Windows Web Solutions UPDATE—brought to you by the Windows & .NET Magazine Network
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September 23, 2003--In this issue:
1. Commentary: Microsoft.com Search--Under the Hood
2. Keeping Up with IIS
- Get the Scoop About IIS 6.0
- Results from Last Issue's Instant Poll: IIS 6.0 Productivity
- This Issue's Instant Poll: Windows SharePoint Services
3. Announcements
- Active Directory eBook Chapter 4 Published!
- DevConnections: 4 Conferences for the Price of 1
4. Resource
- Featured Thread: Need DRM Solution for IIS
5. Event
- New Web Seminars on Exchange, Active Directory, and More!
6. New and Improved
- Introduce Yourself to XForms
- Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt!
7. Contact Us
- See this section for a list of ways to contact us.
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1. Commentary: Microsoft.com Search--Under the Hood
Over the past 2 weeks, I've been speaking on the Microsoft TechEd tour in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. One of the best parts of traveling around the world with Microsoft's technical leaders is learning about the way Microsoft runs its business from the managers who actually run it. I was privileged to hang out with Casey Jacobs, group operations manager of Microsoft.com. Casey and I discussed how Microsoft.com runs, and I have to admit that the operation's technical efficiency blew me away.
On the day Casey and I met, I happened to be working on a presentation about Windows SharePoint Services beta 2. When Casey saw that I was working on this presentation, he mentioned that Microsoft.com had just started using SharePoint beta 2 for searches and explained that when Microsoft.com begins to use a new Microsoft product, its systems engineers and DBAs work directly with the product's development team. Those engineers and administrators relay information about the new product's performance, functionality, and operational bugs to the product team. They also help the product team by running proposed bug fixes. Such partnerships between operations and product teams has helped Microsoft raise the quality of Windows, SQL Server, IIS, Microsoft Media Server (MMS), and now SharePoint products.
I'm a bit sad yet relieved about Microsoft.com's use of the Windows SharePoint Services search. I'm sad because Microsoft.com had been using the Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition search for many years, and I had worked on that product team. However, I'm relieved because Microsoft.com was able to come up with a search replacement pronto when Site Server 3.0 was officially mothballed.
Here's how the SharePoint search works. When a user performs a search from one of the many search UIs on Microsoft.com, the search executes at Search.Microsoft.com, which consists of a set of Web servers that run various software, such as Windows SharePoint Services, an ASP.NET application that provides the search UI, and XML Web services. After the user enters and submits a search term, the ASP.NET UI application passes the search term to XML Web services, which performs several operations, such as compiling customized lists of Best Bets and Related Links, performing a spell check, and creating a "Did you mean?" helpful hint. XML Web services then takes all potential relevant terms, or "nTerms," from the original string input and passes them to Windows SharePoint Services, which performs a database lookup. The ASP.NET UI application uses ASP.NET caching liberally for both the search UI and XML Web services layers.
The scalability and performance that Microsoft.com is achieving is impressive. The activity on the Search.Microsoft.com ASP.NET UI application is about 1.5 million searches daily. The ASP.NET UI application takes the search term and runs searches eight ways (sort of like a multi-threaded search), which means that Windows SharePoint Services has to resolve about 12 million search components daily.
Microsoft.com has 16 unique SharePoint catalogs, the largest of which is 650MB. Windows SharePoint Services crawls through 100GB of Web content from numerous Microsoft.com sites. A full crawl through all 16 catalogs takes about 10 hours. A full propagation of all 16 catalogs takes 45 minutes. But despite the size and number of catalogs, the average SharePoint query time on Microsoft.com is an impressive 1.5 seconds.
The physical hardware infrastructure behind Microsoft.com's SharePoint search isn't as daunting as you might expect for one of the Internet's most searched sites. Microsoft.com has a Web farm of 34 servers. Here's a breakdown of those servers:
- Ten load-balanced servers (Compaq ProLiant DL380 G3 servers with 4GB of memory and two processors) house Search.Microsoft.com and the ASP.NET UI application.
