Design content deployment topology
Applies To: Office SharePoint Server 2007
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Topic Last Modified: 2016-11-14
Content deployment copies content from a source Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 site collection to a destination site collection, either based on a schedule or manually. This article describes elements of topologies designed for content deployment and illustrates typical content deployment topologies. For an overview of content deployment using Office SharePoint Server 2007, see Plan content deployment.
In this article:
Elements of content deployment topologies
Typical content deployment topologies
Elements of content deployment topologies
Most content deployment topologies include two or more server farms, to separate the authoring environment from the production environment. A server farm used in content deployment can have one of the following purposes:
Authoring The farm contains the site collection that is used by the content-creating team to write the content.
Production The farm contains the site collection that presents the content to its intended audience, and it usually has tightened security.
Staging The farm contains a site collection that is a copy of the production site collection, so that the content can be reviewed and tested before it is published.
On any farm that exports content, you must specify a single front-end server as the export server. Similarly, on any farm that imports content, you must specify a single front-end server as the import server.
Content deployment packages are implemented as cabinet (CAB) files divided, by default, into 10-MB chunks, which are collected in a temporary location on the export server. After all the CAB files have been created and moved to the temporary directory on the export server, the content deployment job is initiated. After all the CAB files are received on the import server, the deployed content is copied to the destination Web sites.
Both the export and the import front-end servers must have sufficient disk space to hold the full set of CAB files for the largest content deployment job that could run. CAB files are removed from the temporary directory on the export server after all of them have been successfully sent to the destination farm. CAB files are removed from the temporary directory on the import server after the site content has been successfully deployed to the destination sites.
Typical content deployment topologies
This section illustrates common content deployment topologies.
Standard Internet site topology
The standard Internet site topology is typical of topologies used to publish an Internet site, such as a corporation's Internet presence site or a news organization's online news site. It includes two server farms: one to host the production site collection, and the other to host the authoring site collection along with other sites used by the authoring team. Users of the production server farm belong to a separate Active Directory® directory service domain, and some production farm users may be anonymous.
One front-end Web server in the production farm must be configured to import content from the authoring farm. Optionally, this server can be used to only import content.
The authoring server farm contains the site collection used to author the site's content. A front-end Web server in the authoring farm must be configured to export content from the authoring site collection to the production farm.
Often in this topology, the production farm is hosted in a perimeter network protected by outer and inner firewalls to increase security. For more information about deploying a perimeter configuration, see Design extranet farm topology (Office SharePoint Server).
.gif "Topology diagram for Internet content deployment")
Variations on this topology include:
Single authoring farm publishing to multiple production farms In this variation, multiple farms are deployed in the perimeter network. Each production farm may have the same content, or sites may vary from farm to farm. This topology can be configured in multiple ways:
The authoring farm can deploy to all of the production farms.
The authoring farm can deploy to one production farm; by using content deployment, that production farm can then deploy to the other production farms.
Multiple authoring farms publishing to a single production farm Different authoring teams, each working on their own authoring farm, may work on separate site collections that are published to a single production farm.
Three-stage topology
In some solutions, a three-stage topology is deployed, including an authoring farm, a staging farm, and a production farm. The staging farm is used to test or review the content before it is published to the production farm.
In a three-stage content deployment topology, the authoring farm deploys to the staging farm, so a front-end Web server in the authoring farm must be configured to export content. A front-end server in the staging farm must be configured to import and export content. A front-end server in the production farm must be configured to import content from the staging farm.
.gif "Topology diagram for staging content")
Single-farm topology
Content deployment can be configured within a single server farm. In this topology, authors work in one site collection and deploy to a duplicate publishing site collection on the same farm. The site collections are in separate Web applications, and they use separate databases on the same computer running Microsoft® SQL Server™. Security is managed by granting users permissions to the content rather than by using separate Active Directory domains.
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