Step-by-Step: Create the Search Service Application in SharePoint 2010

In my current project, I got the opportunity to set up the SharePoint 2010 farm creation. In this blog I will only talk about the way I configured the Search Service application. There are numerous links/contents available, this piece only talks about what I did. If I have missed any points please put your comments. Hope to talk about more configurations in coming blogs….

When we deploy and configure a Search service application, we perform the following basic steps:

1. Create accounts – Domain user accounts are required to run the various search services and components.
2. Create a Search service application – A Search service application provides enterprise search features and functionality.
3. Configure the Search service application – Basic configuration of a Search service application includes configuring a default content access account, an e-mail contact, and content sources.
4. Configure the Search topology – You can deploy crawl components, query components, and the administration component on different servers in the farm. You can also specify which instance of SQL Server is used to host the administration, crawl, and property databases.

1.1    Create Accounts

The below Accounts are required to configure search service application

#	Account	Use
1	Search service application SharePoint Foundation Search Service Account: “spSearch”	The Windows user account that is used for the SharePoint Server Search service, the Search Admin Web Service application pool, and Search Query and Site Settings Web Service application pool.
2	Default content access SharePoint Foundation Search Content Access Account: “spSearchCA”	The identity that is used by the Search service application to access content when crawling.

1.1.1     Register Managed Accounts

The service account for search (the account used for the Search service account, the Search Admin Web Service, and the Search Query and Site Settings Web Service) must be registered as a managed account in SharePoint Server 2010 to make it available when you create the Search service application. Use the following procedure to register this account as a managed account.

#	Description
1	On the Central Administration home page, in the Quick Launch, click Security
2	On the Security page, in the General Security section, click Configure managed accounts
3	On the Managed Accounts page, click Register Managed Account (the AD users should have “Read” access permission defined in AD)
4	On the Register Managed Account page, in the Account Registration section, type the user name and password that you want to use as credentials for the service account
5	If you want SharePoint Server 2010 to manage password changes for this account, select the Enable automatic password change check box and configure the parameters for automatic password change

1.1.2     Search Database Architecture

#	Description
1	Architecture (Databases) When you create a Search service application, SharePoint Server creates three databases for storing search information and associated data: ·         Administration Database – used to store search admin information ·         Crawl database – used to store crawl information ·         Property Database – used to store index information

1.2    Create a Search service application

You can create multiple Search service applications if you have to have multiple search indexes.

#	Description
1	Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is a member of the Farm Administrators group for the farm for which you want to create the service application
2	On the Central Administration Home page, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications
3	On the Manage Service Applications page, on the ribbon, click New, and then click Search Service Application
4	On the Create New Search Service Application page, accept the default value for Name, or type in a new name for the Search service application.
5	In the Search Service Account list, click the account that you created in the previous procedure to run the Search service
6	In the Application Pool for Search Admin Web Service section, do the following: 1.     Select the Create new application pool option, and then type a name for the application pool in the Application pool name text box. 2.     In the Select a security account for this application pool section, select the Configurable option, and then select the account that you created to run the application pool for the Search Admin Web Service from the list.
7	In the Application Pool for Search Query and Site Settings Web Service section, do the following: 1.     Choose the Create new application pool option, and then type a name for the application pool in the Application pool name text box. 2.     In the Select a security account for this application pool section, select the Configurable option, and then select the account that you created to run the application pool for the Search Query and Site Settings Web Service from the list.
8	Click OK on the new Create New Search Service Application dialog to provision the new service application.
9	Once the Search Service Application has been successfully provisioned on the server farm you will have a topology with 1 Search Administration, 1 Crawl, and 1 Query component on the machine hosting SharePoint 2010 Central Administration and all associated databases on the default database server.

1.3    Configure the Search service application

You configure a Search service application on the Search Administration page for that service application.

Use the following procedure to navigate to the Search Administration page for a particular Search service application.

