000 as the port number for the SharePoint Central Administration web application.
   2. Click either NTLM or Negotiate (Kerberos).

      

      Specify the port for the Central Administration Web Application

8. Click Next.
9. On the Completing the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard page, clickNext.
10. On the Configuration Successful page, click Finish.
11. The Central Administration website will open in a new browser window. On theHelp Make SharePoint Better page, click No, I don’t wish to participate and then click OK.
12. On the Initial Farm Configuration Wizard page, click Cancel.

The SharePoint Configuration Wizard will have provisioned a database for the Central Administration site using a system generated database name. You can rename this database by dismounting it from the SharePoint web application, renaming it in SQL Server Management Studio, and then mounting it back to the SharePoint Central Administration web application. The following PowerShell provides the steps on this process.

$db = Get-SPContentDatabase –WebApplication “http://sharepoint1:15000”
Dismount-SPContentDatabase $db
## Rename the database in SQL Server Management Studio
Mount-SPContentDatabase "[Name]" -DatabaseServer "[Server]" –WebApplication “[Web App]”

At this point, verify that all of the farm’s database names match your desired naming convention.

Now you have created the SharePoint farm. Next, use PowerShell to provision the SharePoint Usage and Health Data Collection service application in order to name the database according to the preferred naming convention.

$UsageService = Get-SPUsageService
New-SPUsageApplication –Name “[Name]” -DatabaseServer “[Server]” -DatabaseName “[DB Name]” –UsageService $UsageService

Next, use PowerShell to provision the SharePoint State service application in order to name the database according to the preferred naming convention.

New-SPStateServiceDatabase -Name "SP_StateService" | New-SPStateServiceApplication -Name "State Service" | New-SPStateServiceApplicationProxy -DefaultProxyGroup

Next, use PowerShell to provision the SharePoint Subscription Settings service application in order to name the database according to the preferred naming convention.

$Account = New-SPManagedAccount

$AppPool = New-SPServiceApplicationPool –Name “SP_ServiceApplicationsDefaultAppPool” -Account $Account
$App = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplication –ApplicationPool $AppPool –Name “Subscription Settings Service” –DatabaseName “SP_SubscriptionSettingsService”
New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplicationProxy –ServiceApplication $App

Next, use PowerShell to provision the SharePoint Search service application in order to name the database according to the preferred naming convention.

$AppPool = Get-SPServiceApplicationPool –Identity “SP_ServiceApplicationsDefaultAppPool”
$ServerName = (Get-ChildItem env:computername).Value
$ServiceAppName = “Search Service”
$DatabaseName = “SP_SearchService”
Start-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance $ServerName
Start-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryAndSiteSettingsServiceInstance $ServerName

$App = New-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication -Name $ServiceAppName -ApplicationPool $AppPool -DatabaseName $DatabaseName
New-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplicationProxy -Name “$ServiceAppName Proxy” -SearchApplication $App

$clone = $App.ActiveTopology.Clone()
$Instance = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchAdminComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $Instance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchContentProcessingComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $Instance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchAnalyticsProcessingComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $Instance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $Instance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchIndexComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $Instance
New-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryProcessingComponent –SearchTopology $clone -SearchServiceInstance $Instance
$clone.Activate()

Next, configure the Outgoing e-mail server information by opening SharePoint Central Administration and following these steps:

1. In Central Administration, click System Settings.
2. On the System Settings page, in the E-Mail and Text Messages (SMS) section, clickConfigure outgoing e-mail settings.
3. On the Outgoing E-Mail Settings page, in the Mail Settings section, type the SMTP server name for outgoing e-mail (e.g. “mail.contoso.com”) in the Outbound SMTP server box.
4. In the From address box, type the e-mail address as you want it to be displayed to e-mail recipients, such as “sharepoint@contoso.com”
5. In the Reply-to address box, type the e-mail address to which you want e-mail recipients to reply to, if desired.
6. In the Character set list, select the character set that is appropriate for your language.
7. Click OK.

   

   The outgoing e-mail settings specifying the SMTP server and from address

Creating a Web Application

Once you have created a farm, you can provision a web application to host SharePoint sites. Create a new web application by opening SharePoint Central Administration and following these steps:

1. On the Central Administration home page, click Application Management.
2. On the Application Management page, in the Web Applications section, clickManage web applications.
3. In the Contribute group of the ribbon, click New.
4. On the Create New Web Application page, in the IIS Web Site section, configure the settings for your new web application.

