Plan a SharePoint Server 2010 farm for search-first migration (SharePoint Server 2010)

 

Applies to: SharePoint Server 2010

This article discusses planning considerations for deploying and configuring a new server farm for a search-first migration. For this article, it is assumed that you are knowledgeable about the following:

• Deploying, configuring, and operating Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, especially with regard to search functionality.

• The information in the article Introduction to search-first migration (SharePoint Server 2010).

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.

The first main step in a search-first migration is to deploy a new SharePoint Server 2010 farm. In a search-first environment, the purpose of the new farm is to provide SharePoint Server 2010 search functionality for end users when they perform searches in the original farm. To provide search results for the content that is in the original farm, the search system in the new farm must crawl that content, create a content index, and respond to queries from users of the original farm. Therefore, the new farm must accommodate the crawl, index, and query demands that were previously handled by the original farm only. Beyond this minimum requirement, planning the new farm is similar to planning any new search deployment. Depending on how much search load is expected in the new farm, the organization might design the new deployment as a dedicated search farm. On the other hand, it might be appropriate to plan the deployment so that it can later also provide other SharePoint Server 2010 services. In either case, the organization should design the new farm to keep the search infrastructure flexible, so that the farm can be scaled out later as necessary to meet evolving business and user requirements. Other planning considerations for the new farm include geographic distribution, governance, high availability, and disaster recovery.

Planning resources

The following resources on TechNet provide information about how to plan search for a SharePoint Server 2010 farm:

• Gather information about the current search environment (SharePoint Server 2010). This article provides a list of information to collect about the SharePoint Server 2007 search environment to help you determine requirements as you plan the new farm.

• Planning and architecture for SharePoint Server 2010. This section provides guidance about how to design the logical and physical aspects of a SharePoint Server 2010 farm to provide a scalable, highly reliable, and consistently available system. The section includes resources such as the following:

  • Services architecture planning (SharePoint Server 2010)

  • Technical diagrams:

    • Search Environment Planning for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=166636)

    • Search Architectures for SharePoint Server 2010 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=166637)

    • Design Search Architectures for Microsoft SharePoint Server (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=166638)

• Plan for availability (SharePoint Server 2010). This article describes key decisions in choosing availability strategies for a SharePoint Server 2010 environment.

• Performance and capacity management:

  • Capacity management and sizing for SharePoint Server 2010

  • Storage and SQL Server capacity planning and configuration (SharePoint Server 2010)

  • SharePoint Server 2010 capacity management: Software boundaries and limits

See Also

Concepts

Introduction to 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 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)