Visually, this topology looks like this:<\/p>\n
My experience is that this farm topology can frequently support companies with hundreds of employees.\u00a0 Of course, it depends a lot on the specifications of the hardware, but with late-model quad-core Xeons running on the two servers and 8 \u2013 16 GBs of RAM on each one with RAID built with 15k RPM SAS drives in the SQL Server, this configuration with SharePoint Server 2010 can perform very well in many organizations that have less than 1000 users.<\/p>\n At some point, an organization that started with this two-tier topology may want to scale out to the next level which is a three-tier topology.\u00a0 The three tiers would be:<\/p>\n Visually, this topology looks like this:<\/p>\n There are many different reasons why a company might want to scale out to three-tiers from two.\u00a0 Some kind of performance improvement is frequently what drives it.\u00a0 However, it may not be the obvious one of desiring better page serving times for the end users.\u00a0 For instance, I frequently see companies do this to move the search crawling and index building process to a different server that is more tuned for its unique resource requirements and can do a more efficient job of crawling and indexing the company\u2019s content.\u00a0 Perhaps in the two-tier approach their crawlindex component can\u2019t get enough hardware resources to crawl through all of the content on a timely basis.<\/p>\n One more point.\u00a0 Many organizations will also choose to add a second WFE when they scale out to a three-tier farm.\u00a0 (I don\u2019t show this in the diagram above).\u00a0 The second WFE will be configured exactly like the first one and some type of network load balancing (NLB) mechanism will be put in front of the WFEs to intelligently route user traffic to the two servers to balance out the load.\u00a0\u00a0 In this scenario, the three-tier farm diagram above would be modified to add a second WFE and the total number of servers in the SharePoint farm would be four.<\/p>\n Here is a screen shot of all of the service applications that run on the SharePoint 2010 server in a two-tier farm when you install\u00a0SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise edition<\/strong> and run the out-of-the-box Configure Your SharePoint Farm Wizard and\u00a0choose to provision all service applications<\/strong>:<\/p>\n (2nd Reminder: for this post, I am working under the assumption that you have used the SharePoint 2010 \u201cConfigure your SharePoint Farm\u201d wizard and have opted for it to provision all of the SharePoint Server 2010 **Enterprise Edition** service applications).<\/strong><\/p>\n Your goal is to add a third server to the SharePoint 2010 farm and have it take over running all of the service applications in the list above,\u00a0with the exception of the three that have been circled<\/strong>.\u00a0 The three that have been circled in the screen shot are the ones that are necessary for the original server to function as a dedicated WFE with query processing.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Search Query and Site Settings Service<\/strong> and some of its associated functionality in the\u00a0SharePoint Server Search Service<\/strong> are technically not required on a WFE, but it is the best place to put them.\u00a0 The reason is that this is the process that takes the user\u2019s search query and looks it up in the indexes.\u00a0 The indexes are files that the query processor needs local access to and are stored on the file system of the server(s) that is running the query service, not in SQL Server.<\/p>\n So, for best performance it is recommended to run the Search Query and Site Settings Service on the WFEs that are serving the pages.\u00a0 The crawling and index process is a separate process whose job it is to build the indexes and push them up to the query servers.<\/p>\n The Search Topology configuration settings in SharePoint 2010 dictate what functionality of the SharePoint Server Search Service runs on what server in the farm.\u00a0 So, while the SharePoint Server Search Service needs to run on both the WFE and the Application Server in this example, it will be possible break out the functionality that it performs on each.\u00a0 We will want it to\u00a0perform query-related functionality on the WFE<\/strong> and\u00a0crawling\/indexing functionality on the Application Server<\/strong>.\u00a0 Later in this post I will show you how to do this.<\/p>\n Now, on to the actual steps to doing the work:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m talking about taking a fresh physical or virtual server that has Windows Server 2008 (R1 or R2) running on it, and installing all the same SharePoint Server 2010 software on it that is installed on the existing SharePoint 2010 server in your existing farm.\u00a0 That includes the full RTM Enterprise edition, whatever patches have been applied in your farm since RTM, and any other separate products that have been installed on your existing server such as the Office 2010 Web Applications and its patches.