Install and Configure SharePoint farm

Install and Configure SharePoint farm (3 -tier)

n this post we will perform a farm installation and configuration to meet 3-tier farm topology described as shown in above figure

1- Make sure all servers have internet connectivity

2- Turn off firewall on all Application and web front end servers

3- Install windows updates on all servers.

4- Add the following Roles on each server

• IIS Role
• Application Server

5- Run SharePoint installation setup on all servers (except the db servers), start with App Server and configure Central administration there , then continue with WFEs as below.

6- run the default.hta –> prerequisites installer

7- The setup will run the following:

8- After pre requisites installation complete , run SharePoint setup:

9- enter SharePoint key

10- Make sure to select Server Farm as we are installing SharePoint on multiple servers for scalability, click next

11- Make sure to select complete, as standalone installation will install SharePoint under SQL Express

12- Determine the installation path, and Data index files path (these index files will save index information regarding search, application server will push the index files regularly to the below location. Index files helps the WFE to find search queries and post search index result to the Search crawler to get the result faster.

13- After installation , we need to run the configuration wizard , this wizard should be executed first on the Application server, where SharePoint Central Administration going to be hosted

14- On application Server, run the configuration wizard, and select New Farm option, since this App server is the first farm in the farm.

15- Select the Cluster SQL instance name (created in Part2 of this series), the SharePoint admin account (SPSadmin) should be admin on database server.

Note: the SQL instance name above is abstracted from the windows cluster as below: (Refer to Post Part 1 &2)

16- Enter a Passphrase, make sure to save this password in some reachable place, this password is needed when ever a new server is going to be joined to the farm: 

17- Select some port to host the Central Administration web application

18- Review summary page, the click Next

19- The Central Administration URL is: http://[AppServerName]:100/

20- Open Central Administration run the Configuration wizard to configure SharePoint service applications:

Note: in more advanced scenarios you can create service applications one by one manually as per the farm requirements., in this post we will walk through creating the service applications as per the default settings

21- Check the services you need for this Farm, to create the required Service Applications:

22- Skip the Web application creation step ,as you want to create the web application on WFE NLB servers not on application server

Note : we will perform some additional configurations for the service applications in more details once we finish the installation for the rest of servers.

23- Now go to WFE Servers , Run Configuration wizard on both WFE servers selecting now the Join Farm option (not create new farm)., make sure to select Connect to existing farm

24- Enter the SQL Instance Cluster name, then press on Retrieve Database names

25- Make sure to supply the passphrase you entered previously while creating the farm on the application server

26- In the summary page , you can click on the advanced option to make sure that the WFE servers are not used to host the Central Administration Web Application (as its hosted on Application server only), then Click next:

 

 

Configure SharePoint Farm Server Roles

now we have installed and configured  SharePoint on all servers , we need to configure one of them as App server, and two of them as WFE servers, actually there is no dedicated configuration page to identify the server Roles explicitly ,alternatively the process of identifying the server roles is much dynamic and yet advanced, the trick here is that you identify the server role through the Manage Services page by identifying the appropriate services on each server, as below:

1. Open Central Administration

2. Click on Manage Service on the farm and make sure to perform the following

• WFE Servers should have the following services started on it to serve users requests only and to act optionally as query indexers for the search,  this is why we stated the search services but in a later step we will eliminate the search role here to act as query indexer only.

Note: the most important service to be started on WFE servers to identify them as WFE is Microsoft SharePoint Foundation web application

when starting the Search service for the first time , you might be prompted to configure the search service as below:

• Application server should have all the required services started on it, as below (some services are intentionally stopped as they are not needed in this farm

Note:  Microsoft SharePoint Foundation web application Service is stopped here

Search Service Topology configuration

in this section we will identify the search service role on each server, its true that the application server should be responsible for Search , but some components need to be there on WFE servers to handle search queries by client.

As a best practice, its better to install search components on the Web and application tiers in order to optimize performance by distributing the load placed on the servers in the farm. To distribute search components across the farm tiers, you must follow these steps:

• Move the query components to the Web tier
• Move the Crawl components to the App tier
• Keep the Database components to run on SQL Server.

