Create Sharepoint 2010 Service Application databases, app pool names without GUIDs

Question

I have recently started working on Sharepoint 2010 and created a 3 tier test setup (server1- WFE and CA, server2- running all service applications, server3- Database server). I used powershell commands as listed in this blog to first create the admin and config databases. After that i used the Farm wizard to provision all the service applications.

After completion all the service app DB names have GUIDs. In IIS 7, all the application pools and the virtual directories under Sharepoint web services have GUIDs. Also all the service apps are running in the same user id (domain\spservice) and i am unable to change the id for some of the services.

I want to recreate my environment and not have any GUIDs, neither in the DB names nor in IIS. I have not been able to find any documentation on how to create all the service application DBs and IIS app pools without GUIDs. The one article i found mentions how to remove the GUIDs after installation. (I am left wondering if all production sharepoint 2010 farms out there really use GUIDs in DB names and in IIS (app pools, virtual directories)!?)

Can someone please direct me to an article that outlines steps to configure a complete sharepoint 2010 environment without GUIDs in DB and IIS?

Answer 1

When i started out on the initial test setup I used the Farm Configuration Wizard which creates almost all the databases with GUIDs and all those GUIDs can seem overwhelming for managing the environment, for documentation etc.

To answer my question in short- the sharepoint databases can be created without GUIDs (using powershell). However in IIS, the creation of application pools and virtual directories in IIS for the service applications will have to be with GUIDs. There is no alternative for that.

I followed the steps in the article here for initial install and then used the script to create service applications from this technet article making the necessary server and database name changes.

With most of my experience as a windows web farm administrator and managing uniform naming conventions the GUID names seemed annoying initially! But since there is very little to manage or troubleshoot from the IIS interface, we do not have to worry about app pool names and vdirs with GUIDs. It is all about ULS logs, event viewer and Central Administration site!