Enterprise Search Architectures

for SharePoint Server 2013

Overview Hardware requirements and scaling considerations
The requirements apply to each of the servers in the small, medium or large Enterprise Search topology. You can deploy search topologies for the enterprise on physical hardware or on virtual machines.
This model illustrates small, medium, and large-size farm architectures that have been tested
Search components
by Microsoft®. The size of each farm is based on the number of items that are crawled and Note: For evaluation use, you can place all search components on one server with 8GB RAM.
included in the search index. Architecture requirements can vary depending on the Index
composition of the data that is crawled (size of items and formats). The examples illustrate
the type of search components needed and how many of each. Use these examples as
Index component Minimum hardware requirements for application servers Minimum hardware requirements for database servers
The index component is the logical representation of an index replica.
starting points for planning your own search environments. For more information about
search processes and how search components interact, see Search Architectures for Index partitions
SharePoint® Server 2013 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=258643).
 You can divide the index into discrete portions, each holding a separate part of the index.
 An index partition is stored in a set of files on a disk.
*
 The search index is the aggregation of all index partitions.
Search databases
Index replicas *
Search admin DB
 Each index partition holds one or more index replicas that contain the same information. *
 You have to provision one index component for each index replica.
Search administration database  To achieve fault tolerance and redundancy, create additional index replicas for each index
partition and distribute the index replicas over multiple application servers.
Stores search configuration data. Only one search administration database per Search service Scaling out for performance
application.

Query processing * Key performance metrics and scale actions

Crawl DB
Query processing component
Crawl database Analyzes and processes search queries and results.
Stores the crawl history and manages crawl operations. Each crawl database can have one or
more crawl components associated with it. Admin
Search administration component
Link DB Runs system processes that are essential to search. There can be more than one search * The server must have sufficient disk space for the base installation of the
Windows Server operating system and sufficient disk space for diagnostics such
as logging, debugging, creating memory dumps, and so on.
administration component per Search service application, but only one is active at any given
Link database time.
For production use, the server also needs additional free disk space for day-to-
day operations and for the page file. Follow the guidance on free disk space and
Stores the information extracted by the content processing component and also stores click- page file size corresponding to your Windows Server installation.

through information. Crawl

Crawl component
Analytics DB Crawls content based on what is specified in the crawl databases.

Analytics reporting database Content processing

Stores the results of usage analytics.
Content processing component
Carries out various processes on the crawled items, such as document parsing and property Scaling out search components as number of items increase Redundancy and availability
mapping.
Redundant search components must be installed on separate failure domains. All of the
Analytics example topologies: Small, Medium, and Large have redundant configurations.
Analytics processing component Search database redundancy must be handled by the SQL server configuration. SQL
Carries out search analytics and usage analytics. 2008 R2 and SQL 2012 are supported.
For redundant crawling and query processing, it is not necessary to have a redundant
analytics processing component. However, if the non-redundant analytics processing
component fails, the search results will not have optimal relevance until the failure is
recovered.

Example search topologies

Small search farm (~10M Items) Medium search farm (~40M Items) Large search farm (~100M Items)
This farm is intended to provide the full functionality of SharePoint Server 2013 search with fault tolerance for up to 10 million This farm is intended to provide the full functionality of SharePoint Server 2013 search with fault tolerance for up to 40 million This farm is intended to provide a dedicated search farm with fault tolerance for up to 100 million items in the search index.
items in the search index. Two versions are illustrated. items in the search index. To make this an all-purpose farm, add Web servers (not shown) and the additional application servers
and databases that are noted. Host A Host B Host C Host D

Application Servers
Dedicated search farm All purpose farm Application Server Application Server Application Server Application Server
This farm illustrates only the search components and can This farm incorporates the full functionality of SharePoint Host A Host B Host C Host D
Application Servers

Query processing Query processing

serve as a dedicated search farm for one or more Server 2013. Application Server Application Server Application Server Application Server Replica Index partition 0 Replica Replica Index partition 2 Replica
SharePoint farms. Dedicated search farms do not include Query processing Query processing