Search is complicated enough that it has its own topology configuration settings. The services that need to be tuned are:

• Search Query and site settings
• SharePoint Server Search

You can use a special configuration page to place the query functionality on the WFE and to place the crawling\indexing functionality on the Application Server.

1. Defining the Search Topology, Go to Manage Service Application to configure the Search Topology , click on Search Service Application.

Click modify and make sure to have the following :

• App Server : change its role to be Crawler , click on the default Crawl component and change it to be assigned to application server.
• WFE Server: change its role to be Indexer, click the default Query component –> add mirror.

after you finish press on Apply topology

2. Click on content sources on the left menu –> click on the Scope you want to schedule:

3. Scroll down to Crawl Schedule –> create schedule

4. For low search latency and instant search crawling , The configuration is set is the below , which can be changed later on for by the admin as needed

• Full Crawl setting:

• Incremental crawl settings:

Note: the above configuration is set to run a full crawl once every night , and to run an incremental crawl every 5 minutes for 24 hours, the interval may vary incase no dedicated application server is there for search.

Create your First Intranet Web Application in the Farm

in this step we will be creating our intranet web application on the NLB URL

1. Go to Central Administration , click manage web applications

2. Create new web application (with NLB considerations) as the following:

Make sure to supply the NLB cluster name in the host header (created in post 3 of this series) , and proper Content database name, this content database will contain the intranet content (documents, lists, etc…

3. After Web application is created, create a site collection as the following:

note how the URL is appearing using the NLB cluster name instead of server name, this is because of the host record we supplied in the previous step.

note: make sure that your NLB cluster name and IP are added as host record to the Active Directory. 

Configure Alternate Access Mapping

In some situations users might need to request to have an easy name for the portal so when ever they want to access the portal, it will be easy to memorize it and type in the URL (e.g. myPortal)

1. Go to Central Administration –> Application management –> Configure Alternate Access Mapping

2. Press on edit public URLs

3. Add a new alternate access mapping

make sure to supply the name that you want users to use when accessing the portal (e.g. myPortal), this URL is then resolved to the NLB cluster URL automatically because of this configuration of this configuration we are doing now.

4. Add binding to the web application at the IIS

5. make sure to add “myPortal” as a host record to the AD

SharePoint 2010 Interview Questions for Administrators

SharePoint 2010 Interview Questions for Administrators

Q. What are the Hardware and Software requirements for SharePoint 2010.

Ans.

Hardware requirements :

# Processor 64-bit, four-core, 2.5 GHz minimum per core.

# RAM 4 GB for developer or evaluation use, 8 GB for single server and multiple server farm installation for production use.

# Hard disk 80 GB for installation

For production use, you need additional free disk space for day-to-day operations. Add twice as much free space as you have RAM for production environments.


Software requirements :

# The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 Standard with SP2. If you are running Windows Server 2008 without SP2, the Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2010 Preparation Tool installs Windows Server 2008 SP2 automatically.

For more see : Prerequisites for SharePoint 2010


Q. What Has Changed with SSP in SharePoint 2010.

Ans. In SharePoint 2010 Shared Service Providers (SSP's) are replaced by Service Applications. Services are no longer combined into a SSP. They are running independent as a service application. The service application architecture is now also built into Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, in contrast to the Shared Services Provider (SSP) architecture that was only part of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

A key benefit here is that all services are installed by default and there is no SSP setup.

Additional improvements for the service application model include:
• The services architecture is extensible, allowing third-party companies to build and add services to the platform.

• Services are managed directly in Central Administration (rather than a separate administration site).

• Services can be monitored and managed remotely.

• Services can be managed and scripted by Windows PowerShell™.

• Shared services communications take place over HTTP(S). Shared services do not directly access databases across farms.

• Most new services are built on the Windows Communications Framework. They have optimization built into their protocol, using binary streams instead of XML for data transfer. Test results show improvements in network throughput with this change.


Q. What are the advantages of Service Applications over
SSP ?

Ans. The key limitation of the SSP architecture was that it was configured by using a set of services, and all Web applications associated with the SSP bore the overhead of all the services even if they weren’t being used. To change the service configuration for a particular Web application, a new SSP would have to be created.

