Introduction to SharePoint On-Prem
Architecture & Setup
Site Management
Lists & Libraries
Pages & Content
Permissions & Security
Search & Navigation
Automation & Workflows
Integration & Extensibility
Development & Customization
Administration & Governance
Migration & Upgrades
Compliance & Records Management
Service Application Management
Service Applications are the individual components that provide the core features of a SharePoint farm, such as search, user profiles, and managed metadata. They are like separate engines that run within the farm’s architecture. Managing these services is one of the most important tasks for a SharePoint administrator.
How to Manage Them
Service Applications are managed by Central Administration. An administrator has control over every step of a service’s lifecycle:
- Creation: An administrator can create a new service application and configure its database and settings.
- Association: A service application must be associated with a Web Application to provide its features to a SharePoint site. This allows an administrator to choose which sites get access to which services.
- Configuration: Each service has its own specific settings. For example, the Search Service Application needs to be configured with the list of sites it should crawl and a schedule for how often it should run.
Why It’s Important
This model provides a great deal of flexibility. It allows an administrator to scale each service independently. For example, if the search feature is getting heavy use, the administrator can dedicate more servers to the Search Service Application without affecting the rest of the farm’s performance. This ability to tailor the farm’s services to meet specific business needs is a key benefit of the on-premises model.
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