Planning and Configuring Service Applications

Introduction to Service Application Architecture

“The service application architecture was introduced in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, replacing the Shared Service Provide Model of Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007.
The architecture remains same in SP2013 with addition of new service applications”

Advantages:-

“The advantage of service application over the SSP is that services are most granular and can be deployed only to web application that requires the functionality that individual service offer.

This offer greater design flexibility for the management of resources and functionality”

Components:-

From a basic management point of view, a service application has the following components-

1.     An administrative interface through which you can manage associated service application.

2.    An Application Pool.

3.    A service database/databases, dependent on the requirement of the service.

4.    One or more physical instances-The Service process running in a physical server.

Elements of Service Application:-

“A service application is a Logical term for facilities offered in SharePoint 2013 to deliver functionality to users, it has following elements”-

1.     Service Instance:

2.     Service Machine instance:

3.    Service application endpoint:

4.    Service Application:

5.    Service connection OR service application proxy:

What is a Proxy Group:-

A proxy is bridge between Service Application and a specific Web Application.

A proxy is created automatically when you create a new service application.

You can group multiple proxies together, which is referred to as a Service Application Connection Proxy (Proxy Group).

What are the Service Application Elements:-

Service Instance . the service instance is the binaries that implement the required functionality . you can see the service instances that are running on a server from the services on server page in central administration . the list of services shown on this page includes underlying services ,such us the performance point server and excel calculation service , which are clearly recognizable as being related to the SharePoint service applications excel service application and performance point service application . these provide the functionality that is configured for users in the service applications .on the services on server page , there are also services that you may not recognize or even think of as a service , such as the lotus notes connector and central administration .                                                     

Service Machine Instance: This is the machine s on the farm that runs the service . not all services have multiple machine instances and can only be started on one machine on a farm . for services that can have multiple machine instances ,software , round-robin load balancing is provisioned . 

Service Application Endpoint: This is a WCF (windows communication foundation) or ASMX (asp .net Web Services Source) file that is exposed for communication with the service application ,               

Service Application: This is the service that you can configure on tha manage service application page . you  can create multiple instances of a service application . these are configured either through the central administration UI or windows PowerShell and are global to a farm .            

Service  Connection or Service or Service Application  proxy: This provides the connection between this service and the web application that consumes the service .