The service application architecture on the other hand, allows a set of services to be associated with a given Web application and a different set of services to be associated with another Web application. Also, the same service application can be configured differently in different Web applications; therefore, Web sites can be configured to use only the services that are needed, rather than the entire bank of services.


Q. Can we create a Single set of Services that will be shared across the farm?

Ans. Similar to the SSP model in Office SharePoint Server 2007, a single set of services can be shared by all sites in a farm. By publishing a service application (from the sharing group, under Service application tab), you can share it across server farms. This capability does not apply to all service applications, and some services can be shared only within a single server farm.


Q. What are Managed Accounts?

Ans. To reduce the load of managing various service accounts in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, the concept of managed accounts has been introduced. Much like managed accounts in Windows Server 2008, they allow SharePoint Server to take control of all the service accounts you use. After SharePoint Server has control of these accounts, it can either manage their passwords — automatically changing them as necessary — or it can notify you when an accounts password is about to expire, allowing you to make the change yourself.


Q. What are the Methods of Backup and Recovery in SharePoint 2010?

Ans. Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 provides a broad range of levels for performing backups, including the entire farm, farm configuration information, site collections, subsites, or lists.

SharePoint Server 2010 uses two different tools to configure backup and recovery.

1. Central Administration : Central Administration provides a user interface where SharePoint Administrators will be prompted via menu structures to select the information that needs to be backed up. (see the Image below)


2. Windows PowerShell : Windows PowerShell is a command line tool that provides SharePoint administrators a way to perform backup and recovery with additional options such as file compression or working with SQL snapshots.

Listed below are a few of the benefits available when working with Windows PowerShell:

• Windows PowerShell scripts can be developed and scheduled (with Windows Task Scheduler), whereas Central Administration is used for single-use backups and restores.

• Windows PowerShell has the advantage of running against SQL snapshots instead of the production database. One of the parameters of the Windows PowerShell command will cause a SQL snapshot to be generated, and then Windows PowerShell will run the action against the snapshot instead of the production database. This will reduce the resource impact of the backup operation on the production environment.

• With Windows PowerShell, SharePoint administrators will have more granular control of options for the backup or restore.

For more info See : Windows PowerShell Tutorial



Q. How to Move content Databases using PowerShell ?

Ans. To attach\detach an existing content database use

Mount-SPContentDatabase "<ContentDb>" –DatabaseServer "<DbServer>" –WebApplication http://WebapplicationName

<ContentDb> is the content database to be attached.

<DbServer> is the name of the database server.

http://WebapplicationName is the name of the Web application to which the content database is being attached.

To detach a content database:

Dismount-SPContentDatabase "<ContentdBName>"

See more Commands at Windows Powershell Common Commands


Q. How to Export a Site or List in SharePoint 2010?

Ans. SharePoint Server 2010 provides several new features that provide a granular level of backup for various components of site content. This includes content at the site, subsite, and list level.

Through Central Administration(Granular level Back-up) a SharePoint Administrator can configure a backup of a subsite or list. An Administrator can choose a site and a specific list to be exported.The administrators can also choose to export security and select the different versions that will be exported with the list.

SharePoint Administration Interview Questions and Answers

SharePoint Administration Interview Questions and Answers

1. How many web applications we can create on WSS Server / SharePoint Server?

Every ASP.NET page creates DLL to the web application. Each DLL consumes the memory. And because of this, number of web application running on a server is limited to 99.

2. What is the Farm in SharePoint?

Farm is a collection of SharePoint servers having the same configuration database.
Configuration DB stores all the required information to run the farm. Each farm is administered through a central administration. There is only one configuration database for a SharePoint farm.

3. What is STS and SPS ? Stare difference?

SPS – SharePoint Portal Services

• It has better document management
• It has check-in, check-out, versioning, approval, publishing, subscriptions, categories, etc.
• It has a better search engine, and can crawl multiple content source
• It is better for an organization, and where Document Management is crucial.

STS – SharePoint Team Services

• It is easier to manage and much better for a team environment where there is not much Document Management going on.
• Above SPS features are not available in STS.
• This is only for team based environments

4. What is SharePoint Feature? What are all the scopes available? What files are used to define a feature?

A SharePoint Feature is a functional component that can be activated and deactivate at various scopes throughout a SharePoint instances.