Web servers. Replica Index partition 0 Replica Replica Index partition 2 Replica Application Server
Host B Application Server Application Server Application Server

Application Server Application Server Application Server Application Server

Host B Replica Index partition 1 Replica Replica Index partition 3 Replica
Host A Host B Host 1 Host 2
Application Server Application Server Web Server Web Server * Replica Index partition 1 Replica Replica Index partition 3 Replica

Query processing Query processing Host E Host F Host G Host H Host I Host J
Replica Index partition 0 Replica
The search index is stored across replicas. Each replica for a given index partition
contains the same data. The data within index replicas is stored in the file system on the Application Server Application Server Application Server Application Server Application Server Application Server
Web Server Web Server server. Each replica is a logical representation of an index component.
Application Server Application Server Query processing Query processing

Crawl Crawl Replica Index partition 4 Replica Replica Index partition 6 Replica Replica Index partition 8 Replica
Application Server Application Server Host E Host F
Admin Admin
All other Application Application Server Application Server Application Server Application Server Application Server Application Server
Analytics Analytics Server Roles Application Server Application Server Host B
All other Application All other Application
Content processing Content processing
Office Web Apps Server Office Web Apps Server ** Server Roles Server Roles
Replica Index partition 5 Replica Replica Index partition 7 Replica Replica Index partition 9 Replica

Application Server Application Server For a multi-purpose farm, add VMs here to support other application server roles.

Host C Host D Analytics Analytics Up to 4 VMs can be combined onto one physical host if the host has sufficient CPU
cores and RAM.

*
All SharePoint Databases All SharePoint Databases Up to 4 VMs can be combined onto one physical host if the host has sufficient
Content processing Content processing Host K Host L Host M Host N
CPU cores and RAM. / Combining all Application Server roles onto one VM Combining all Application Server roles onto one VM requires Windows Server
Search admin DB requires Windows Server 2012. 2012. Application Server Application Server Application Server Application Server
Redundant copies of all Application Server Application Server

**
Link DB
databases using SQL Analytics Analytics Analytics Analytics
clustering, mirroring, or Office Web Apps Server VMs can share the same host as a SharePoint Web or Crawl Crawl
Crawl DB SQL Server 2012 application server. Content processing Content processing Content processing Content processing
AlwaysOn Admin Admin
Analytics DB
Content processing Content processing
Application Server Application Server Application Server Application Server
Host 3 Host 4
Crawl Crawl Analytics Analytics
Paired hosts for fault tolerance Application Server Application Server
Admin Admin Content processing Content processing
Host G Host H
Database Servers

Query processing Query processing

Replica Index partition 0 Replica
All SharePoint Databases All SharePoint Databases

Search admin DB Redundant copies of all Host O Host P Host Q Host R

Database Servers

Application Server Application Server

Link DB databases using SQL
Crawl Crawl clustering, mirroring, or All SharePoint Databases All SharePoint Databases All SharePoint Databases All SharePoint Databases
Crawl DB SQL Server 2012
Admin Admin AlwaysOn Search admin DB Redundant copies of all Link DB Redundant copies of all
Crawl DB
Analytics Analytics For a multi-purpose farm, databases using SQL databases using SQL
Analytics DB Crawl DB
Analytics DB add other farm databases. clustering, mirroring, or clustering, mirroring, or
Content processing Content processing SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012
Analytics DB Crawl DB
All other SharePoint
Databases AlwaysOn AlwaysOn
Crawl DB Crawl DB
Crawl DB
Host 5 Host 6
Paired hosts for fault tolerance
All SharePoint Databases All SharePoint Databases

Search admin DB Redundant copies of all

databases using SQL Paired hosts for fault tolerance Paired hosts for fault tolerance
Link DB
clustering, mirroring, or
Crawl DB SQL Server 2012
AlwaysOn
Analytics DB
SharePoint DB
All other SharePoint
Databases

Paired hosts for fault tolerance

© 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. To send feedback about this documentation, please write to us at ITSPdocs@microsoft.com.
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. To send feedback about this documentation, please write to us at ITSPDocs@microsoft.com.