Operating System and Database Services
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is built on the technologies and services provided by Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (as well as SQL Server 2000).
The core and development-platform operating system services include:
Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework
ASP.NET 2.0 master pages, content pages, and Web Parts
Pluggable service-provider models for personalization, membership, navigation, and enhanced security
Database access services
Internet Information Services (IIS)
Windows Workflow Foundation
Windows desktop indexing and search services
SQL Server is the relational database used for storing all content, data, and configuration information used by Office SharePoint Server 2007. SQL Server 2005 is recommended; SQL Server 2005 Express is included as a default part of the installation. SQL Server 2000 can be used as an alternative.
Configuration Database (configdb)
Windows SharePoint Services creates the configuration database during installation. You can have only one configuration database per server farm. The configuration database serves as the settings store for the following:
Sites
Databases
Note
This does not include databases that the Office SharePoint Server 2007 server running Excel Services can connect to, or other line-of-business data. Those are considered external data.
Servers
Web applications
Content Databases
You can have one content database per Web application. Windows SharePoint Services provides the ability to scale sites for the namespace across multiple content databases. The database serves as the data store for site collections and content within the site collection including the following:
Windows SharePoint Services site details
Structure details
User content
Files
Security information
Important
No custom third-party schema is allowed in the content database.
Shared Services Provider Database
One Shared Services Provider (SSP) database is created per SSP. The SSP database serves as the data store for the following:
User profiles
Audience data
Business application data
Excel Services functions
Site usage data
InfoPath Forms Services session state information
Search Database
Office SharePoint Server 2007 uses a separate Search database to store search data. The Search database is separate from the SSP database primarily to ease the management of these databases. It also enables the database administrator to back up other Office SharePoint Server 2007 databases at a more granular level. One Search database is created per SSP. The Search database serves as the data store for the following:
Search data
History log
Search log
Calculation tables for crawl statistics
Links tables and statistical tables
Other Storage: Search Indexes
Search indexes are stored on the file system. The instances of this type of data are registered in the configuration database, and Search will provide a backup/restore plug-in to handle the backup/restore functionality for this data.
Physical Architecture of SharePoint Server 2007
The following figure shows the physical architecture of an Office SharePoint Server 2007 deployment.
Custom Third-Party Databases
Third-party applications can store their specific data in their own databases. These databases can be registered in the configuration database and therefore can be included in all the common infrastructure operations such as backup, restore, upgrade, and so on.
Note
Though custom databases do not allow schema extensions to Office SharePoint Server 2007, it does allow other independent schema additions.