Project Server 2010 with SharePoint Server 2010 architecture (overview)

 

Applies to: SharePoint Server 2010, Project Server 2010

Topic Last Modified: 2011-08-05

This article discusses planning considerations that a SharePoint farm administrator should make when planning to deploy Microsoft Project Server 2010. Project Server 2010 is built on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 architecture and has a big dependency on SharePoint Server 2010 features and services. This article describes the following considerations:

• Microsoft EPM 2010 Overview

• Project Server 2010 compatibility with SharePoint Server versions

• Deployment

• Upgrade from Project Server 2007

• Installation considerations

• Service Application requirements for Project Server 2010

• Database considerations

• Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) considerations

• Project Server 2010 language packs

• Web browser considerations

Microsoft EPM 2010 Overview

The Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) 2010 Solution is a flexible, end-to-end Project Portfolio Management platform, used by organizations across many industries to automate primary PPM processes. The EPM Solution helps organizations achieve the following business imperatives:

• Intuitively capture all requests in a central repository, and manage them using governance workflow: Demand Management

• Objectively prioritize, optimize, and select project portfolios that best align with the organization’s business strategy: Portfolio Selection and Analytics

• Proactively and reactively manage resources throughout the project life cycle: Resource Management

• Easily create and communicate both simple and complex project schedules:Schedule Management

• Control and measure project and portfolio financial performance:Financial Management

• Simplify the collection of time and task status updates from team members: Time and Task Management

• Better connect different teams to share information and drive collaboration:Team Collaboration

• Identify, reduce, and communicate issues and risks that could adversely affect project success:Issues and Risk Management

• Effectively measure project performance and gain visibility and control across all portfolios:Business Intelligence and Reporting

• Initiate, plan, and deliver strategic programs: Program Management

The Microsoft EPM Solution includes the following products from the Microsoft Project 2010 family, to provide a comprehensive computer- and Web-based PPM solution

• Microsoft Project Server 2010: Project Server 2010 brings together the business collaboration platform services of SharePoint Server 2010 with structured execution capabilities to provide flexible work management solutions. Project Server 2010 unifies project and portfolio management to help organizations align resources and investments with business priorities, gain control across all kinds of work, and visualize performance using powerful dashboards. Project Server 2010 incorporates the best-in-class portfolio management techniques of Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007. This eliminates the need for Project Server Gateway (which was required to push data between Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Project Server 2007), and providing a consistent SharePoint Server user interface across the solution.

• Microsoft Project Professional 2010: Microsoft Project Professional 2010 delivers powerful, visually improved ways to simplify planning, collaboration, and resource management so managers can successfully tackle all kinds of projects. Connecting Project Professional 2010 with Project Server 2010 ensures that organizations can achieve the added business benefits of unified Project Portfolio Management.

Note

For more information about new features in Project Server 2010, see What's new for IT pros in Project Server 2010.

Project Server 2010 is built on SharePoint Server 2010 to provide true multi-tier architecture by using the new Service Application model. The Project Server architecture includes Project Professional 2010 and Microsoft Project Web App clients in the front-end tier. The front-end applications communicate with the middle tier only through the Project Server Interface (PSI) Web Services, which in turn communicate with the business object layer. Business objects use the databases through the data access layer. Client applications do not directly access the primary databases; Project Server hides business objects and the DAL from clients. For more information about Project Server 2010 architecture, see Project Server 2010 architecture.

Project Server 2010 compatibility with SharePoint Server versions

SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise version is an installation requirement for Project Server 2010. See the following table for Project Server /SharePoint Server compatibility.

	Installation Requirement	Will coexist on the same farm with	Will not work with
Project Server 2010:	SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise	SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise	Office SharePoint Server 2007
Project Server 2007:	Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	Office SharePoint Server 2007	SharePoint Server 2010

For more information about Project Server 2010 requirements, see Hardware and software requirements (Project Server 2010).

Deployment

Similar to SharePoint Server, a Project Server farm deployment can vary in complexity and size, depending on your business requirements. As a three-tier application, Project Server 2010 supports all farm topologies (small, medium and large). Similar to Office Project Server 2007, Project Server 2010 can be deployed on physical servers or virtual servers (Hyper-V) depending on IT requirements. In addition, Project Server 2010 can be configured for extranet access if resources outside your organization have to collaborate on projects. Similar to SharePoint Server, Project Server 2010 supports Windows PowerShell. For more information, see Windows PowerShell for Project Server 2010. For more information about Project Server 2010 capacity planning, see Plan for performance and capacity (Project Server 2010).

