After doing the installation of SharePoint 2010, a separate site collection is created for performing different administrative functions that might needed on a daily basis. This site collection is known as Central Administration site. This site collection is different than the site collections which you have created and is run on its own web application in IIS.It is the main point for all the administration related activities for all the SharePoint sites. All farm server administrators is having an permission to access to this site much like the regular site they can edit and customize Central Administration site.
Central Administration site can be divided into the following eight areas,
Central Administration site can be divided into the following eight areas,
- Application management
- Monitoring
- Security
- General application settings
- System settings
- Backup and restore
- Upgrade and migration
- Configuration wizards
1.Application Management: In application management user can perform the following tasks,
- Creation of New Web applications
- Creation of New Site collections
- Manage services that are installed on SharePoint site (Excel Services, User profile service, BCS)
- Manage content database (Content database stores SharePoint data)
2.Monitoring: It is used to manage monitoring, reporting and to check the status of SharePoint site. The monitoring can be divided into following three areas,
Health Status: It is used to manage the services on the SharePoint Server (Visio services, farm level services).Administrator also see the report of the services like which service is failing etc. It is also used to define rules or scheduling of application pool recycles.
3.Security : It covers some important areas as mentioned below,
- Management of administrator accounts
- Configuration and management of service accounts
- Management of password change settings and policies
- Specification of authentication providers, trusted identity provides
- Antivirus settings
- Blocked file types
- Web part security
- Self –service security
- Security token services
4.General Application Settings: It is used to configure some general options for SharePoint site collections and sites like configuration of sending mails to the users. Also in Web Content Management (WCM) context that user want to manage deployment and approval of the content, this can also be done in the general application settings.
5.System Settings :
- Managing servers in the farm
- Managing farm features
- Configuring alternate access mappings
6.Backup and Restore :
- Perform regular scheduled backups of SharePoint Sites
- Perform ad hos backups
- Restored from previously backed up SharePoint site
7.Upgrade and Migration: Many times it happens that you need to install a patch on the SharePoint server or you need to upgrade your SharePoint product from standard to enterprise. Administrator can perform this type of action from within the “Upgrade and Migration” part of the Central Administration site
8. Configuration Wizards: It is simply step-by-step wizard that configures your SharePoint server for administrator. When administrator first installed SharePoint, he can see this wizard or even this wizard can be run manually after installation of any patch on the SharePoint server.
