MySite - Audiences and Trusted Host location

Question

I am bit confused about this theory. Our current farm is only 1 production multi-server farm, 1 TEST and 1 DEV multi-server farm. I dont have same farm replicated in Europe or Asia. It's only 1 farm in Michigan. Do I need to worry about target/manage audiences and setup Trusted my site host location?

This (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262500.aspx#geodist) article talks about "Trusted My Site host locations" where it's applicable if you have multi-farm setup.

Please advise.

Note: Our parent company (Insurance) has global SharePoint farm where farms are setup in US, Europe, Asia, Africa and I can see they are implementing this option to prevent users from creating multiple mysites.

Now, if I am on Michigan based (child company) intranet site (different url, hosted in different data center but same domain) and I am able to create a mysite. Would it possible when a user go to the parent sharepoint site and their mysite not be generated since employee from michigan are in different OU of active directory.

Answer 1

Simple answer would be you should be using the same MySite host as the rest of the organization. MySite is closely linked with the User Profile and Search Service configuration and being in different OU's would not matter as long as they have been included in the AD connection configuration in the User Profile Service Application of the farm hosting the common MySite. There are obvious benefits of having a common MySite host for the organization as that would mean no need for duplication or replication of content and users would have the same MySite personal site from the common MySite host.

From the article you posted, I think these statements from Microsoft drive the point above:

1. An enterprise services farm sharing a single User Profile service application together with one or more consuming farms. The My Sites Host is located on one of the consuming farms. In SharePoint Server 2013, the consuming farm must be physically located in the same datacenter as the enterprise services farm when you share the User Profile service application. Consuming the User Profile service application from another farm over a WAN connection is not supported. This means that both the User Profile service application and the My Site Host must be located in the same datacenter.

2. For example, in a server farm deployment that spans geographic regions, you might have separate User Profile service applications for each region or regional server farms in the environment. By default, a user can create a different My Site in each User Profile service application or server farm, which could cause unwanted results from both an administration perspective and a user perspective. When you have multiple My Sites for an individual user in an organization, server resource needs increase. Additionally, users might not understand or want multiple My Sites.

To prevent individual users from creating multiple My Sites, configure trusted My Site host locations. When specified, users are redirected to the single My Site host location that is intended for their accounts regardless of where they are browsing when they attempt to create or access their My Sites. This feature ensures that each user can create only one My Site in an organization.