Hello All,
I want to know the difference between a Search Server and a Query Server in MOSS 07 environment
What are they What do they do
Can we have them on a dedicated server
Can we have them in more than one server
How many is an SSP
I would be looking for the answers for these.
Thanks in advance.
Hassan
A Search Server is a server that does the grunt work of indexing the content. Typically this is hosted on a seperate server. A Query Server is usually a Front-End server(s) that has a copy of the index from the search server that allows the front end server(s) to do a search wihtout relying on the search server. In this configuration, the search server can go down without it affecting the end users because the front-end servers have a copy of the index. However, if the search server is down for an extended period of time, the query servers index will get stale from lack of updates.
In our environment, we have 3 front-end web servers which all have Query Server ( Use this server for serving search queries ) enabled and one "application server" that hosts our search server ( Use this server for indexing content).
I believe you can only have one search server per SSP. One key thing to note is the if you want to use query services on the front-end webservers, it is imporant that you don't have query services enabled on the indexing server.
You can enable search services via Central Admin / Services on Server --> Office SharePoint Server Search .
Let me know if this doesn't answer your questions.
Eli
Thanks so much for replying.
OK, This explains Query servers very easily.
But then again what is a difference between Search and Indexing Server because as I understand you can only have one Indexer per SSP as well.
And as you say that a Search Server is a server that does the grunt work of indexing content than what is the Index Server do a bit confusing or is it like search server aka index server, is it like that
Anyways, Thanks so much, you were very helpful.
Thanks again.
Hassan
The Search server in the way that I described it is the same as the indexing server. You can only have one indexing search / search server per SSP. Not to confuse you anymore but a search server COULD be both an indexing server and a query server if you wanted the index built on one server and all the query pointing to it. But for all intent and purposes, in the corporate production world usually has a seperate server for the indexing server and it is commonly referred to as the Search server.
Does that help
Eli
Thanks a lot dude!
That really helps, we currently use SPS 2003, and in a way it has been setup a 2(NLB WFE+Query) 1 Indexer and 2 DB servers cluster
But we are planning to go for MOSS 07 now, and for MOSS our requirement is increasing as well, we only used SPS 2003 as an Extranet which was 18000 daily visitors, but for MOSS we plan to take it for Internet + Extranet + Intranet, which in total will be 30000 daily visitors, around 0.5 TB of content in the environment, around 5 TB of total content to index throughout the organization, and we plan to use MOSS 07 for ECM, Collaboration, Search, Biz Processes, Portal and a bit of BI.
So for this my initial design is 2 (NLB WFE + Query) servers, 1 aap server to host central admin, web apps, SSP, doc coversion service, and excel services, 1 index server and 1 DB server cluster.
So what do you think for the above estimated requirements and stuff does the design looks OK or not
I know you cannot be sure but you can see it and only decide from the info provided by me above.
Thanks again, so much.
Hassan
Unless you are planning on using Excel Services or Document Conversion Service a lot, it seems like the index server and the app server might be under utilized. I am thinking you might be better off with 3 WFE and 1 apps server with the index services also on that.
Eli
Yeah that is a good idea.
Thanks so much for all the help you provided.
Hassan