Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

Chapter 13: Installing and Configuring Windows SharePoint Services in an Extranet 321
servers and uses the TCP/IP networking protocol to route requests. Because
NLB (and other software load-balancing solutions) run on the Web front-end
servers, it uses the Web front-end system resources, trimming the resources
you can use for serving Web pages. However, the impact on system resources
is not great, and a software solution can handle up to 32 Web front-end servers.
■ Software configuration solutions, such as using the domain name system
to route requests. You can configure your domain name system (DNS) to
create a primitive load-balancing system. For more information about DNS, see
your Windows Server 2003 documentation.
■ Hardware load balancing. This method uses hardware such as a router or
switch box. Load-balancing hardware uses your network to direct website traffic
between your Web front-end servers. Load-balancing hardware is more
expensive to set up than software but does not use up any of your Web frontend
server resources to run and is the most scalable method. Windows Share-
Point Services can be used with any load-balancing hardware. In addition,
hardware load balancing provides the best use of your Web front-end server
resources.
You do not need to perform any configuration steps to make Windows Share-
Point Services work with any of these load-balancing methods. Simply set up the
load-balancing method in your server farm, and either install or continue using Windows
SharePoint Services.
Preparing the Database Back-End Servers
To set up your database back-end servers, you must perform the following steps:
■ Install SQL Server 2000, Service Pack 3. You can use SQL Server 2000
Standard or Enterprise Edition with Windows SharePoint Services. For more
information about installing SQL Server, see the SQL Server 2000 documentation.
■ Set a strong password for your SQL Server administration account. You
must know both the administrator user account and password to be able to
connect between Windows SharePoint Services on the front-end Web servers
and SQL Server on the back-end servers. You should set a strong password
for the administration account. If you are using Windows Authentication (recommended),
you should use a domain account with permissions to create databases
in SQL Server. If you are using SQL Server authentication, the
“sa” account should have a strong password. For more information about
setting the administrator user name and password, see the SQL Server 2000
documentation.
■ Configure the authentication method for connections between the Web
servers and SQL Server. For better security in your server farm, you should
use Microsoft Windows NT authentication, rather than SQL Server authentication,