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Configure the SharePoint Server 2010 farm for search-first migration (SharePoint Server 2010)

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Applies to: SharePoint Server 2010

This article describes how to configure a new farm for a search-first migration. The section assumes that you have planned and deployed the new farm to meet the needs of your organization so that you are ready to configure the farm for search. Before you read you read this article, you should be familiar with the information in the preceding articles in this section about search-first migration:

For brevity in this article, the following terms are used:

Original farm

The SharePoint Server 2007 farm that the organization is using in a production environment, with SharePoint enterprise search deployed.

New farm

A new SharePoint Server 2010 farm that you deploy and initially use only for the search-first migration.

Search-first environment

An environment in which a search-first migration is complete. In this environment, end users can use SharePoint Server 2010 search-query features and search-results features when they submit search queries in the original farm or the new farm.

To configure the new farm for a search-first migration, you must do the following:

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Ensure that a Web application exists for search.

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Ensure that a Search service application exists.

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Ensure that the Web application is associated with a Search service application.

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Ensure that an Enterprise Search Center exists.

To configure the new farm for a search-first migration, you can also do one or both of the following:

  • Optional: Provide people search.

  • Optional: Provide social tag search.

You must ensure that there is at least one Web application for search. This Web application will consume a Search service application and will host the site collections of one or more Enterprise Search Centers. For performance and governance reasons, we recommend that you configure a Web application that is dedicated to search.

To ensure that a Web application exists for search

  1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is a member of the Farm Administrators group.

  2. On the Home page of the Central Administration Web site, in the Application Management section, click Manage web applications. The Web Applications Management page opens and shows a list of all Web applications in the server farm.

  3. Determine whether there is a Web application in the list that you want to dedicate to search.

  4. Create a Web application to dedicate to search if one does not already exist.

    Note

    When you use the Farm Configuration Wizard to create a site collection, the wizard automatically creates a Web application named SharePoint – 80. You can dedicate this Web application for search, or you can create a different Web application for this purpose. For more information, see Create a Web application (SharePoint Server 2010).

2. Ensure that a Search service application exists

You must ensure that there is at least one Search service application in the new farm that is associated with the Web application that you want to dedicate to search.

To determine whether a Search service application exists

  1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is a member of the Farm Administrators group.

  2. On the Home page of the Central Administration Web site, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. On the Manage Service Applications page, if there is no Search service application in the list of service applications, create a Search service application by using the following procedure.

To create a Search service application

  • Use the procedure Create and configure a new Search service application (SharePoint Server 2010).

    Or:

  • Use the Farm Configuration Wizard to create a Search service application by doing the following:

    1. On the Home page of the Central Administration Web site, in the Quick Launch, click Configuration Wizards.

    2. On the Configuration Wizards page, click Launch the Farm Configuration Wizard.

    3. On the Help Make SharePoint Better page, click the option that is appropriate for your organization, and then click OK.

    4. On the Configure your SharePoint farm page, select Yes, walk me through the configuration of my farm using this wizard, and then click Start the Wizard.

    5. On the Configure your SharePoint farm page, in the Services section, ensure that the Search service application check box is selected.

    6. On the Configure your SharePoint farm page, ensure that other settings are configured as appropriate for your organization.

    7. On the Create Site Collection page, click Skip.

    8. On the Configure your SharePoint farm page, click Finish.

3. Ensure that the Web application is associated with a Search service application

You must ensure that the Web application that you want to use is associated with a Search service application.

To ensure that the Web application is associated with a Search service application

  1. On the Central Administration home page, in the Application Management section, click Manage web applications.

  2. On the Web applications management page, click the Web application that you want to use.

  3. In the Web applications tab, click Service Connections.

  4. In the Configure Service Application Associations dialog box, ensure that the Search service application that you want to associate with the Web application is selected, and then click OK.

4. Ensure that an Enterprise Search Center exists

You must ensure that there is at least one Enterprise Search Center in the new farm. For more information, see "Plan Search Center deployment" in the article Plan to configure the SharePoint Server 2010 farm for search-first migration (SharePoint Server 2010). If there is no Enterprise Search Center in the farm yet, use the following procedure to create one.

To ensure that there is an Enterprise Search Center in the new farm

  1. To determine whether there is an Enterprise Search Center site in the farm, go to the Central Administration home page, click Application Management, and then in the Site Collections section, click View all site collections.

