In this chapter, we will cover:
Managing a service
Creating the Secure Store
Creating custom security for a service
Creating a custom service application proxy group
Managing service application associations
Setting up Excel Services
Setting up PerformancePoint Services
Setting up Visio Services
Setting up Managed Metadata Service
Establishing a trust relationship between two farms
Publishing a SharePoint Service
Consuming another Farm's Service
SharePoint 2010 introduces an overhaul of the MOSS 2007 Shared Service Provider (SSP). It is such a significant paradigm change that those who are responsible for implementing SharePoint must understand architecting to a different level.
MOSS 2007 had the SSP. The SSP encapsulated Search, Excel Calculations Services, user profiles, and the business data catalog. This is a "box" of services. This box was limited because you could not break it apart. One of the reasons it was limited was the fact that the services within affected the whole farm. If Accounting wished to use Excel Calculation Services, the whole farm was affected, even those not using it. In addition, writing an integrated custom service was out of the question.
SSPs are gone in SharePoint 2010. Microsoft has taken the SSP concept and built a new service application infrastructure that is flexible, extensible, and scalable:
Flexible: Services can be segmented to a particular group of users providing security boundaries...
In order to manage a service application, the Farm Administrator or service application administrator will either administer through the Central Administration website or through PowerShell.
There is a Manage Service Applications page that lists all the services running on the farm that you have rights to manage. This will be clearly shown in the recipe you are about to follow.
Many services have their own administration page and in this recipe you will learn how to navigate to these and will be shown the functional processes that you can do from the ribbon. For our example, we are using the Managed Metadata Service.
The Secure Store service can be referred to as a core service because several other services require this service to be set up and configured in order to function. A part of its offering is a secure database that stores credentials associated with application IDs. These IDs are used to access content from external data sources. This is accomplished by creating unattended accounts that are stored within the Secure Store database. An example of this will be seen in an upcoming recipe with Excel Services configuration. The Secure Store will be used to house the ID that will access the data sources that the dashboards will display. These are external data sources such as SQL Server or SAP. MOSS 2007 also provided this functionality through the use of the application proxy ID. The problem with this scenario is that it does not follow the least privileged account rules.
SharePoint 2010 uses the new Secure Store and a completely separate ID from the proxy. This means now...
With the advent of the service applications and their innate standalone nature, Farm Administrators have the ability to delegate responsibility on a per service basis. No longer is the Farm Administrator the only person managing the SharePoint deployment and, as a consequence, becoming a bottleneck for the organization.
In this recipe we can see that services can be assigned to the responsible party. The Central Administration UI will show only the pages for which the Server Administrator has rights.
As an example, search is a critical component to many SharePoint 2010 installations and typically there is a Subject Matter Expert who would be the administrator of this service. Now that person can be assigned the role and that is the only search service they will have access to administer.
Service application proxy groups organize which service applications are consumed by a web application. To make this functionality beneficial, it is recommended to name these groups in a logical manner. In this recipe, we will create a custom name for an application proxy group.
When creating a service application, it will automatically be assigned to the default proxy group. Out of the box, there are two application proxy groups:
Default
Custom
It is possible to assign a service application to a custom proxy group. The benefit of creating custom proxy groups are:
Greater flexibility for creating a set of services for a web application.
More efficient use of resources such as hardware.
A proxy group creates a service application proxy boundary. Web applications cannot consume service applications associated with a different proxy group. For instance, WebApp A is associated with proxy group #1. This group has a finance-managed metadata service ...
Web applications obtain access to the content through a tiered infrastructure. The tiers are depicted in the following diagram:
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There can be multiple service application proxy groups. You can logically associate your web applications in these proxy groups. In this recipe, we will show how to modify the proxy group membership.
You must have Farm Administrator privileges to Central Administration.
Create an application proxy group as outlined in the preceding recipe. In our example, we have created a group called SAPGFinancial.
