Monitoring Server Install Overview
Monitoring Server installation occurs in two parts. Part one runs the Windows installer package PSCsrv.msi to copy the necessary files to the local machine to prepare for server installation and initialize the Monitoring Server Configuration Manager. Part two launches the Monitoring Server Configuration Manager to configure and install the selected Monitoring Server components on the local machine.
Monitoring Server Configuration Manager normally installs the selected components on the local machine. If you want to install them in a distributed fashion, you must configure each machine. Monitoring Server Configuration Manager provides two options during installation: Distributed Configuration and Standalone configuration.
· Choose Distributed Configuration to install Monitoring Server components on multiple machines. This provides the flexibility of selecting the components that will be installed on each machine.
· Choose Standalone Configuration to install all Monitoring Server components on a single machine. All the components will be installed in this configuration and it cannot be customized.
Note: if there are missing software prerequisites on the local machine, you will not be able to install the components that depend on them.
PerformancePoint Monitoring Server consists of four server components and a system database. They include:
· PerformancePoint Monitoring Server: This server creates a web site with three virtual directories. Each virtual directory provides distinct capabilities. The first capability is the Monitoring Server web service that facilitates the communication between the Dashboard Designer client and the Monitoring System database. The second is Dashboard Web Preview that provides the capability to deploy and view dashboards as ASP.NET web pages. The third is Dashboard Designer installation site that provides the capability for the users to download and use the Dashboard Designer on demand.
· PerformancePoint Dashboard Viewer for SharePoint Services: This component is an interface that Monitoring Server provides for SharePoint Services. This web part enables the deployment and viewing of dashboards on a particular SharePoint Site.
· PerformancePoint Scorecard Viewer for Reporting Services: This component is an interface that Monitoring Server provides for SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, that enables the viewing of Scorecards in Report Definition Language (RDL) format.
· PerformancePoint Monitoring Plug-in for Report Designer: This component installs a data processing extension (DPE) for Reporting Services Report Designer in Visual Studio 2005. This DPE enables the customization of Monitoring Scorecards that are saved as RDL files.
· PerformancePoint Monitoring System database: This is the database that is used by the all PerformancePoint Monitoring servers in the topology.
Monitoring Server - Standalone installation
All the server components in Monitoring Server can be installed on a single computer. This standalone deployment is used primarily for testing, development, and proof of concept for Monitoring Server. The setup process is two-fold. First, the Monitoring Server installation copies all necessary installation files to the hard drive on the local computer. Second, the configuration manager uses the newly copied files to complete the Monitoring Server configuration.
Monitoring Server - distributed installation
The server components of Monitoring Server can be installed in a distributed manner, depending on the deployment needs of your environment. Monitoring Server has five components:
· Monitoring Server System Database
· Monitoring Server
· Dashboard Viewer for SharePoint Services
· Scorecard Viewer for Reporting Services
· Monitoring Plug-in for Report Designer
You must run the Monitoring Server Installation and Monitoring Server Configuration Manager on each computer in the topology. When running the Monitoring Server Configuration Manager select the component that you want to configure on that machine.
For example if you want the Monitoring Server on one machine and the Monitoring Server Dashboard Viewer for SharePoint on another you would run the Monitoring Server installation on the each machine. Then to configure the Monitoring Server on one machine you run the configuration manager and configure the Monitoring Server System Database and the Monitoring Servers. Then run the configuration manager on the SharePoint machine and configure the Monitoring Server Dashboard Viewer for SharePoint on that server, point to the Monitoring Server System Database installed earlier.
Installing a SharePoint Web Farm
The SharePoint Web farm is where most of the users will go to view the Monitoring Dashboards. Dashboards are display on SharePoint with the Monitoring Server Dashboard Viewer for SharePoint. The web part includes all the Monitoring Server Web Services that are needed to display the dashboard. To deploy dashboards across a SharePoint web farm the Monitoring Server Dashboard Viewer for SharePoint web part is installed and configured on each of the SharePoint web farm machines.
To install PerformancePoint Monitoring Server Dashboard Viewer for SharePoint on a SharePoint web farm, install the Monitoring Server on each machine in the farm and then run the configuration wizard and only configure the Monitoring Server Dashboard Viewer Web Part. During the configuration point the web part to the Monitoring Server Database that the dashboards are stored in.
Deploying to SharePoint Web Farms
When deploying PerformancePoint Monitoring Server dashboard to a SharePoint web farm it is the same as deploying or publishing a dashboard to a single SharePoint server. The publish to the SharePoint web farm url select the document library and deploy. The dashboard now can be displayed by all machines in the SharePoint web farm.