Planning Federation Server Placement

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003 R2

The most critical component of an Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) deployment is the federation server. Therefore, it is important that you plan your federation server placement strategy carefully, including when and where to deploy federation servers. The information in the following topics can help you determine when and where to create a federation server and whether to use that federation server in either the account partner role, the resource partner role, or both.

Note

Although this information might help with your placement planning for federation servers, it does not explain how to determine the proper number of federation servers and the hardware requirements for each ADFS design. For more information about determining the proper number of federation servers for each design, see Planning for federation server capacity.

For examples of how a federation server can be placed in any of the three primary ADFS design scenarios, see Mapping Your Deployment Goals to an ADFS Design.