What goes on a WebFrontend and what on the Application Server is Sharepoint 2007/WSS 3.0?

Question

In Sharepoint Solutions I can specify the DeploymentServerType for deployment to be either ApplicationServer or WebFrontEnd. Unfortunately, Documentation on this is rather limited.

I just wonder: When would I use which option? What if my Solution includes both Timer Jobs (which should go on the App Server?) and Web Parts (which need to go to every Web Frontend)? How does this actually impact deployment if I specify the server anyway?

Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

The DeploymentServerType paramater is optional (MSDN), if specified it restricts which servers on the farm your solution gets deployed to. If you have both App Server & Web Frontend components then just leave the parameter out so it gets deployed to ALL servers.

See the section "Solution Element" on the following blog article:

http://blogit.create.pt/blogs/andrevala/archive/2008/02/17/sharepoint-2007-deployment_3a00_-creating-solutions.aspx

"DeploymentServerType - Indicates which type of server is the target for the deployment of this solution. Can be ApplicationServer or WebFrontEnd. This attribute is optional (if not used, the solution is deployed to all the servers in the farm)"

EDIT: Thus logically if your solution just contains WFE content (Web parts, Pages, Images etc..) then you can use the WebFrontEnd parameter. If it contains AppServer content (Timer Jobs or anything deployed to Central Administration - eg. an extra administration page) then use the ApplicationServer parameter. Generally I find most solutions will be deployed to the WebFrontEnd.

Answer 2

If you are talking about how to setup a farm there is a lot of documentation about planning for and deploying SharePoint on technet.

If you are talking about programmatically creating a solution file (wsp) for SharePoint, can you be a little more specific? Are you talking about attributes in the manifest.xml file?