SharePoint 2010 updated services infrastructure

In Microsoft® SharePoint® Server 2010, services are no longer contained within a Shared Services Provider (SSP). Instead, the infrastructure for hosting services moves into SharePoint® Foundation 2010 and the configuration of service offerings is much more flexible. Individual services can be configured independently and third-party companies can add services to the platform.

More granular configuration of services
· You can deploy only the services that are needed to a farm. Services that are deployed are called service applications.
· Web applications can be configured to use only the services that are needed, rather than the entire set of services that are deployed.

· You can deploy multiple instances of the same service in a farm and assign unique names to the resulting service applications.
· You can share services across multiple Web applications within the same farm.

Sharing services across farms
· Some services can be shared across server farms. Other services can be shared only within a single server farm. Services that support sharing across farms can be run in a central farm and consumed from regional locations.
· Each Web application can be configured to use services from different farms. For example, you can share the User Profile Service across Web applications in several server farms while using some services, such as the Business Data Connectivity, locally.
· In large environments, computing-intensive services can be run in a central farm to minimize administration overhead and to scale out easily and efficiently as requirements grow.

Logical architecture
· All service applications in a farm are deployed to the same IIS Web site. (See below diagram)
· Service applications can be deployed to different application pools to achieve process isolation. However, farm performance is optimized if services are contained within one application pool.
· To achieve physical isolation of services, create separate instances of service applications and place them in different application pools

Service groups
· By default, all service applications are included in the default group, unless you change this setting for a service application when it is created. You can add and remove service applications from the default group at any time. (See above diagram)
· When you create a Web application, you can select the default group or you can create a custom group of services. You create a custom group of services by selecting only the service applications that you want the Web application to use.
· Custom groups are not reusable across multiple Web applications. Each time you select "custom" when creating a Web application, you are selecting services only for the Web application you are creating.

Connecting service applications to Web applications
· When you create a service application, a connection for the service application is created at the same time. A connection is a virtual entity that connects Web applications to service applications.
· In Windows PowerShell these connections are called proxies. The term "proxy" also appears at the end of the type description for connections on the Manage Service Applications page in Central Administration.
· Connections for services in the local farm are not created by the administrator, but these appear along with the list of service applications in Central Administration.
· Some connections might include settings that can be modified. For example, if a Web application is connected to multiple instances of the Managed Metadata service, you must indicate which of the connections is connected to the primary service application which hosts the corporate taxonomy.


A List of Service in SharePoint 2010

Sample of Single farm, single service group

Manage Service Applications page