- Eight servers (ProLiant DL380 G3 servers with 4GB of memory and two processors) host the XML Web services' editorialized term relevance function.
- Ten servers (ProLiant ML570 G2 servers with 2GB of memory and four processors) host Windows SharePoint Services.
- Two servers (ProLiant ML570 G2 servers with 4GB of memory and four processors) host the SQL Server 2000 databases that Windows SharePoint Services uses.
- Four servers (ProLiant ML570 G2 servers with 4GB of memory and four processors) host the SharePoint Build/Index Services.
Microsoft houses XML Web services on a separate set of servers from the ASP.NET UI application and Windows SharePoint Services because other Web sites also leverage XML Web services. This type of service-oriented architecture is Microsoft's promise of the future of distributed computing.
Getting a peek under the hood at the way Microsoft.com uses its Windows SharePoint Services search was quite interesting. Casey had more to say about the way Microsoft.com runs, which I'll share in future commentaries.
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2. Keeping Up with IIS
Windows Server 2003 ships with Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0. Many significant differences exist between IIS 6.0 and earlier versions. In a two-article series, IIS expert Brett Hill discusses those differences. The first article, "IIS Overhauled in Version 6.0," discusses IIS 6.0's new architecture. The second article, "IIS 6.0 Features," discusses the new features that IIS 6.0 has to offer. To read these articles, go to
The voting has closed in the Windows & .NET Magazine Windows Web Solutions channel's nonscientific Instant Poll for the question, "Have you noticed a difference in productivity when you switched to IIS 6.0?" Here are the results from the 34 responses:
- 53% Yes, I noticed IIS 6.0 is much faster than 5.0.
- 15% No, I believe IIS 5.0 is faster than IIS 6.0.
- 32% I haven't noticed a difference.
The next Instant Poll question is, "Does your company plan to use Windows SharePoint Services when it's released later this year?" Go to the Windows & .NET Magazine Windows Web Solutions home page and submit your vote for a) Yes, b) No, or c) Not sure; we need to do more research.
3. Announcements
(brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine and its partners)
The fourth chapter of Windows & .NET Magazine's popular eBook Windows 2003: Active Directory Administration Essentials is now available at no charge! Chapter 4 looks at what's inside Windows Server 2003 forests and DNS. Download it now!
DevConnections = Microsoft ASP.NET Connections + Visual Studio Connections + SQL Server Magazine Connections + Microsoft Office System Connections. Learn from the Microsoft architects who built these technologies. Early registrants receive access to all four events for the price of one. Attendees will also have a chance to win a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Hot Release: Thawte
In this guide you will find out how to test, purchase, install and use a Thawte Digital Certificate on your MSIIS web server. Throughout, best practices for set-up are highlighted to help you ensure efficient ongoing management of your encryption keys and digital certificates. Get your copy of this new guide now:
4. Resource
Forum junior member Larpenter is looking for a Digital Rights Management (DRM) solution that works on IIS. He wants to prevent online resources declared in IIS from being transferred to other computers. He needs to make sure that unauthorized surfers can't cache, save, or download the files. If you know of a solution, click the following URL:
5. Event
(brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine)
Check out the latest lineup of Web seminars from Windows & .NET Magazine. Prepare your enterprise for Exchange Server 2003, discover the legal ramifications of deterring email abuse, and find out how Active Directory can help you create and maintain a rock-solid infrastructure. There is no charge for these events, but space is limited, so register today!
6. New and Improved
by Sue Cooper, [email protected]
O'Reilly & Associates published XForms Essentials, in which author Micah Dubinko introduces you to XForms, the next generation of Web form standards. A combination of XML code and forms, XForms are a powerful, workable, and versatile alternative to HTML-based forms. Compared with HTML-based Web forms, XForms offer a more effective way to handle user input, provide more presentation options, offer new ways to manage user interaction, and reduce the number of browser dependencies. "Chapter 2: XForms Building Blocks" is available free online. XForms Essentials costs $29.95. Contact O'Reilly & Associates at 707-827-7000, 800-998-9938, or [email protected].
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7. Contact Us
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