1. Adding a host distribution rule
One of the configuration items that an administrator
has more control over is the ability to dedicate a host address to a
specific crawl database. A crawl database contains data related to the
location of content sources and crawl schedules. It may be a benefit to
the user base that certain content is indexed more frequently in order
to be fresher.
This is done through host distribution rules. A database can be dedicated to a server (or host).
In this recipe, we will create a host distribution rule.
Getting ready
You must have farm-level administrative permissions to the Central Administration site.
There must be at least two crawl databases. Create
the second crawl database as shown in the previous recipe, except
checking of the box under Dedicate Database.
How to do it...
Open Central Administration and click Application Management.
The third section is Service Applications. Under this section, click Manage service applications.
Find the Search Service Application
option and click on it (this is the name SharePoint assigns by default
if not modified when creating the Search Service). The ribbon will
light up. Click Manage.
On the left-hand navigation, under the section marked Crawling, click Host Distribution Rules.
At the top of the displayed page, you can see the Add Distribution Rule option; click this option.
The following screen appears:
Enter the hostname that contains the content you want to index (for example, accounting.contoso.com).
Select the crawl database that you want to make responsible for crawling the specified hostname.
Click OK.
A confirmation screen appears. Click Redistribute Now.
How it works...
When indicating an existing host, the content is physically moved and assigned to the crawl database that was selected.
In the recipe, we set up a dedicated host name
distribution rule. When a crawl database is designated to a host stored
in the rules, the crawl will not allocate any new host addresses into
this crawl database. This means the host (or server) is a one crawl
database.
By default, servers are load-balanced across crawl databases.
The efficiency of this setup evinces itself when a
particular host has millions of items to be crawled. Dedicating a crawl
database for the content is efficient and reduces disk latency.
There's more...
Host distribution rules can be used to
redistribute host addresses that have already been indexed. By
redistributed we mean adding another crawl database. By following the
recipe above, the host addresses will be redistributed and the host
distribution rule can then be deleted.
2. Viewing Search Query/Crawl Reports
The preceding recipes have shown the scalability of
the SharePoint Search infrastructure. Search topology is robust and
flexible. As the needs of the organization grow, Search can scale.
The question becomes a matter of when, not if,
Search must be scaled. It is also a question of where (which
components) to scale Search.
The answers to these questions are found in the set
of reports that ship with SharePoint 2010. There are two basic types of
search administration reports:
Reports that address query processing. These reports show the latency of the queries.
Reports that show information about the crawler. These reports show processing in the queue, per component, per content source, and per type.
In this recipe, we will show how to view and find them.
Getting ready
You must have farm-level administrative permissions to the Central Administration site.
Your farm must be set up to crawl content and must
have completed a full crawl. In addition, the site must have been in
use by users in order to collect information on queries.
How to do it...
Open Central Administration and click Monitoring.
The third section is Reporting. Under this section, click View administrative reports.
Click on the folder named Search administrative reports.
Click on the report titled Crawl Rate Per Content Source.
The information is presented in the form of the graphical view on top and a grid below:
How it works...
The reports are .aspx pages&; saved in
a document library. The information is taken from the usage logging
database. These reports can be edited or created in SharePoint Designer.
There's more...
There are filters along the top of the reports, in
order to look at the data in a more granular fashion. The filters for
the above report are:
Application: Listing of the Search Service applications. These are listed with radio buttons in order to choose one.
Content Sources (some of the
reports): Listing of all the content sources that are set up in the
scope, for example, items such as websites or information in file
shares. In addition, it lists all of the content sources by search
application.
Start Date: Reports the start date of the report.
End Date: Reports the end date of the report.
When finished choosing the filters, there is an Apply Filters button on the right ready to be clicked.
