Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Search Server 2008

Lets start with the concept of search, Search is one of the most growing business today on enterprise industry it helps us to get hold of our documents and important folders and files instantly, you don't have to waste your time locating it,
We can use the search items from Windows Desktop Search to Google desktop Search, which will index documents on your PC and when you put in the key words, and ha here is your file.
Then we have Google One box which can be used for many reasons to derive results out of your intranet site. So to compare to it we have Microsoft search server 2008 now what this search server helps you derive results from your intranet site as well as internet applications.
Now to know a detailed explanation about What search server is and all other information please refer to http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch/
It is available as a free download with SQL express edition and a Full version which has to be installed and configured with Full SQL.

Now as I begin to install Search server 2008, I noticed that,
• It does not support AD creation mode, so if you have a AD creation mode the setup wont proceed and you would have to drop the config database and re-create one with AD again.

• I am installing full search server on my WSS 3.0 Machine now when you notice the splash screen that pops up when you inseart the CD, it has many options

1> Search Server Preparation Tool : now this is a super cool feature as it helps you to determine and check if the prerequisites are available and installed on your system or not, if they are not the search server begins installing them automatically, these include windows server 2003 SP1, Windows Workflow foundations included in .net 3.0 and .net frame work 2.0, IIS and ASP.net and web server extensions, hence its called a Search server preparation tool, once you run this wizard it shows the time it started and time elapsed, it completed successfully for me within 2 minutes, also if you open the installer CD you will notice two .exe files out of that one is PreRequisiteInstaller.exe, which is initiated when you run the Preparation tool


2> Install Search Server 2008: This one will start installing Search server 2008, also it will ask you 3 options (as in sharepoint) Complete, Web Front End or Standalone, I took Complete, it gets installed in two parts, one is installation of search server and other is Applying updates. after the installation it will ask you to run technologies and configuration wizard as we have a Express edition of search server installed the databases for search will be made on the SSEE .
So when you run the wizard it will again take you to 9 steps of configuration


Step 1 : Initiating Sharepoint product and Technologies wizard
Step 2 : Initiating upgrade sequence
Step 3 : Installing Help collections
Step 4 : Securing sharepoint resources
Step 5 : Registering sharepoint services
Step 6 : Registering features
Step 7 : Registering application content files
Step 8 : Upgrading Products and Technologies wizard
Step 9 : Finalizing The upgrade
Out of these I noticed that Step 2 and Step 8 took a lot of time but in the end it was successful. After you finish this wizard .
It will launch the Central admin page with search server configuration page. There you need to fill the required section which will ask you for the indexer and default content access account, Search center account. After you fill in these and hit on start it will perform the following operations.


Starting search service
Starting help service
Creating Shared services provider
Creating web application for search center
Creating search center site
Then it gives you a page saying its complete click on OK and your ready to go
This is how you install the search server 2008, I will show you how to configure it on my future posts.
Do remember to leave me comments

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