SharePoint Server 2010 Topology

1   Define web server, application server, Database server, query server, crawl server

1.1     Web server

This server (also known as a front-end Web server) hosts all Web pages, Web Parts, and Web services used when your server farm receives a request for processing.

Note: Web server or WFE contain “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application” service. Click to view detail, view more detail, and more.

1.2     Application server

This server hosts the service applications running in the farm, such as Visio Services. It includes central admin and many other services.

1.3     Database server

This server stores most of the data associated with a SharePoint 2010 implementation — including configuration settings, administration information, data associated with the service applications, and user content.

1.1.4     Query server (Query component)

This server is responsible for querying the index, finding the matching content, and then sending the content back to the Web servers for presentation to users.

1.1.5     Crawl server (Query component)

This server crawl (accesses and catalogs) content sources and then propagates the results to the query servers. The crawl server uses a crawl database to store the URLs of all sources crawled.

2   Server role in each topology: front-end, back-end, database

2.1     Web server roles

Host Web pages, Web services, and Web Parts that are necessary to process requests served by the farm.

Direct requests to the appropriate application servers.

This role is necessary for farms that include other SharePoint Server 2010 capabilities. In dedicated search service farms, this role is not necessary because Web servers at remote farms contact query servers directly.

In small farms, this role can be shared on a server with the query component.

2.2     Application server roles

Application server roles are associated with services that can be deployed to a physical computer.

Each service represents a separate application service that can potentially reside on a dedicated application server.

Services with similar usage and performance characteristics can be grouped on a server and scaled out onto multiple servers together. For example, client-related services can be combined into a service group.

After deployment, look for services that consume a disproportionate amount of resources and consider placing these services on dedicated hardware.

3.3     Database server roles

In a small farm environment, all databases can be deployed to a single server. In larger environments, group databases by roles and deploy these to multiple database servers.

4 How many topologies for SharePoint Server 2010 and how many server on each topology

4.1 Limited Deployments

One – server farm: One-server farm with all the tiers installed on one server.

Two – tier farm: Two-server where the web and application tiers are installed one server and the database would be installed on an existing SQL Machine.

The one-server farm is described as an Evaluation environment for under 100 users while the two-server farm would support up to 10,000 users

Figure 1: Limited Deployments

4.2 Small Farm Topology Deployments

Small farm architectures serve a larger number of users and scale out based on how heavily services are used. Because of the greater number of services, including client Web applications, more requests per user are expected in the new version compared with the old version.

 

Figure 6: Small Farm Topology Deployment

4.3 Medium Farm Topology Deployments

The medium server farm illustrated is scaled for search to serve approximately 40 million items. Beyond this search scale, the recommendation is to deploy a dedicated search farm. Scale out all other servers based on the utilization of other service applications and services within the farm and the volume of content the farm will host.

Figure 2: Medium Farm Topology Deployments

4.4 Large Farm Topology Deployments

The recommendation for scaling out a large farm is to group service applications, services, or databases with similar performance characteristics onto dedicated servers and then scale out the servers as a group. The following topology illustrates a practical example of this concept. The red text lists one possible way to build server groups.

Figure 8: Larger Farm Topology Deployments

4.5 Detailed service guidance

This table lists the services that appear on the Services on Server page in Central Administration and provides additional topology guidance, if it applies. Note that Search service application components are deployed to servers by using the Search Administration page, not the Services on Server page.

Service	Is this service associated with a service application?	Server recommendation	Additional information
Access Database Services	Yes	Application server
Application Registry Service	No	Application server	Backward compatibility version of the Business Data Catalog service.
Business Data Connectivity	Yes	Application server
Central Administration	No	Application server	This service runs the Central Administration site.
Document Conversions Launcher Service	No	Application server	Schedules and initiates the document conversions on a server.
Document Conversions Load Balancer Service	No	Application server	Balances document conversion requests from across the server farm. Each Web application can only have one load balancer registered with it at a time.
Excel Calculation Services	Yes	Application server
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Incoming E-Mail	No	Web server or application server	Typically, this service runs on a Web server. If you need to isolate this service, you can start it on an application server.
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service	Yes Note: This service application is deployed only by using Windows PowerShell.	Web server or application server — In hosting environments, this service is typically started on one or more application servers.	Start this service if you have deployed service applications in multitenant mode or if the farm includes sites using site subscriptions. This service stores settings and configuration data for tenants in a multitenant environment. After it is started, Web applications consume this service automatically.
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation User Code Service	No	Web server or application server — Start this service on computers in the farm that run sandboxed code. This can include Web servers and application servers.	This service runs code deployed as part of a sandboxed solution in a remote, rights-restricted process and measures the server resources used during execution against a site collection-scoped, daily quota.
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application	No	Web server — Ensure that this service is started on all Web servers in a farm. Stop this service on application servers.	This service provides Web server functionality. It is started by default on Web servers. Custom features scoped to Web Applications may not display in Central Administration as intended if this service is not started on the server running Central Administration and if feature cannot be deployed globally.
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Workflow Timer Service	No	Web server	This service is automatically configured to run on all Web servers in a farm.
PerformancePoint Service	Yes	Application server
Search Query and Site Settings Service	Yes — Search	Application server — Start this service on all query servers in a farm. However, if it becomes memory intensive, consider moving this service to a dedicated computer to free up memory for query processing.	Load balances queries across query servers. Also detects farm-level changes to the search service and puts these in the Search Admin database.
Secure Store Service	Yes	Application server
SharePoint Foundation Search	No	In a SharePoint Foundation farm, start this service on the search server. In a SharePoint Server farm, this service is only needed to search online Help. Start the service on any server in the farm.	This service provides search in a SharePoint Foundation farm. For SharePoint Server farms, this service is only used to search online Help. Start this service only on one computer.
SharePoint Server Search	Yes — Search	Automatically configured to run on the appropriate computers.	This service cannot be stopped or started from the Services on Server page.
User Profile Service	Yes	Application server
User Profile Synchronization Service	Yes	Application server
Web Analytics Data Processing Service	Yes — Web Analytics	Application server
Web Analytics Web Service	Yes — Web Analytics	Application server
Word Automation Services	Yes	Application server	Performs automated bulk document conversions. When actively converting, this service will fully utilize one CPU for each worker process (configured in Central Administration). If the service is started on multiple servers, a job will be shared across all the servers.

Refer to:  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6096.