Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

210 Part III: Planning and Deployment
A rule is a simple query based on properties of user profiles or membership of
users in security groups and distribution groups. If you have already created security
groups or distribution groups in Active Directory, you can create audiences based
on those groups. For example, you can define a rule for an audience group that
reports to or under a specific manager (domain\managerUserName). You can also
create an audience that belongs to a specific department if you have assigned a
value to the Department field of user profiles.
Compiling Audiences
After you create or make changes to an audience, you must compile it for use. Compiling
an audience group is simply a matter of executing queries to find users who
meet the criteria defined in rules.
Audiences can be compiled at will, or they can be compiled by using a schedule
that you create. Any changes to security or distribution group membership, security
or distribution member properties, or user profile public properties will not be
reflected in the audience until it has been recompiled.
Compiling audiences can be expensive in terms of processor time as well as
disk I/O, especially if the audience membership query is complex. You should
schedule audiences to be compiled at a time when the server farm and Active Directory
are least busy, probably at night. Because audiences are built based on User Profiles,
you should also schedule User Imports to occur before audience compilation.
For large groups of audience compilation and complex audience memberships,
there will be a hit on both the processor of the farm servers as well as Domain Controllers
because SharePoint Portal Server might query the Active Directory to compile
the audiences.
Planning for Growth
This section provides information to help design a deployment that meets your
needs. The chapter describes performance considerations and testing, sizing guidelines,
and strategies for scaling the design.
This section discusses the following items:
■ How to estimate system requirements
■ Choosing the appropriate farm solution for your scenario
■ How and when to scale the solution
■ Performance considerations
■ Configuration of test systems
■ Sizing recommendations