SSP

Imp tips about Shared Service Provider of MOSS 2007 SSP (Logical Architecture):

·         SSP are associated with Web Application

·         All sites within the SSP are served by the SSP that is assigned to the Web Application. All site collections and sites within a Web application consume services from the same SSP.

·         An SSP can have multiple Web Application

·         Separate SSP provide process isolation of profile, content and search results

·         Capacity Planning: Max 20 SSP can be created per farm, but recommended are three or few per farm

·         Sharing and Isolation:

o        Process isolation can be achieved by having each SSP in separate application pool.

o        Process isolation can be achieved by if SSP uses unique service account to run the services provided by SSP such as Content crawling, search, profile importing

o        The most imp criteria that decide how many SSP in your Logical Architecture are:

1)      The need to share content and profile data across sites. For E.g. You can share My Sites, Team sites and published content across an intranet by bringing these sites together under one SSP

2)      The need to isolate content and audience

·         Configurable Items: The two items in SSP can be configured – Shared Service permissions and Trusted My Site locations. These two items contribute to isolation and sharing

·         Administration: Configuration and Management of SSP can be delegated to Administrators who specialize in providing Shared Services such as Search and Audiences

·         SSP Architecture: Each SSP uses three types of shared resources: (1) Databases - SSP database and search database, (2) Shared Services Administration site - including the site’s content database, (3) Web service hosting site - IIS Web site that hosts shared Web services for the SSP

The SSP database includes the following types of data:

·         SSP configuration data and site usage data

·         People profiles and audience data

·         Business data catalog metadata

Each SSP also includes a search database that includes all configuration and data associated with search

·         Planning and Recommendations:

Configuration of SSP is done for two purposes – Either to enhance information sharing across multiple Web applications or Isolate content within single Web application

Example A– Multiple sites that reside in different Web application and application pools can be unified (combined) under one SSP to provide content and profile sharing across intranet. This provides for personalization and enterprise search across many sites and applications

Example B- Using dedicated SSP for partner collaboration ensures that partner users cannot search on or access sensitive information within your intranet environment

Personalization (in SSP): Personalization information can be displayed in User Profile and properties in user profile can be used to target content. Personalization service uses information about users from directory service (AD) and also supplemented from Line of Business. SSP Admin configures connection to Directory services so that all properties of account can be included on User Profile on SSP which ultimately will be shared and viewed across organization.

Configure Targeted Content - content in a site can be targeted to individuals and groups of users so that a site can provide a personalized experience for all users. This encourages collaboration across an organization. Content is primarily targeted by using audiences. Audiences are defined by using audience rules based on properties in user profiles or membership in distribution lists and SharePoint groups. Properties and distribution list membership information are imported from directory services or from line-of-business applications that are registered in the Business Data Catalog. SharePoint groups are configured within each site or site collection.

SharePoint lists and Web Parts can be targeted by using audiences, so that only members of the targeted audience can view content.

Links to certain sites can be targeted by audience. Examples of targeted links include published links to Office client applications and personalization site links. Targeted links appear in Office client applications and My Sites only for users who are members of the target audiences.

Administrators of the Shared Services Provider (SSP) create and configure audiences, and then configure the compilation schedules for audiences. After audiences are created by SSP administrators, any other user with the correct permissions can use audiences to target content.

SSP administrators also configure the settings for published links to the Office client applications and personalization site links. In configurations that have more than one My Site location, the SSP administrator for personalization services configures trusted My Site locations so that some groups of users can view personalized content across all My Site locations.

The following table lists the recommended guidelines for logical architecture components