#	Description
1	Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is an administrator for the Search service application that you want to configure.
2	On the Home page of the Central Administration Web site, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications. On the Manage Service Applications page, click the Search service application that you want to configure. Go to the Search Administration page
4	On the Search Administration page, configure the following settings as described in the following sections: Default content access account Contact email address Content sources
5	Specify the default content access account When you create a Search service application, the account that you specify for the Search Service Account is automatically configured as the default content access account. The crawler uses this account to crawl content that does not have an associated crawl rule that specifies a different account. For the default content access account, we recommend that you specify a domain user account that has read access to the content that you want to crawl. You can change the default content access account at any time. If you need to crawl certain content using a different account, you can create a crawl rule and specify a different account for crawling. For information about how to create a crawl rule, see Manage crawl rules (SharePoint Server 2010).Use the following procedure to specify the default content access account. To specify the default content access account 1.     On the Search Administration page, in the System Status section, click the link in the Default content access account row. 2.     In the Default Content Access Account dialog box, in the Account box, type the account that you created for content access in the form domain\user name. 3.     Type the password for this account in the Password and Confirm Password boxes. 4.     Click OK.
6	Specify the contact e-mail address The contact e-mail address is written to the logs of crawled servers. The default contact e-mail address, someone@example.com, is a placeholder. We recommend that you change this to an account that an external administrator can contact when a crawl might be contributing to a problem such as a decrease in performance on a server that the search system is crawling. Use the following procedure to specify the contact email address. To specify the contact e-mail address 1.     On the Search Administration page, in the System Status section, click the link for the Contact e-mail address. 2.     In the Search Email Setting dialog box, in the E-mail Address box, type the e-mail address that you want to appear in the logs of servers that are crawled by the search system. 3.    Click OK.
7	Create content sources Crawling requires at least one content source. A content source called Local SharePoint sites is created automatically during installation and is automatically configured for crawling all of the SharePoint sites in the server farm. If you perform a Server Farm installation of SharePoint Server 2010, no crawls are automatically scheduled or performed. 1.     Click the Content Sources from quick launch menu 2.     Click Local SharePoint Sites (otherwise you can create New Content Source) 3.     Add the url in “Start Address” 4.     Click “Start all crawls” from the Content Sources page.

1.4    Configure the Search topology

The search topology covers the below:

The Search administration (Admin) topology does not scale out - there can be on one (1) search administration component and one (1) search administration database per Search Service Application.

The Crawl topology can be scaled out by adding Crawl Components or Crawl Databases.  Crawl Components can have a many-to-one relationships with Crawl Databases.

The Query topology can be scaled out by adding Property Databases or by adding Query Components.  Index Partitions subdivide the full-text index.   A new Query Component can either be the first component in a new partition or an additional component in an existing partition.

The next step is to move the query components to the servers on the Web tier, the crawl and property store (query) databases are provisioned on the SQL server instance that was specified for the SharePoint Server farm. If you have more than one application server in your farm, you can deploy these components on other application servers, depending on your requirements. You can deploy multiple instances of each crawl component and each query component.

#	Description
1	To move the query component to a Web server (with query component in 2 WFEs) 1.     On the Central Administration Home page, click Manage service applications. 2.     On the Services Applications page, click Search Service Application. 3.     On the Search Administration page, in the Search Application Topology section, click Modify. 4.     On the Topology for Search Service Application: Search Service Application page, in the Index Partition section, click Query component 0, and then click Edit Properties. 5.     On the Edit Query Component page, select one of the front-end Web servers from the Server drop-down list, and then click OK. 6.     On the Topology for Search Service Application: Search Service Application page, in the Index Partition section, click Query component 0, and then click Add mirror (for fail over). 7.     On the Add mirror query component page, in the Server drop-down list, select the front-end Web server that you identified on the Edit Query Component page, and then click OK.
2	To move the crawl component to a Web server 1.     On the Central Administration Home page, click Manage service applications. 2.     On the Services Applications page, click Search Service Application. 3.     On the Search Administration page, in the Search Application Topology section, click Modify. 4.     You can edit or create a new crawl component and select the App Server. 5.     Finally click Apply Topology Changes
3	Finally the Topology would look like below:

list of the service applications in SharePoint 2010 and 2013

Below you can find the list of services which require database and which are cross-farm compatible and make your life easy.
SharePoint Foundation Service Applications