Upgrade from Project Server 2007

Microsoft is aware that its customers have made significant investments in deploying Office Project Server 2007 across their organizations. Microsoft has invested in upgrade processes and strategies to ensure customers can smoothly migrate from Office Project Server 2007 to Project Server 2010. For more information about Project Server 2010 upgrade and migration, see the Upgrade and Migration Resource Center for Project Server 2010 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=191607).

Installation considerations

Project Server 2010 installed to all servers in the farm: When you install Project Server 2010 to a farm, Project Server 2010 has to be installed to every application server and Web server in the farm. Therefore Project Server 2010 licenses are required for each server in the farm. When you apply updates to Project Server 2010, it is important to apply the same update to every application server and Web server in the farm to ensure that all servers in the farm are in a consistent state.

For more information about how to install Project Server 2010, see Deploy Project Server 2010 to a server farm environment.

For more information about licensing and pricing, see Microsoft Volume Licensing (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=155897).

Application server fault tolerance: Project Server 2010 application servers in a farm have fault tolerance through round-robin load balancing. A non-functioning server will be skipped and the request will be serviced by the remaining application servers in the farm. This feature may negate the need for applying a hardware-based fault tolerance solution.

Cross-farm services not supported: Sharing services across farms (cross-farm services) is not supported with Project Server 2010. Therefore careful planning must be done if Project Server 2010 is installed in a separate farm from the main content management farm. Additionally, Project Server 2010 does not have a mechanism to synchronize data between multiple instances of Project Web App.

Service Application requirements for Project Server 2010

In Project Server 2010/SharePoint Server 2010, services are no longer contained in a Shared Services Provider (SSP) like they were in Office Project Server 2007/Office SharePoint Server 2007. You can deploy only the services that are needed to a farm (known as service applications). Web applications can then be configured to use only the services that are needed, instead of the complete set of services that are deployed.

Note

For more information about the SharePoint Server 2010 services architecture, see Logical architecture components (SharePoint Server 2010). Also see the Service in SharePoint 2010 Products Technical Diagram (in Microsoft Visio).

The following five services must be enabled to operate a Project Server 2010 server farm:

• Project Service Application (used to host Project Web App instances)

• Excel Services (used for Reporting)

• PerformancePoint Service (used for Reporting

• Secure Store Service (used for Reporting)

• State Service (used for Charting)

Note

For performance considerations, it is a best practice to only enable the services necessary to fulfill requirements.

Database considerations

Installing and configuring Project Server 2010 creates the following databases:

• Draft database: Contains tables for saving unpublished projects from Microsoft Project Professional 2010. Project data in the Draft database cannot be accessed by using Microsoft Project Web App.

• Published database: Contains all of the published projects. Published projects are visible in Project Web App. The Published database also contains tables that are specific to Project Web App (timesheets, models, views, and so on), and global data tables (outline codes, security, and metadata).

• Archive database: Saves backed-up and older versions of projects.

• Reporting database: Serves as the staging area for generating reports and online analytical processing (OLAP) cubes. Data in the Reporting database is updated almost in real-time, is comprehensive, and is optimized for read-only report generation. For more information, see Plan reporting and business intelligence (Project Server 2010).

• Content database: We recommend a dedicated content database to store the Project Web App content and all project workspace data (such as Issues/Risks/Deliverables and project documents).

For more information about Project Server 2010 databases, see Plan the database tier (Project Server 2010).

Additionally, if the State Service (required by Project Server 2010) is started for the first time on the application server, a database will be created for the server.

For more information about the installation process, see Deploy Project Server 2010 to a server farm environment.

Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) considerations

Similar to Office Project Server 2007, Project Server 2010 uses SQL Server Analysis Services to generate online analytical processing (OLAP) cubes that are used to build reports on projects, timesheets, and resources.

In this version, Project Server is integrated with Excel Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 to make it easier to create custom reports. As part of this integration, blank data-connected worksheets and sample reports are provided. For more information about reporting, see the Business Intelligence in Project Server 2010 TechNet Resource Center (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=191609).

