What is a Farm?
A collection of one or more servers, each performing one or more functions:
Web Front End (WFE)
Application Server
SQL Server
A place where lots of animals are kept and things are grown! J In the context of SharePoint, the term 'farm' is used to describe a collection of one or more SharePoint servers and one or more SQL servers that come together to provide a set of basic SharePoint services bound together by a single Configuration Database in SQL.
Farms can range in size from having everything (all SharePoint roles and SQL server) on one machine to scaling out every individual SharePoint serve role onto dedicated sets of servers. A farm the highest administrative boundary for SharePoint and everything that happens inside SharePoint happens in a farm.
Server Services and Fault Tolerance
Within a farm, there are several services that run on one or more servers. Some of these services are mandatory and some are optional. These services provide the underpinning functionality for SharePoint. The decision around which services run on which servers will have a huge impact on your overall farm architecture and performance.
So what is the difference between an 'Application Server' and a 'WFE Server'?
When SharePoint is installed, you have to select one of three installation options, they are:
There is a lot of confusion around what these options mean. An 'Application Server' is a server that is capable of running any of the services in the table above apart from the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service. A 'Web Front End' (sometimes called a WFE) is the opposite in that it can only run the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service. 'Complete' means that the server can run any SharePoint service.
The reason behind these options is that in some scenarios, very 'thin' web servers may be required which have a very small installation footprint. In this case, it is not desirable to install all of the DLLs etc that are required to run any service apart from the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application – these are true web servers. In my experience, this is a relatively rare scenario and only really relevant when SharePoint is being used to host high traffic internet sites.
The problem with selecting anything other than 'Complete' is that it means if you ever change your mind about what services a server can run, you'll need to re-install SharePoint on that server. For that reason alone, I would always recommend that you choose 'Complete' unless you have a very good reason to do otherwise.
This means that the terms 'Web Front End Server' and 'Application Server' are often used incorrectly. Unless your server is only running the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service, it is an Application server. This means that the majority of servers in the majority of farms are actually Application servers.
A collection of one or more servers, each performing one or more functions:
Web Front End (WFE)
- The old ‘web’ role
- No service or data, just serves out HTML
- Network Load Balanced
Application Server
- Hosts ‘services’
- Scale out depends on services
SQL Server
- Databases
A place where lots of animals are kept and things are grown! J In the context of SharePoint, the term 'farm' is used to describe a collection of one or more SharePoint servers and one or more SQL servers that come together to provide a set of basic SharePoint services bound together by a single Configuration Database in SQL.
Farms can range in size from having everything (all SharePoint roles and SQL server) on one machine to scaling out every individual SharePoint serve role onto dedicated sets of servers. A farm the highest administrative boundary for SharePoint and everything that happens inside SharePoint happens in a farm.
Server Services and Fault Tolerance
Within a farm, there are several services that run on one or more servers. Some of these services are mandatory and some are optional. These services provide the underpinning functionality for SharePoint. The decision around which services run on which servers will have a huge impact on your overall farm architecture and performance.
So what is the difference between an 'Application Server' and a 'WFE Server'?
When SharePoint is installed, you have to select one of three installation options, they are:
- Application Server
- Complete
- Web Front End
There is a lot of confusion around what these options mean. An 'Application Server' is a server that is capable of running any of the services in the table above apart from the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service. A 'Web Front End' (sometimes called a WFE) is the opposite in that it can only run the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service. 'Complete' means that the server can run any SharePoint service.
The reason behind these options is that in some scenarios, very 'thin' web servers may be required which have a very small installation footprint. In this case, it is not desirable to install all of the DLLs etc that are required to run any service apart from the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application – these are true web servers. In my experience, this is a relatively rare scenario and only really relevant when SharePoint is being used to host high traffic internet sites.
The problem with selecting anything other than 'Complete' is that it means if you ever change your mind about what services a server can run, you'll need to re-install SharePoint on that server. For that reason alone, I would always recommend that you choose 'Complete' unless you have a very good reason to do otherwise.
This means that the terms 'Web Front End Server' and 'Application Server' are often used incorrectly. Unless your server is only running the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service, it is an Application server. This means that the majority of servers in the majority of farms are actually Application servers.
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