SharePoint Server 2010 Standard Service Applications

SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Service Applications

 

Sharepoint 2013 service Application features:

add 2 new features;

Application Management Service   (new)	Is responsible for storing and providing   information concerning SP App licenses and permissions
SharePoint Translation Services   (new)	Provides built-in machine   translation capabilities on the SharePoint platform

Access Services 2010	Let’s users view, edit, and   interact with Access 2010 databases in a Web browser.
Access Services	Let’s users view, edit, and interact with Access 2013 databases in a Web browser.
Business Data Connectivity service	Gives access to line-of-business   data systems.
Excel Services Application	Let’s users view and interact   withExcel 2010 files in a Web browser.
Managed Metadata service	Manages taxonomy hierarchies,   keywords and social tagging infrastructure, and publish content types across   site collections.
PerformancePoint Service Application	Provides the capabilities of   PerformancePoint.
Search service	Crawls content, produces index   partitions, and serves search queries.
Secure Store Service	Provides single sign-on   authentication to access multiple applications or services.
State service	Provides temporary storage of user   session data for SharePoint Server components.
Usage and Health Data Collection   service	Collects farm wide usage and   health data, and provides the ability to view various usage and health   reports.
User Profile service	Adds support for My Sites, profile   pages, social tagging and other social computing features.
Visio Graphics Service	Lets users view and refresh   published Visio 2010 diagrams in a Web browser.
Word Automation Services	Performs automated bulk document   conversions.
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation   Subscription Settings Service	Provides multi-tenant   functionality for service applications. Tracks subscription IDs and settings   for services that are deployed in partitioned mode. Deployed through Windows   PowerShell only.
(Moved into Search)Web Analytics service	Provides Web service interfaces.

SharePoint 2010 site accessing error - The server is busy now. Try again later

While accessing ee.ihess.com (SharePoint 2010) site, I got the error saying that “The server is busy now. Try again later” as shown the image below.

We can get this error when on the processes/services taking up the bulk of your server resources you can take different actions to reduce this overload (For example: recycling the timer service more often). We have the option to turn off HTTP throttling for an entire web application in Central Administration.

We can fix this error by using the steps below

• Navigate to Central Admin > Application Management > Manage Web Applications. 
• Select the problematic Web App > Select the down arrow next to General Settings and click Resource Throttling.

• On the bottom of the window there will be an option to turn HTTP Request monitoring and Throttling Off. Click OK to save changes.

Top five differences between SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010

SharePoint has been around since 2001 and is one of the top collaboration resources.  However, it wasn't until the SharePoint 2007 (known as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or MOSS 2007) release that businesses really started to harness the power of collaboration. The latest 2010 version goes even further and offers sought after services straight out of the box.

So what is actually the difference between SharePoint 2007 and 2010? Well what a difference three years makes. This post looks at the key differences between SharePoint 2007 and the latest 2010 release and why SharePoint 2010 is what SharePoint 2007 should have been but wasn't.

1.    Improving social networking capability

A lot has changed in the World since 2007 and one of the biggest is the online explosion of social networking websites.
SharePoint 2010 has dramatically improved its capability in this arena with the addition of personal blogs, tagging and activity feeds within its social networking sites - MySites. MySites allow integration with Microsoft's BCS (Business Connectivity Services), which allows IT to link employees' MySites profiles to non-SharePoint data, such as information from a human resources system.
Wiki and blog integration in MOSS 2007 wasn't great and was widely panned by experts for not being very user friendly. Usability has been a key focus for SharePoint 2010 and it has been dramatically improved.
Similarly, community interaction within SharePoint 2007 was pretty poor and has been given a helping hand with user interfaces similar to Facebook profile pages. SharePoint 2010 has also added keyword tagging so that content can be found quicker.
SharePoint 2010 is even following in Twitters footsteps by adding micro blogging and activity feeds into the service.

