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Recently I was tasked with leading the capacity planning session for quite a large number of users (25K+). The organization was going to be heavily utilizing Forms services. We were in the process of developing and deploying over 800 forms once their current MOSS implementation was launched. So the team and I sat down to discuss how we were going to accommodate the use of form service without performance implications. This was the first time that I have worked with the Form Services feature within MOSS 2007 at such a scale. For those of you who are not familiar with what form services is I will quickly summarize and provide some links:InfoPath Form Services is a feature found within MOSS 2007 Enterprise edition only. In general it allows InfoPath forms to be consumed via the web browser. This has its advantages and disadvantages the major advantage being that users no longer have to have the expensive InfoPath thick client installed on their machine in order to fill out these forms and submit them. MOSS 2007 WFE's will render these forms through a web browser and will allow the user to interact with the form as if they were inside of the InfoPath client. Below are a couple links for anyone who is looking to gain some knowledge on InfoPath Form Services. This blog entry will not go into the intricate details of how Form Services works but more so of what to be aware of when planning your MOSS 2007 architecture.
Introduction to Form Services:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA101672841033.aspxConfiguring Form Services within MOSS 2007:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/3728d1fa-c1db-4445-8d00-e26f9015dd951033.mspx?mfr=true
Form Services Development:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms540731.aspx
Now that you have thoroughly read through the links above 
lets jump into the topic at hand. As far as MOSS 2007 topologies go there are four main layers:
- Web Front End (WFE)
- Index/Query
- Application
- Database
So the first thing that came to mind is that we would dedicate Forms Server at the application server just like its similiar counterpart Excel Services. I proceeded to do some digging and it quickly became apparent through the documentation and the help of fellow MVP Spence Harbar that you cannot dedicate machines to take on the Forms Services role. The documentation makes you think that application means to take on such roles as excel services, document conversion, etc… the exception to this rule is the form services role. So what does this mean when you are planning to use Form Services very heavily within your MOSS 2007 implementation? Well plan and simple the load will be taken across your Web Front Ends (WFE’s). Since the load will be taken on your WFE’s it may make sense depending on the complexity of your forms to beef them up a bit more than you normally would for a WFE.
WFE minimum hardware requirements is something like:
- 2GB RAM
- 1 X Dual Core proc @ 2.8GHZ
- 73GB RAID 0
For an organization that is planning on utilizing form services I would suggest hardware requirements of:
- 64 bit OS and MOSS 2007
- 8GB RAM
- 2 X dual core proc @ 2.8GHZ
- 73GB RAID 0
**Note** The amount of WFE’s will vary depending on a couple other variables (# of users, % of concurrent users at peak time, high availability needs, etc….)
The purpose of this blog was to make everyone aware that forms services CANNOT run as its own role which I naively presumed. Forms services is a service that once enabled will run on every front end in your farm. You will need to add WFE’s if you are experiencing performance issues that have been traced back to the rendering of forms from MOSS 2007 and would like to scale out NOT app servers!
Cheers!
Jason Medero
About jmedero
Jason Medero, MVP, MCT, MCTS –Is a systems architect with a concentration in Microsoft SharePoint Server and its related Microsoft technologies. He is a managing partner of B&R Business Solutions, a central New Jersey based firm specializing in SharePoint and surrounding technologies, infrastructure, messaging and application development. He is an active member of the SharePoint community, contributing as a mentor for both the SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services forums on MSD2D.com along with many other popular forums.