Using Shared Services

You can configure a server farm to use the services provided by another portal site. For more information, see About Shared Services.

Caution  You should back up the server farm before and after you configure it to use shared services. Once you configure the server farm to use shared services, you cannot undo the operation.

When you configure the server farm to use shared services, the services are no longer required on the child portal sites and are disabled. Administration pages for managing these services display a message stating that the service cannot be managed on this server farm.

Before you configure the child server farm to use shared services, you must configure the parent server farm to provide shared services. In addition, when you configure a parent portal site on the parent server farm, all portal sites on the parent server farm automatically become child portal sites. For more information, see Providing Shared Services.

Note  On the child portal sites, ensure that site group rights that affect access to shared services are the same rights as those on the parent portal site.

To use shared services, you need the name of the server storing the configuration database and the name of the configuration database. To find this information, do the following:

1. On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for server_name page for the parent server farm, in the Server Configuration section, click Configure configuration database server.
2. On the Specify Configuration Database Settings for server_name page, the name of the server storing the configuration database is displayed in the Configuration Database Server section.
3. The name of the configuration database is displayed in the Configuration Database Name section.

Use shared services

1. Remove the search, index, and job server components from the Change Component Assignments page. To do this:
   1. On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for server_name page, in the Server Configuration section, click Configure server topology.
   2. On the Configure Server Topology page, click Change Components.
   3. On the Change Component Assignments page, do the following:
      1. In the Component Assignment section, clear the Search and Index check boxes.
      2. In the Job Server Component section, in the Job server list, click -none-.
      3. Click OK.
   4. On the Configure Server Topology page, click Close.
2. On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for server_name page, in the Component Configuration section, click Manage shared services for the server farm.
3. On the Manage Shared Services page, in the Shared Services Consumer section, do the following:
   1. Select the Use shared services check box.
   2. In the Configuration database server name box, type the name of the database server storing the configuration database for the parent server farm.
   3. In the Configuration database name box, type the name of the configuration database for the parent server farm.
   4. Click OK.
4. On the message box that appears, click OK.
5. On the Shared Services Setup Confirmation page, click Close to return to the central administration page.
6. Restart the SharePoint Portal Administration service (SPSAdmin) running on the job server by doing the following:
   1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
   2. Right-click SharePoint Portal Administration, and then click Properties.
   3. On the General tab, in the Service status section, click Stop.
   4. After the service stops, in Service status section, click Start.
   5. Click OK.