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In a previous post I mentioned the WFE/Index role and how making the index server have a WFE (Use a Dedicated WFE for Indexing) role can optimize your traffic and throughput (less hops) as well since the requests can be made locally. I still think it's a great recommendation, but I want to provide some caution on mixing roles where you may run into some trouble.
Here's the gotcha! If you're trying to do a high availability scenario for your WFE and Query (which is common). (Query role is the server that takes the search requests and has a copy of the propegated index) You should *NEVER* have the index server be the same as the Query in a high availability scenario. Why? When an Index server is also a Query server it won't know that it needs to propegate the index.
Note: It's fine on a 1 or 2 server box where query is not offloaded.
What this means...
So what does a high availability farm look like, and what is going to be the most common farm beyond the single box or 2 box farm?
You guessed it. The typical medium farm: 2 WFE/Query, 1 Index (may include WFE if they're smart), 2 SQL (clustered or some other high availability scenario... Database mirroring/SQL log shipping, etc...)
<Update> Brenda from UA pointed me to the TechNet high availability doc where they outline in the 4 Server Farm this same gotcha. Note the recommendations on the index server in the 5 server farm.
Snippet from high availability doc:
Four-server farm
The smallest server farm that builds in availability consists of four servers:
- Servers one and two: Web servers and query role installed on both computers. Additional application server roles, such as Excel Calculation Services, can be installed on one or both servers.
- Servers three and four: clustered or mirrored database server.
The caveat with this farm size, however, is the choice of where to deploy the index server role.If the index role is installed on the same server computer as the query role, the index role no longer propagates content indexes to external query servers. Consequently, if you install the index server role to one of the Web servers, you lose the ability to host the query role on both Web servers. You can install the index role on the database server, achieving availability of the query role on the Web servers.However, the performance of the database server will be affected.
Comment from Joel: Putting the Index on a SQL cluster is a bad idea for a few reasons. 1) It's not cluster aware, and 2) You're going to be competing for resources. Having SQL installed with the SharePoint bits and IIS is ok in the small business, but not desirable in a more resource intensive scenario. (Index really is the first box you're going to want to offload off the FE.)
</update>
PingBack from http://www.virtual-generations.com/2007/03/22/bi-weekly-sharepoint-2007-links-galore/
If you think about it neither reason you give for not putting indexing on the SQL server holds up to scrutiny. First, the index server doesn't need to be cluster aware because if it's down then it just won't make updates. Second, why not put indexing on the passive node? Most of the time, it should be idle anyway from a SQL perspective. Am I missing something?
Thanks for the great explanation Joel. I was trying to come up with a great way to discuss this (I had someone ask me about this recently) but now I will just link to you!
Simple farm deployment (Office SharePoint Server) Tomado de: http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en
MOSS 2007 presenta una mayor flexibilidad en cuanto a las topologías que podamos implementar en una solución
Body: HP have released a new sizing and configuration tool for SharePoint. I've run through my initial
Many of you may think this is basic info, so don't over think what I'm saying here. I'm sitting in Shane
Many of you may think this is basic info, so don't over think what I'm saying here. I'm sitting
If the Indexer has the WFE role and the sites you want searched on it does it Always use the local sites to create the index?
(I'm trying to ensure the Indexer doesn't impact the WFEs in a 4 Server farm (2 WFE/Query, 1 Index/WFE, 1 SQL) )
Many thanks for all your blogs - they're great :)
Nanuk
Hi Joel,
Great article. I'm setting up a high-available solution and wondering if it would make sense to have the Index running on a Windows Server Active/Passive cluster, with the index files stored on a SAN?
Thank you
Ryan,
SharePoint Index server is not cluster-aware so there is not much sense in clustering it.
You can have only 1 index server per SSP. Each additional index server must have its own set of content sources.