Storage mechanism of WSS 3.0

I was engaged in a cross product readiness program and now doing some researches on Sharepoint. If you are a experienced IIS engineer, you'll find SPS is very internesting as it really makes life easier and some other cool stuff. For instance, you access http://server/default.aspx and you use process monitor to monitor the file access operations. You'll see NTFS actually returns FILE NOT FOUND whilst the page can be rendered successfully. I will dig further into managed URL path and share with you guys in greater detail in the later articles. Today, I just want to answer one single question, where does WSS 3.0 store contents? Here is something I got from internal sites:

 

1. WSS 3.0 installed with the Basic Installation or with the Advanced Installation followed by the Single Server option.

The SQL Server 2005 version installed is officially called the "Windows Internal Database". It is an embedded version of SQL Server 2005 Express (No limit in the size of the DB). It is only installed in a single server version of WSS 3.0 and can not store any other databases than WSS 3.0 database and other "windows components" databases.

2. WSS 3.0 installed using the Advanced Installation followed by the Complete/Full option.

Here no database system is installed and you get the chance to select which database system WSS 3.0 will use.

a) Typically this is used with full SQL Server 2005 (No limit in database size).

In this case the database system can be installed on another server than WSS 3.0 or on the same server.

b) Very rarely it could be used with a copy of the standard SQL Server 2005 Express - 4GB max size of database.

 

In that case the database system can be installed on another server than WSS 3.0 or on the same server. The only advantages of having this on the same server is that you could use it for other non-WSS databases alongside the WSS databases which you can't with the Windows Internal Database version.

 

What on earth is Windows Internal Database?

The Windows Internal Database is a special variant of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express. It is included with Windows Server 2008, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and other Windows Server tools. It is also referenced as SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition (SSEE).

The Windows Internal Database is used by Active Directory, WSS, WSUS and other Windows Server services as their data storage. Some of its main characteristics are:

• It cannot be used as a regular SQL Server instance as it is intended to be only used by Windows Services/Programs.
• It cannot be removed by using the "Add or Remove Programs" tool because it does not appear in the list of currently installed programs. Note that it is not recommended to uninstall SSEE as it might affect the operation of Windows Services that use it.
  
• It only supports Windows Authentication.
• You can only connect to the instance using Named Pipes.
  

In some cases where you might need to access this special instance of SQL Server (i.e. for reducing the transaction log size of a database) you must use the Named Pipes protocol for doing so. Named Pipes can be enabled from Network Configuration in SQL Server Configuration Manager.

Fist of all you will need to install SQL Server 2005 Express Edition Management Studio.
Then you will need to use the following connection properties:

• Server Type: Database Engine
• Server Name: //./pipe/MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE/sql/query
• Authentication: Windows Authentication
  

You have to be careful when accessing the Windows Internal Database as many Windows Services depend on it.