2.     Improved search and content management

The search function in SharePoint 2010 is far more superior to previous versions because of improved scalability, query functionality and index redundancy.
As for managing business content, Microsoft has removed limitations in MOSS 2007's Enterprise Content Management (ECM) feature so document libraries can grow to 200 million items.

3.    Working offline  

SharePoint 2010 makes up some ground on the likes of Lotus Notes with SharePoint Workspace.  Workspace makes SharePoint libraries, lists and forms accessible offline. This is a huge step forward and helps to improve the productivity and efficiency of the users.

4.    Better connection to line-of-business data

Previous versions of SharePoint have had difficulties when trying the access enterprise software systems.  Microsoft has made significant improvements to integrate more business data in SharePoint 2010 by using its BCS (Business Connectivity Services) suite.
A recent Forrester report cited that the BCS helps make SharePoint 2010 the "connective tissue that bridges line-of-business systems and knowledge worker systems". The previous iteration of BCS, called BDC (Business Data Catalog), could bring only line-of-business data into SharePoint. BCS will provide both read and write access between business applications and SharePoint 2010.

5.    Developing SharePoint Apps  

Improvements to the design tool SharePoint Designer means that developer will need to deal less with coding. Tighter integration between Visual Studio and SharePoint, and built-in support for Silverlight is a great improvement on its predecessor MOSS 2007.

when & why to use delegates?

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace DelegateApp
{
    /// <summary>
    /// A class to define a person
    /// </summary>
    public class Person
    {
        public string Name { get; set; }
        public int Age { get; set; }
        public string Address { get; set; }
    }

    class Program
    {
        //Our delegate
        public delegate bool FilterDelegate(Person p);

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            //Create 4 Person objects
            Person p1 = new Person() { Name = "John", Age = 41 ,Address ="Hyd"};
            Person p2 = new Person() { Name = "Jane", Age = 69 ,Address = "Blr"};
            Person p3 = new Person() { Name = "Jake", Age = 12 , Address ="NLR" };
            Person p4 = new Person() { Name = "Jessie", Age = 25,Address ="Chennai" };

            //Create a list of Person objects and fill it
            List<Person> people = new List<Person>() { p1, p2, p3, p4 };
            DisplayPeople("Children:", people, IsChild);
            DisplayPeople("Adults:", people, IsAdult);
            DisplayPeople("Seniors:", people, IsSenior);
            DisplayPeople("Middle Age:", people, MiddleAge);

            List<Person> test = new List<Person>() { p1 };
            TestDisplay("testing data", test);
            Console.Read();
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// A method to filter out the people you need
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="people">A list of people</param>
        /// <param name="filter">A filter</param>
        /// <returns>A filtered list</returns>
        ///
        static void TestDisplay(string title1, List<Person> test)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(title1);
            foreach (Person t in test)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(" {0} ,{1} years of testing data", t.Name, t.Age);
            }
        }
       
        static void DisplayPeople(string title, List<Person> people, FilterDelegate filter)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(title);

            foreach (Person p in people)
            {
                if (filter(p))
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("{0}, {1} years old", p.Name, p.Age ,p.Address );
                }
            }

            Console.Write("\n\n");
        }

        //==========FILTERS===================
        static bool IsChild(Person p)
        {
            return p.Age <= 18;
        }

        static bool IsAdult(Person p)
        {
            return p.Age >= 18;
        }

        static bool IsSenior(Person p)
        {
            return p.Age >= 65;
        }
        static bool MiddleAge(Person p)
        {
            return p.Age >= 18 && p.Age <= 40;
        }
    }
}
















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Delegates Overview Delegates have the following properties: Delegates are similar to C++ function pointers, but are type safe. Delegates allow methods to be passed as parameters. Delegates can be used to define callback methods. Delegates can be chained together; for example, multiple methods can be called on a single event. Methods don't need to match the delegate signature exactly. For more information, see Covariance and Contra variance C# version 2.0 introduces the concept of Anonymous Methods, which permit code blocks to be passed as parameters in place of a separately defined method.