   

   Create a new web application and specify its name

5. In the Security Configuration section, choose whether or not to Allow Anonymousaccess and whether or not to Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
6. In the Claims Authentication Types section, select the authentication method that you want to use for the web application.
   Note: Office Web Apps will require the Claims Authentication type instead of Classic.
7. In the Sign In Page URL section, choose the Default Sign In Page URL.
8. In the Public URL section, type the URL for the domain name for all sites that users will access in this web application.
9. In the Application Pool section, select the application pool if available or create a new one.
10. In the Database Name and Authentication section, choose the database server, database name, and authentication method for your new web application.
11. If you use database mirroring, in the Failover Server section, in the Failover Database Server box, type the name of a specific failover database server that you want to associate with a content database.
12. In the Service Application Connections section, in the drop-down menu, clickdefault.
13. In the Customer Experience Improvement Program section, click Yes or No.
14. Click OK to create the new web application.

Note: For more information on creating web applications, please see this TechNet article: http://technet.microsoft.com/cc261875

After you create a web application, you might want to add additional content databases to distribute the site collections across rather than storing the content in a single content database. You can access the Content Databases page by clicking on the Application Management link in SharePoint Central Administration, and then clicking on theManage Content Databases link.

The Manage Content Databases page

On this page, you can provision a new content database and add it to the web application by clicking on the Add a content database link at the top of the content database list. You can select which web application you wish to add a content database for by selecting the desired web application from the dropdown list in the upper right area.

Unless you explicitly specify a content database for a site collection by creating the site collection by using PowerShell, SharePoint will allocate site collections to content databases in a round-robin fashion. SharePoint will alternate between available content databases that have not yet reached the maximum number of site collections you set for a content database.

You can click on the name of an individual content database to view additional details about the database and to change any of its settings. The following lists and describes the main properties to set for a content database:

• Database Read-Only: This option specifies whether the content database is in read-only mode or not. You can set a content database to read-only mode by clicking on the database name, and then modifying the Database Read-Only property setting.
  Note: By setting a content database in read-only mode, users can continue to access their sites and the content stored within them, but they cannot apply edits or add any new content. This is a useful option when you want to perform certain types of maintenance.
• Current Number of Site Collections: This value displays the number of site collections currently provisioned in the content database.
• Site Collection Level Warning: This property sets the warning level for SharePoint to write a warning to the Windows Event when the number of site collections reaches the threshold.
• Maximum Number of Site Collections: This property sets the maximum number of site collections for a content database. When this property is equal to or less than the current number of site collections property value, then SharePoint will not provision any more site collections in the content database. Setting the value to a lower number will not affect existing sites, and instead will only prevent SharePoint from provisioning future site collections in the content database.

If you want to remove a content database from a web application, click on the content database name, and then select Remove content database. This will not delete the content database in SQL Server, but will remove its association from the SharePoint web application.

You can move a content database from one SQL Server instance to another if you want to scale out your data tier. One option to perform this move is to remove the content database form the SharePoint web application, detach the content database in SQL Server, copy and attach it to the new SQL Server, and then add the content database back to the web application by specifying the new SQL Server name and the existing content database name.

The detach database option in SQL Server Management Studio

Creating the Managed Metadata Service Application

The Managed Metadata Service publishes a term store to store a collection of terms that you can use to organize and classify content. Term sets within a term store can organize a hierarchy of terms, which can serve as the bases for your enterprise taxonomy or controlled vocabulary. A term set can also capture a flat, non-hierarchical list of terms, which you can use as a predefine list of options for a field or as a list that users can add to, such as a list of keywords in a folksonomy.

In the following steps, I will walk you through the process for creating a Managed Metadata Service. Begin by opening SharePoint Central Administration.

Click on the Manage service applications link under the Application Management menu to navigate to the Manage Service Applications page. In the ribbon, on the Service Applications tab, click on the New dropdown button, and click on the Managed Metadata service application.

Create a new Managed Metadata Service Application

In the Create New Managed Metadata Service Application modal window, enter the application name and database information. The following figure provides an example of the Create New Managed Metadata Service Application modal window.

Enter the Managed Metadata Service Application details

Click the OK button to create the Managed Metadata service application.