<\/p>\n I recommend installing all RTM software and all patches that have previously been applied to the farm\u00a0BEFORE<\/strong> running the SharePoint 2010 Products Configuration Wizard from the new server\u2019s Start menu.\u00a0 This means that you will want to respond\u00a0NO<\/strong> to the prompt to automatically run the wizard until you have installed all software packages on the new server.\u00a0 This will save you from having to run the wizard multiple times.\u00a0 Run it once \u2013 after you have installed all software and patches on the new server.<\/p>\n When you do run the SharePoint 2010 Products Configuration Wizard, you will run it on the new server that will be your application server.\u00a0 The wizard is going to help you join the server to the farm and get all of the software configured and running that you installed in Step 1.<\/p>\n Here are what the pages of the wizard look like as you go through the process:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Oops, you forgot to install a piece of software on this new server that is already installed on the other server.\u00a0 The wizard has caught your error and is not going to let you proceed until you get this done.<\/p>\n Exit the wizard and go install the software \u2013 in this case, the Microsoft Office 2010 Web Apps.<\/p>\n OK, you got the missing software installed and have restarted the wizard.\u00a0 The next screen asks you for the Farm PassPhrase.\u00a0 This is a special password you created when you originally created the farm.\u00a0 You have to enter it here in order to join this server to the farm:<\/p>\n If you click on Advanced Settings above, the next page asks whether or not you want to use this server to host the Central Administration website (sort of implying that you could move it from your existing SharePoint 2010 server to the new one).<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t tried selecting the second option in SharePoint 2010.\u00a0 In MOSS 2007,\u00a0according to this blog post<\/a> you needed to remove the Central Administration web application from the original server before you got to this step on the new server. In the context of scaling out by adding an application server, that is probably what you would want do.\u00a0 If you choose to go this route, just make sure you have good backups before you delete the Central Admin site from the existing server.\u00a0 For this walkthrough, you are going to leave Central Administration on the existing server:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now the server has been joined to the farm and is a full-fledged farm member.\u00a0 But, the Configure Your SharePoint Farm Wizard in Central Administration needs to run to add the service applications that exist in the farm to this new server.\u00a0 So, it automatically fires up your browser and asks you to run the Farm Configuration Wizard:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After you start the wizard, it will just run for a while without any input from you and return this page if everything was successful:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s a good idea at this point to go verify that the new server is showing up as a member of the farm with a healthy status.\u00a0 To do that go to Central Administration > System Settings > Manage Servers In This Farm and find the new server and verify that it has a \u201cNo action required\u201d status:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Take a moment to breathe deep and pat yourself on the back\u00a0 But, there is more work to be done so that your three-tier farm has only the web page serving and query processing services running on the WFE and all of the other service applications running only on the Application Server.\u00a0 Until you get that accomplished, the job is not done.<\/p>\n (Note: the farm will work and be fully functional if you stop here.\u00a0 You will have the same Service Applications running on multiple servers and SharePoint 2010 will automatically use this topology as a load balancing technique for the Service Applications.\u00a0 There may be some environments where this is desired.\u00a0 But, most organizations will want to separate the web-serving services and the application-serving services to provide a better balance for the farm as a whole as opposed to just load balancing the Service Applications.)<\/p>\n You want the Web Front-End to run these (and only these) services:<\/p>\n You want the Application Server to run these (and only these) services:<\/p>\n If you can get this done and everything works properly, you will have achieved your overall goal.<\/p>\n (Important Note: Step 1 above is really the only step in the process that can be done during normal working hours.\u00a0 Everything else has the potential to impact the availability of the system to the users.\u00a0 If everything goes smoothly, it is possible to do Step 2 through Step 4 in two to four hours.\u00a0 Of course, it is highly recommended to have solid backups in place before starting Step 2.)