Chapter 7: Understanding the Service Application Architecture
What’s In This Chapter?
- What happened to Shared Services Providers?
- Service application basics
- Administering service applications
- Multi-tenancy in SharePoint 2010
Put your thinking cap on. This chapter is going to plunge you headfirst into the depths of SharePoint service applications. On the surface, they are pretty straightforward — heck, you can just run a wizard to get started — but truly unlocking their power takes a bit more effort. Service applications are the way SharePoint 2010 provides most of its services. Think of something like Search or Excel Services. These are offered as individual services that can be consumed in a variety of ways. Out with the rigid Shared Services Providers and in with the flexible service applications.
Groups, connections, proxies, services, delegated administrators — what is all of that stuff? As with most things technical, terminology is critical; and unfortunately, once you learn the key SharePoint terms, you will find that half of them have a doppelganger in Windows PowerShell. Ugh.
However, once you have a grip on the terminology and the plumbing, it’s time for the fun part. After looking at the fundamentals in Central Administration and then strolling through some of the key cmdlets, you’ll be ready to get your hands dirty.
Then once you think you have things under control, you learn a new trick. Some of the service applications can be configured to be multi-tenant, meaning ...