With the Managed Metadata service application provisioned, you can begin to add metadata terms. First you will need to create a Term Group to organize and contain the Term Sets, and then within each Term Group, you can create a Term Set. Within each Term Set you can create a hierarchy of Terms.

SharePoint uses the Terms as metadata tags to associate with documents and other property fields. You can associate a Term Set to a field to limit or focus the options available to tag an item.

Note: For more information on Managed Metadata and how to plan for and configure an enterprise taxonomy, please see this MSDN article:http://msdn.microsoft.com/jj163949

Creating the User Profile Service Application

The User Profile service application stores information about users in a central location. It makes this information available within a SharePoint farm to support social computing features such as profile sites, tagging, microblogging, and the like.

Before you begin to create a User Profile service application, create a My Site host site collection and add a managed path to the web application that you wish to provision personal sites under. You will also need to provision a Managed Metadata service application instance as a prerequisite to the User Profile service application by following the steps I provided in the previous section. Complete the following steps to provision a User Profile service application.

1. Click on the Manage services on server link located in the System Settings menu group to navigate to the Services on Server page.
2. Click the Start link for the User Profile Service.
3. Click on the Application Management category link on the left Central Administration menu, and then click on the Manage service applications link located in the Service Applications category to navigate to the Manage Service Applications page.
4. In the ribbon in the Create group, click the New dropdown and select the User Profile Service Application.
   1. On the Create New User Profile Service Application modal window, fill in the information for name, application pool, database, and My Site information. The following figure provides an example of The New User Profile Service Application modal window.

      

      Enter the details for the User Profile Service Application

5. Click the Create button at the bottom of the modal window.
6. Return to the Services on Server page that you navigated to in Step 1.
7. Click the Start link for the User Profile Synchronization Service.
8. On the User Profile Synchronization Service page, select the User Profile service application and enter the service account password. The following figure provides an example of the User Profile Synchronization Service page.

   

   Enter the account information for the synchronization service

9. Click the OK button.

Notice the layout of the Mange Profile Service administration page, with the administration menu in the middle and statistical information along the right column. The following figure provides an example of the Manage Profile Service administration page.

The User Profile Service settings page

1. Click the Manage User Properties link in the People section.
2. On the Manage User Properties page, edit the Mapped Attribute for each of these properties:
   1. Picture
      Direction: Export
      Attribute: thumbnailPhoto
      Description: Upload a picture to help others easily recognize you at meetings and events. Your picture will show up for contacts in Outlook and Lync as well as in different parts of SharePoint, but it may take a day or so to sync your changes with all of these systems.
   2. SIP Address
      Direction: Import
      Attribute: msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress
   3. Work Email
      Direction: Import
      Attribute: mail
3. Return to the Manage Profile Service administration page.
4. Click on the Configure Synchronization Connections link under theSynchronization category.
5. On the Synchronization Connections page, click on the Create New Connectionbutton. Enter a Connection Name and select a Connection Type from the dropdown box. Enter the authentication information and remaining connection information. The following figure provides an example of the Add new synchronization connection page.

   

   Add a user profile synchronization connection

6. Click the OK button at the bottom of the page.
7. Return to the Manage Profile Service administration page and click the Start Profile Synchronization link under the Synchronization category.
8. On the Start Profile Synchronization page, select between an incremental and full synchronization.
9. Click the OK button to begin importing and synchronizing profiles.

Configure Apps for SharePoint

1. In the Application Management section, click the Manage service applicationslink.
2. On ribbon in the Service Applications tab, click the New button and click App Management Service on the new service application menu.
3. Provide the details for the app management service and click OK.
4. On the left navigation menu, click System Settings and then click Services on Server.
5. Start the App Management Service and the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service.
6. On the left navigation menu, click Apps.
7. On the Apps page, click Manage App Catalog.
8. Click Create a new app catalog site.
9. Click OK.
10. Provide the site information for the organization’s app catalog.
11. Click OK.
12. Click Configure App URLs.
13. Type the desired App domain and App prefix.
14. Click OK.

Finalizing the Server Configuration

Finally, to finish the basic setup of the SharePoint farm, start and stop the services for the farm. You can manage the services by clicking on Services on Server under theSystem Settings section in SharePoint Central Administration.

Note: For additional farm configuration steps for individual service applications you wish to include in the farm, please see this TechNet article:http://technet.microsoft.com/ee836142

Next, with the basic configurations complete for your SharePoint farm, you are now ready to add additional servers to your SharePoint farm