Scopes:

• Farm
• Web Application
• Site (site collection)
• Web (site)

The two files that are used to define a feature are,

• feature.xml
• manifest file(elements.xml)

The feature XML file defines the actual feature and will make SharePoint aware of the installed feature. The manifest file contains details about the feature such as functionality.

5. What is WebPart Maintenance Page?  How to access it?

A page you can see all the webparts inserted in the page. We can remove harmful webpart in the page even if the page not opening due to the harm code.

We can access the WebPart maintenance page by keeping “?contents=1″
at the end of the webpart page URL, E.g,.

http://anandhsharepoint.loc/SitePages/Welcome.aspx?contents=1

6. What authentications are available in Sharepoint?

SharePoint 2010

1. Classic Based Authentication
   • Only Windows Authentication (NTML – Users are available in Active Directory)
   • Anonymous access can be enabled (Any one can access the site without login)
2. Claims Based Authentication
   • Windows Authentication (NTML – Users are available in Active Directory)
   • Form Based Authentication (ASP.NET FBA – Users stored in SQL database, Mainly used for vendors)
   • Anonymous access can be enabled (Any one can access the site without login)

SharePoint 2013

1. Claims Based Authentication (Classic based Authentication is removed remaining same as above)

Note: NTLM – Windows NT LAN Manager, FBA – Form Based Authentication

7. What is claims based authentication in SharePoint?

Claims is a new authentication method that SharePoint 2010/2013 can utilize. This allows a single authentication store for multiple types of authentication (Windows NTLM, SQL FBA, LDAP, etc). This allows all of these authentications to access SharePoint under a single URL.

Claims creates a SAML token based on the sign-in, that contains the user’s identity.

8. What is new in Shared Service Provider (SSP ) in Sharepoint 2010 ? ( Alternate Question : What is new Service Application?

In SharePoint 2010, Shared Service Provider is replace as Service Applications. SSP Services are split out into separate services.

What is replaced:
Profiles, Audiences = User Profile Service Application
Search = Search Service Application
Excel = Excel Service Application
Whats new:
Project Server = Project Server Application
Visio Services = Visio Service Application
Advantages:
Web applications can be configured to only use a subset of the deployed services.We can create same service application multiple times with different names. You can share services across multiple web applications in a farm.

9. Difference between Application Page and Site Page in SharePoint?

Application Page : 

• Stored in server file system, SharePoint designer cannot edit these pages.
• If you see page url contains “_layouts” that page is application page and we cannot customize.
• Developer can create these pages from visual studio and deploy as FARM solution.
• Sandbox solution will not be supported in application page.
• Application page can be accessed from any web application because page is deployed under layouts folder.
• E.g., site settings pages, All site contents page, List setting page etc,.

Site Page :

• Pages created by user and stored in content databases
• Page can be edited by end user and can insert webparts.
• Two types of site pages are available
  • Wiki Page (User can type and insert articles and webparts)
  • WebPart Page (Only webparts can be inserted)

10. What is BDC and BCS?

It is a shared service that enables Microsoft Office SharePoint Server(MOSS) 2007 to surface business data from back-end server applications. Business Data Catalog or BDC provides built-in support for displaying data from databases and Web services. That is, you can use Business Data Catalog to display data from your SAP, Siebel, or other line-of-business (LOB) application via Web services or databases connections.

BDC is read only to the database data, but is SharePoint 2010 and 2013 BDC is replaces as BCS names called Business Connectivity Services. BCS is read and write to the database data.

11. What is stsadm?

It is a Command-line tool used for administration of Office SharePoint 2007 (or MOSS 2007) servers and sites.

Even in SharePoint 2010 and 2013 we can still use stsadm commands but PowerShell scripts are popular than stsadm.

12. What is a dwp?

The file extension of a web part. dwp is data web part. We can dwp files in webpart gallery under site settings.

13. What is the GAC?

GAC is Global Assembly Cache. Global Assembly Cache is assembly folder on the server. You place your assemblies (web parts,services etc) to use in FARM level