Installing SharePoint std server 2010 on Windows 2008 server r2 - Guidelines

Question

I would be installing sharepoint standard server 2010 on production and i would need some guidelines and tips especially on accounts to be used from AD. I have the following accounts all AD accounts: One Farm acct One Setup Acct One AppPool Acct One Search Acct. Do i need more...?

The questions are:

• When installing do i have to use the setup account to install?
• With the Database i would be using the Farm account is that right?
• Now with the application pool account can i use the same one for all the services when i decide to start the ones i needed.I'm not using profile services to start with.
• Also noticed when you setup the the service applications the database names are all in GUID is there a way to avoid this?
• I would also want to make sure the instance is on another http port other than 80.(Don't want the web application and central admin on port 80)

Any tips,resources and advice would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The answers to most of your questions can be found here... It's a complete guide form msdn. I'll try my best to answer your questions though.

Regarding the difference between the setup and Farm account read up on this here basically the difference is you setup the permissions for the Setup account, but the farm account is spcified during creation. The farm account is the main one used after you complete installation of SharePoint 2010. Honestly the lines get quite blurred between farm and setup accounts.

You can remove the guid by creating the databases before installing SharePoint and then when it asks for your the DB name, you can specify the name of the ones you created. SharePoint will automatically attach itself to the DBs you created without appending the GUIDs

It's considered best practice to use a service account for each service application you create and one for the app pool. You can run all your service apps under one app pool or different app pools.

Central Admin should NOT be on port 80. It is always on a different port. SharePoint usually chooses one for you randomly when you are installing. It's good practice to change it. Also use host headers when you create your applications in SharePoint. That'll allow you to create more than one app on 80. All this is done through Central Admin, you shouldn't do it in IIS.

Look into all the updates you need to run for SharePoint as there is SP1 that you should install as well.

There are also architectural decisions e based on the type of farm you are building. Make sure you research things before you take the next step :)

Final piece of advice, make sure you put together a checklist and document everything you create including usernames and passwords. Watch out for expiring passwords... those can spell disaster. Best of luck

Answer 2

This subject could be treated depending on other aspects too (e.g. size & capacity management, machines on farm, etc.), but keeping it simply to your questions I would suggest:

1. You could do with the accounts you have prepared already. Please read this post for more ideas http://andreasglaser.net/post/2009/11/18/Installing-SharePoint-Server-2010-on-Windows-Server-2008-R2-and-SQL-Server-2008-R2-Part-5-Administrative-and-service-accounts.aspx
2. Yes, that would actually received permissions in the database, given by your Setup/Configuration account (which of course should be Local Administrator and have various permissions enabled on the database, such as dbCreator, security admin) and would be the account used as the AppPool identity for SP-CA web application once provisioned.
3. . Yes, even though is not recomanded (that actually happens if you enable service wizard to create your services - which is NOT recomanded in Production environments!!). You need to plan all those services and for some of them (User Profile, Search) use different accounts. Long-term would be easier for troubleshooting, fine-tunning permissions, etc.
4. Yes, by creating the Application Services via Powershell. On MSDN there are relevant scripts to create each of the required services. If not Michael Noel has also a set of scripts that could do the job (http://www.sharepointusecases.com/index.php/2011/01/automate-sharepoint-2010-farm-configuration-with-powershell/).
5. You should not create SP-CA on port 80 (unless really that is intended). Use some random port during Setup (e.g. 9999 is what i'm using very often). When you create new Web Applications you could choose on what ports for each web application, no issues there!