Best Practices for Project Server 2007 Deployment in a Large Server Farm with Office SharePoint Server 2007

The beauty of this implementation is that this article also provides steps required to configure Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 on a large server farm.

In this post, I will try to explain the key steps and points to remember in line with Microsoft best practices published at:

• http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/fd6640e9-d7c6-4108-b6fd-7eba162a5b621033.mspx?mfr=true

Note: This article assumes that SQL Server 2005 Clustered Environment is also setup and configured in order to use for this environment.

Architecture: Project Server 2007 Deployment on a Large Server Farm

In the figure below, I have tried to explain the number of servers and their role in the farm environment.

Servers Involved

• Two Front-end Web Servers Running Web Application
• One Application Server Running MS SharePoint Indexing Services
• One Application Server Running MS SharePoint Query Services
• Two Application Servers Running MS Project Server 2007 Services

Network Infrastucture

• VLAN 1 Serving Two Front End Web Servers
• VLAN 2 Serving Four Application Servers
• VLAN 3 Serving Database Servers in a Clustered Environment

Pre-Installation Steps

• Configure Front-end Web Servers in a Network Load balanced Environment
• All Servers in the farm including SQL Server 2005 Clustered servers should must ping to each other
• SQL Server 2005 should be installed on Active/Passive Clustered Environment and use SAN for managing databases (Recommended Approach)

Installation and Configuration Steps for SharePoint Portal Server 2007 Deployment on Large Server Farm

• Install and Configure First-end Web Server
  • Install MS SharePoint Portal Server 2007 after installing .NET Framework 3.0 and configure ASP.NET 2.0 Component
  • Select "Web Front End" for the server installation type during Installation step, as we will only configure Web Application Services on this Server
  • During SharePoint Configuration Wizard, Select "Create New Farm", as this is our first server in the farm. For any subsequent servers, we will select "Add to existing Farm" option, during SharePoint Configuration Wizard creating configuration databases on the database server.
  • Specify Clustered database server name and database for c
  • After SharePoint Configuration wizard is completed, Enable "SharePoint Web Application Services" by browsing SharePoint Central Administration Web Site
• Install and Configure 2nd Front-end Web Server
  • Follow the steps described for the first front-end server to configure this server. The only difference is that, you will select "Add to existing Farm" during SharePoint Configuration Wizard.
• Install and Configure SPS Index Server
  • Install MS SharePoint Portal Server 2007 after installing .NET Framework 3.0 and configure ASP.NET 2.0 Component
  • Select "Complete" for the installation type during Installation step, as we will be running application services on this server
  • During SharePoint Configuration Wizard, Select "Add to Existing Farm", as this is our first server in the farm. For any subsequent servers, we will select "Add to existing Farm" option, during SharePoint Configuration Wizard.
  • After SharePoint Configuration wizard is completed, Enable "Office SharePoint Search Services" and select only Indexing Component
  • Disable Web Application Services from this server
• Install and Configure SPS Query Server
  • Install MS SharePoint Portal Server 2007 after installing .NET Framework 3.0 and configure ASP.NET 2.0 Component
  • Select "Complete" for the installation type during Installation step, as we will be running application services on this server
  • During SharePoint Configuration Wizard, Select "Add to Existing Farm", as this is our first server in the farm. For any subsequent servers, we will select "Add to existing Farm" option, during SharePoint Configuration Wizard.
  • After SharePoint Configuration wizard is completed, Enable "Office SharePoint Search Services" but select this server for only querying purposes
  • Disable Web Application Services from this server
• Install and Configure Two Project Server 2007 Application Servers
  • Install MS SharePoint Portal Server 2007 after installing .NET Framework 3.0 and configure ASP.NET 2.0 Component
  • Select "Complete" for the installation type during Installation step, as we will be running application services on this server
  • During SharePoint Configuration Wizard, Select "Add to Existing Farm", as this is our first server in the farm. For any subsequent servers, we will select "Add to existing Farm" option, during SharePoint Configuration Wizard.
  • At this moment, don't enable any service on these servers.

Create SharePoint Web Application

After Configuring services, you need to create a new web application in order to test the functionality of the whole SharePoint farm. Once web application is created, it should be accessible by specifying the IP addresses of each web servers and host header name.

At this point, we have successfully installed and configured SharePoint Portal Server 2007 on a large server farm.

Now, we will install and configure Project Server 2007 on Large Server Farm.

Installation and Configuration Steps for deploying Project Server 2007 on existing MS Office SharePoint Server 2007

• Install MS Project Server 2007 on each servers involved in the server farm excluding database servers
• Run SharePoint Configuration Wizard on each servers
• Enable "Project Server Service" on Project Server Application Servers

Create the Web application to host the Project Web Access site

Follow the article below to create Project Web Access site hosting Projects.

• http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/fd6640e9-d7c6-4108-b6fd-7eba162a5b621033.mspx?mfr=true

Category: MOSS 2007

Published: 04/03/2008 23:09