Set up the pilot environment
Applies To: Office SharePoint Server 2007
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Topic Last Modified: 2016-11-14
This section provides information about setting up servers in your pilot environment for final, real-world testing of your Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 sites, including all coded elements and all content. This information is for a multiple-computer farm environment, using Windows Server 2003, Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005.
Note
This guide does not provide information about setting up the production environment. For information about this, see Deploy Office SharePoint Server 2007 in a server farm environment.
The pilot environment is where testers ensure that all site elements function as expected in network and security conditions that match the conditions of the production environment. For more information about this environment, see Review of environments.
Note
You may need to troubleshoot your components and applications in the test environment, which might not have a source-level debugger like Visual Studio. To prepare for this, you should produce a program database (.pdb) file along with your coded elements, and enable logging, tracing, and other instrumentation options. For more information, see the MSDN article "PDB Files" (https://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/yd4f8bd1(VS.71).aspx).
Hardware and software requirements
Because your pilot environment is typically used for performance, reliability, scalability, or fail-over testing, the computer on which you run Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the other software should be as robust as your production environment. For more information about hardware and software requirements, see Determine hardware and software requirements (Office SharePoint Server).
Installing Office SharePoint Server 2007 and other software
You will need to install a Office SharePoint Server 2007 farm with all of the components or features that you developed coded elements for. Typically, the pilot farm consists of at least two front-end Web servers, one or more application server, and one database server. However, you should scale the pilot farm to mimic the scale and topology of your production environment so that you can test the sites and coded elements in as real of an environment as possible. For more information about creating a Office SharePoint Server 2007 farm, seeDeploy Office SharePoint Server 2007 in a server farm environment.
Note
After you have finished installing Office SharePoint Server 2007, you should install the latest software updates.
Overview of testing
For more in formation about testing using Visual Studio 2005 Team System, see Development and Testing (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=106298&clcid=0x409) or Test Types (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=106300&clcid=0x409). For more in formation about testing using Visual Studio 2005 Team System, see Building, Debugging, and Testing (https://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d8k88a0k(VS.90).aspx).
The following table shows some of the most common test types performed in the pilot environment, with a description of each test and an example of the test on an in-house developed files property control that enumerates files in various folders and displays various properties for these files in a list control.
| Test type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
Usability and Access |
Ensures that the user sees and can use the element as expected. This might also include testing on third-party browsers. Ensure that the people with vision, hearing, or mobility issues can use the features. |
Ensuring that the control appears correctly under various page size conditions and that users can use the control in third-party browsers (if applicable). For more information about Office SharePoint Server 2007 browser compatibility, see Plan browser support (Office SharePoint Server). |
Security |
Ensures that the element can be accessed as expected and that the user can perform all tasks as designed and only those tasks. Involves testing of Single Sign-On capabilities and any user interface trimming. Involves user input testing; authentication and authorization testing; and testing against security issues like cross-side scripting, buffer overflows, and denial of service attacks. |
Ensuring that users can log on to the page, that they can use the control to view file properties from a specific store, and that they cannot view file properties from stores to which they are not designed to have access. For more information about Office SharePoint Server 2007 security, see Plan for and design security (Office SharePoint Server). |
Performance |
Determines the performance baseline for the element. Ensures that the element can handle the user load that it is designed to be able to handle and that the element does not degrade the site performance. |
Ensuring that the in-house developed list control can handle 1,000 elements without significantly degrading the site performance. For more information about Office SharePoint Server 2007 performance expectations, see Plan for performance and capacity (Office SharePoint Server). |
Reliability |
Ensures that the element maintains connection with the sources it needs, and that it does not freeze up, or time out, under the designed load. |
Ensuring that the in-house developed picture control can access three content databases and that it can download multiple pictures without timing out. |
Scalability |
Ensures that the element can handle content growth, use multiple resources (if appropriate), and can have multiple instances (if appropriate). |
Ensuring that the in-house developed file properties control can enumerate through all the folders even if they grow to 1,000 folders. For more information about Office SharePoint Server 2007 scalability expectations, see Plan for performance and capacity (Office SharePoint Server). |
Manageability |
Ensure that the element or page sends the correct events and/or writes the correct entries to any specified logs. |
Ensuring that the control generates the correct events during a failure-injection test. |
International and Multi-Lingual |
Ensure that Web pages and controls that allow user input can display and process international characters correctly. |
Considering such issues as whether the Web page or control truncates text that is too long, or that sorting orders for characters can differ depending upon language. |
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