1. Open Central Administration and click Application Management.
2. The third section is Service Applications. Click the Configure service application associations option. You will see a screenshot similar to the following:
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3. Click on the SAPGFinancial group option. A pop up will appear that will enable you to choose the service applications you want to associate with this application proxy group.
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4...
Excel Services is a standalone Service Application, giving users the ability to render their spreadsheets through SharePoint into the browser. Some of the benefits that are derived from this architecture are:
Ability to delegate administration of the service to particular users. This takes the burden of management from IT down to a user level. A SharePoint group can be created for users who will administrate this service.
Dedicate a server to run the service. This provides a level of adaptability and scalability as your organization's needs change.
This gives organizations a place to collaborate and helps prevent the spread of spreadsheets in files shares.
In order to leverage this technology, you must know how to set up this service application. In this recipe, we cover the steps necessary to create an Excel Services Service Application.
PerformancePoint Services give a user the ability to create KPIs, scorecards, and dashboards from data typically not contained within SharePoint. However, SharePoint list data can be used as a data source.
PerformancePoint exceeds expectations when it uses a SQL Server Analysis cube as its datasource. The reason for this is that now information can be leveraged in the dashboard and can be viewed multiple ways. Another common term for this is slicing and dicing the data. This ability comes from data set up in a cube. PerformancePoint does not set up a cube, but rather consumes the data and provides a mechanism to display and drill down into that data.
The second place PerformancePoint shines is in its ability to use several different technologies and provide a single viewing source for them. For example, a dashboard can be set up with several web part zones. One zone could be showing the scorecards of a process, the second zone could be showing a SQL Reporting...
Using Visio to visualize the data in SharePoint enables users at all levels to understand an organization's processes. These processes touch users such as customers, vendors, suppliers, and employees within the organization.
The data that is being used in Visio does not have to exist in SharePoint, and can be external. It gives organizations the ability to take complex processes and create a storyboard out of them, which is a pictorial representation of a process. When processes are converted to storyboards, they can be evaluated and improved in an agile fashion.
This equates to leaner, more efficient processes, which ultimately equates to better decision making, happier customers, and informed vendors and suppliers. The end result will be new and repeat business and cost savings.
With Visio Services, organizations can view Visio diagrams through Visio web parts. In addition, Visio web parts can interact with other web parts, giving users the flexibility to create...
The Managed Metadata Service (MMS) is critical to an efficient and functioning SharePoint 2010 site. It provides the means to define and share metadata within a farm, as well as across farms, from a central location. This also allows an organization to share content types across site collections and web applications.
The power of this becomes immediately apparent in organizations that take the time to structure their data. It is clear to see how an enterprise organization could benefit from this service. An example could be creating an FDA-approved drug in a large pharmaceutical company. This process is complex due to diverse geography, potential language barriers, federal regulations, stringent testing methods, and detailed accounting of every step of the process.
Upon identifying all of these elements, characteristics such as naming conventions, type of data, testing terminology, and internal terminology can be identified and made consistent. The...
To be able to subscribe to another farm's content, there has to be a trust relationship set up between the two farms. This gives the two server farms, the ability to communicate. This is accomplished through certificates that uniquely identify the farms.
In this recipe you will see how to set this up.
Because we are showing this with PowerShell, you must be a member of the SharePoint_Shell_Access database role on the configuration database of both the publishing farm and consuming farm. You also must be a member of the WSS_ADMIN_WPG local group on the chosen servers.
Finally, the two servers you will be using (one on the Publishing Farm and one on the Consuming Farm) must be selected ahead of time and the same two servers must be used throughout the process. The suggested servers to use are the ones hosting Central Administration.
Service applications can consume another service application. The advantage of this capability is leveraging resources that are defined and managed from a central location and distributed throughout the farm and/or farms.
Using the managed metadata service example from publishing, redundancy is reduced through reuse. The field created in one web application/site collection can be consumed in a completely separate web application/site collection. Maintenance of the content type is from a central location providing consistency and timeliness. As business and needs change, the organization can adapt quickly.
In this recipe, we will show how to consume another service application.
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