<\/p>\n For the most part, the re-configuration of the services involves stopping a lot of services on the WFE server (using the Services on Server page in Central Admin) and verifying that they are running on the new server (which they probably are because the Configure Your SharePoint Farm wizard started them up when you ran it in Step 2).\u00a0 Then, you will want to make one last pass over the list of services running on the Application Server and make sure that the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application Service and the Search Query and Site Settings\u00a0are not<\/strong> running on it.<\/p>\n The exception to the statements of the previous paragraph is the search-related services:\u00a0 SharePoint Server Search Service and Search Query and Site Settings Service.\u00a0 Search is complicated enough that it has its own topology configuration settings.\u00a0\u00a0 You need to use this capability to place the query functionality of the SharePoint Server Search Service on the WFE and to place the crawlingindexing functionality of the service on the Application Server.<\/p>\n Since this is a little more complicated than the other Service Applications, go ahead and do this one first.<\/p>\n Navigate to the Search Administration home page in Central Administration.\u00a0 Scroll down to the bottom of the page until you see the section titled Search Application Topology:<\/p>\n This part of the page shows you what servers the following four components of the Search service are running on:<\/p>\n The Server Name column shows that the Search Administration, Crawl, and Query components are currently running on the existing server (SPS-INTRANET in the example).\u00a0 The search-related databases are running on the SQL Server.<\/p>\n You want to do the following:<\/p>\n To accomplish this, click on the Modify button to go to the Topology for Search Service Application page:<\/p>\n By hovering your mouse over the component lines, you can bring up a drop down menu and select Edit Properties for the components you want to move to the new server.<\/p>\n Do this now for the\u00a0Search Administration component<\/strong>:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now do it the same way for the\u00a0Crawl component<\/strong> (screen shot is the same as the one above).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Once you have changed the server assignments for these two components, you need to kick of the actual transfer of responsibilities by clicking on Apply Topology Changes:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The actual transfer of responsibilities begins:<\/p>\n When it is finished, you will be returned to the Search Administration home page and you should see that the components have been transferred as directed and all of the search-related servers should have a status of \u201cOnline\u201d:<\/p>\n Note:\u00a0 I am not sure why, but this page never shows anything in the Status column for the Databases component.\u00a0 So, it is normal for that column to be blank for that component.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n All that is left is to use the Services on Server page in Central Administration to make sure the list of services running on each server matches your master list from above:<\/span><\/p>\n You want the Web Front-End to run these (and only these) services:<\/p>\n You want the Application Server to run these (and only these) services:<\/p>\n To do this, you use the Server drop-down control to select the server you want to adjust, and then use the Start\/Stop link in the Action column to turn on\/off the services.<\/p>\n Here is what your Services on Server page should look like once each has been properly adjusted fore each server:<\/p>\n For the Web Front-End (SPS-INTRANET in this example):<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For the Application Server (SPS-APPSVR in this example):<\/p>\n![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/sharepointsolutions.com\/sharepoint-help\/files\/2011\/02\/image.png\")
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<\/a><\/p>\nGetting From Here to There<\/h4>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nStep by Step: Scaling SharePoint 2010 to Three Tiers<\/span><\/h1>\n
Step 1 \u2013 Build a new SharePoint Server with exactly the same software<\/h4>\n
Step 2 \u2013 Run the SharePoint 2010 Products Configuration Wizard on the new server and join the existing farm<\/h4>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nStep 3 \u2013 Verifying that everything is running properly on the new server<\/h4>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n.\u00a0 You have done a lot of work to get to this point.\u00a0 You now have a three-tier SharePoint 2010 farm.<\/p>\nStep 4 \u2013 Re-configure the servers to run the services that are appropriate for their individual roles<\/h4>\n
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Adjusting the Search Application Topology<\/h4>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nTransferring the remaining Service Applications<\/h4>\n
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