Using reports in Project Server 2010 requires you to install SQL Server 2008 Analysis Management Objects (AMO) to each application server in your farm.

Note

Use the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 version of AMO regardless of which version of SQL Server you are using to host your databases.

Additionally, after you install the AMO objects, you have to restart the Project Application Service on each application server in the farm where it is running. This service is configured in the SharePoint Central Administration Web site on the System Settings page in the Manage services on server page.

For more information about SQL Server Analysis Services requirements for Project Server 2010, see Configure reporting for Project Server 2010.

Project Server 2010 language packs

Project Server 2010 language packs enable your Project Web App users to view the site in multiple languages. SharePoint Server 2010 also has language packs, although their purpose differs from that of Project Server 2010 language packs because they enable you to create sites in different languages. Note the following about Project Server 2010 language packs:

• When you install a Project Server 2010 language pack, the installation files for the language pack should be installed to all application and Web servers in the farm before you run the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard.

• If you are installing multiple language packs, the installation files for all language packs should be installed to all application and Web servers in the farm before you run the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard.

• Project Server 2010 language packs are available for the following languages:

  • Arabic

  • Chinese (SC)

  • Chinese (TC)

  • Czech

  • Danish

  • Dutch

  • English

  • Finnish

  • French

  • German

  • Greek

  • Hebrew

  • Hungarian

  • Italian

  • Japanese

  • Korean

  • Norwegian (Bokmal)

  • Polish

  • Portuguese (Brazilian)

  • Russian

  • Slovak

  • Slovenian

  • Spanish

  • Swedish

  • Turkish

  • Ukrainian

• Project Server 2010 does not support all the languages that SharePoint Server 2010 supports. The following languages are supported by SharePoint Server 2010, but are not available in Project Server 2010 language packs.

  • Basque

  • Bulgarian

  • Catalan

  • Croatian

  • Estonian

  • Galician

  • Hindi

  • Kazakh

  • Latvian

  • Lithuanian

  • Romanian

  • Serbian (Latin)

  • Thai

Important

Prior to the Project Server 2010 Cumulative Update (June 2010), installing a SharePoint Server 2010 language pack in a language not supported in Project Server 2010 would potentially cause issues if you then had to upgrade Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 data to the Project Server 2010 farm. If you are using Project Server 2010 and will be loading SharePoint Server 2010 language packs that are not available for Project Server 2010, you should consider the June 2010 Cumulative Update to be the minimum release level that you should be at. For more information about the Project Server 2010 Cumulative Update for June 2010, see Description of the Project Server 2010 hotfix package (Pjsrvwfe-x-none.msp): June 29, 2010.

For more information about Project Server 2010 language packs, see Deploy language packs (Project Server 2010).

For more information about SharePoint Server 2010 language packs, see Deploy language packs (SharePoint Server 2010).

Web browser considerations

Project Server 2010 access through Project Web App requires Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, or Internet Explorer 9 as your Web browser. It is important to note because SharePoint Server 2010 supports not only these Web browsers, but also Web browsers that are not supported for Project Web App (and in some cases, explicitly blocked). It can also be an issue if your organization is currently using applications that are explicitly used for Internet Explorer 6. For more information about workarounds and other planning topics, see Plan browser support (Project Server 2010).

Note

The Service Pack 1 update for Project Server 2010 provides support for specific versions of additional browsers (Firefox, Google Chrome, and Apple Safari) to access Project Web App pages that are frequently used by team members. These browser versions are listed here:

• Firefox 3.6.8+ on Mac OS X v10.6, Windows 7 (32-bit/64-bit), Windows Vista SP2, Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2003 and UNIX/Linux

• Google Chrome 6.0 on Windows 7

• Apple Safari 5 on Mac OS X v10.6

Following are the team member pages that are supported with these additional browsers:

• Project Web App (PWA) main default page (default.aspx)

• All pages in the "My Work" section in the Quick Launch. This includes the following:

  • Tasks

  • Timesheets

  • Issues and Risks

For more information about the Project Server 2010 Service Pack 1 update, see Deploy Service Pack 1 for Project Server 2010.

For more information about Web browsers supported for use with SharePoint Server 2010, see Plan browser support (SharePoint Server 2010).