  2. Browse to the top-level site of each site collection. If none of the top-level sites is an Enterprise Search Center site and none of those sites has a tab named Search, do the following:

    1. Create an Enterprise Search Center site by doing one of the following:

      1. Automatically create an Enterprise Search Center by using the Create Site Collection page in the Farm Configuration Wizard. For more information, see "To run the Initial Farm Configuration Wizard" in Install Search Server 2010 or Search Server 2010 Express.

      2. Manually create an Enterprise Search Center by using the procedure "To create a Search Center site" in Configure enterprise search (SharePoint Server 2010).

    2. Grant all authenticated users access to the Enterprise Search Center by doing the following:

      1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is a site collection administrator for the Enterprise Search Center site.

      2. In a Web browser, go to the Enterprise Search Center site.

      3. On the Site Actions menu, click Site Settings.

      4. In the Users and Permissions section, click People and groups.

      5. In the Quick Launch, click Enterprise Search Center Visitors

      6. In the New menu, click Add Users.

      7. In the Users/Groups box, type NT Authority\authenticated users.

      8. Click OK.

To provide people search for a search-first environment, do one of the following:

  • Configure the search system in the new farm to crawl the user profiles that are in the original farm.

  • Bring user profiles into the new farm, and configure the search system in the new farm to crawl the user profiles that are in the new farm.

Crawl user profiles that are in the original farm

To crawl user profiles that are in the original farm, do the following:

To crawl user profiles that are in the original farm:

  1. Create a content source in the new farm that you will configure for crawling user profiles in the original farm.

  2. In the content source, add the start address for crawling the user profiles that are in the original farm. The start address should be in the following form: sps3://<HostName> where <HostName> is the name of the server in the original farm that hosts My Sites.

  3. If the default content access account does not have permission to crawl the user profiles that are in the original farm, do one of the following:

    1. Change the default content access account to an account that has permission to crawl the user profiles in the original farm and that has permission to crawl SharePoint content in the new farm. For more information, see Change the default content access account (SharePoint Server 2010).

    2. Create a crawl rule that specifies a different content access account for crawling the user profiles that are in the original farm. For more information, see Manage crawl rules (SharePoint Server 2010).

Crawl user profiles that are in the new farm

To crawl user profiles that are in the new farm, do the following:

  1. Ensure that a User Profile service application exists.

  2. Bring user profiles into the new farm.

  3. Provide My Sites to host the user-profile content.

  4. Crawl the user profiles that are in the new farm.

To ensure that a User Profile service application exists

  1. Verify that the user account that is performing this procedure is a member of the Farm Administrators group.

  2. On the Home page of the Central Administration Web site, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. On the Manage Service Applications page, if there is no User Profile service application in the list of service applications, create a User Profile service application. For more information, see Create, edit, or delete a User Profile service application (SharePoint Server 2010).

Bring user profiles into the new farm

You can use one of the following methods to bring user profiles into the new farm:

Provide My Sites to host user-profile content

To enable users to access people-search results for content that is in user profiles, you must provide My Sites. To do this, you create a My Site host location and associate it with My Sites. For more information, see Create and manage a My Site host location (SharePoint Server 2010) and Set up My Sites (SharePoint Server 2010).

Crawl user profiles that are in the new farm

Use the following procedure to crawl user profiles that are in the new farm.

To crawl user profiles that are in the new farm

  1. In the new farm, create a content source that you want to use for crawling user profiles in the new farm.

  2. In the content source, add the start address for crawling the user profiles that are in the new farm. The start address should be in the following form: sps3://<HostName> where <HostName> is the name of the server in the new farm that hosts My Sites.

  3. Create a crawl rule that specifies a content access account for crawling the user profiles that are in the new farm. For more information, see Manage crawl rules (SharePoint Server 2010).

To enable users to get search results for queries that contain social tags, the Web application that is associated with the Search service application must be connected to a Managed Metadata service application. For information about how to set up this configuration, see the following articles:

See Also

Concepts

Introduction to search-first migration (SharePoint Server 2010)
Plan a SharePoint Server 2010 farm for search-first migration (SharePoint Server 2010)
Plan to configure the SharePoint Server 2010 farm for search-first migration (SharePoint Server 2010)
Configure the SharePoint Server 2007 farm for search-first migration (SharePoint Server 2010)
Migrate search settings for search-first migration (SharePoint Server 2010)
Train end users to use the search-first environment (SharePoint Server 2010)