You can deploy three server farm configurations:

• Small server farm  You must configure the servers in the small server farm as follows:
  • One computer running the Web component, index component, and search component, and running as the job server. This computer can optionally run the components for backward-compatibility with Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001 document libraries.
  • One or more computers running Microsoft SQL Server 2000.

  For the procedure to install a small server farm, see Deploying a Small Server Farm.

• Medium server farm  You must configure the servers in the medium server farm as follows:
  • One or two front-end Web servers with the search component enabled.
  • One index management and job server.
  • One or more computers running SQL Server 2000.
  • Optional: One computer running the components for backward-compatibility with Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001 document libraries.

  For the procedure to install a medium server farm, see Deploying a Medium Server Farm.

• Large server farm  You must configure the servers in the large server farm as follows:
  • Two or more front-end Web servers.
  • Two or more search servers. It is recommended that you have no more than four search servers.
  • One or more index management servers, one of which is the job server. It is recommended that you have no more than four index management servers.
  • One or more computers running SQL Server 2000.
  • Optional: One computer running the components for backward-compatibility with Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001 document libraries.

  For the procedure to install a large server farm, see Deploying a Large Server Farm.

Recommendations

When specifying accounts, the following is recommended:

• Use the same account for the configuration database administration account for each server in the server farm.
• Use the same account for the application pool account for the portal site (MSSharePointPortalAppPool) for each server in the server farm.

  When restarting servers in a server farm, restart the computer running SQL Server 2000 first. Wait until this computer has restarted before restarting other servers. If you do not wait until the computer running SQL Server 2000 has restarted, services on other computers do not start, and you cannot use the portal site.

• When SQL Server is installed, and Windows Authentication is selected, SQL Server 2005 will use Kerberos, by default. For SharePoint Portal Server to connect to SQL Server 2005, in this case, the Service Principal Name (SPN) for the SQL Server service must be registered under the Windows domain account running SQL Server 2005.

Related Topics

Single Server Deployments

Shared Services Deployments