jeylabs

Recently I got involved with a client to setup their K2/MOSS environment. Here’s a summary account of that engagement. I think some of the learning is good for any of you that might be getting your hands dirty in this sort of situation in the future.

We had a MOSS cluster in place and we wanted to get K2 integrated in the environment.

So we looked at few potential architecture options and we settled in to 2 K2 nodes in an NLB cluster, talking to a SQL server. K2 nodes were virtuals running on VMWare. Sql was on a physical box. We also had Reporting services installed on a separate Sql server. We also had 2 MOSS WFE’s clustered via NLB and the central admin running on the Reporting server node mentioned earlier.

Ofcourse we needed to ensure we have Kerberos in place. This is where one need to be very careful. When setting up SPNs we need to pay attention. We didnt make any mistakes but other people who setup SPNs in the past have and that haunted us. We had to go through a cleanup exercise to remove old machine name based SPNs which were coliding with our SPNs.

Then we also realised the impact of having ANAME records versus the CNAME records in DNS. Host names are important for correct resolution of the nodes through NLB by the web browser. Lesson here: Always use ANAMEs when setting up your hostheaders and NLB cluster names. <link>

I had an extensive checklist and we went through that and the install was fine. The above mentioned learnings caused a painful late night and a morning after. But once we sorted that out I was re-assured of my check list.

K2 security guide from the underground was very useful in the creation of my checklist. Yes you need to have your own checklist created for your environment before you start work. This is my approach and should be part of any consultant’s as well.

more to come…