Experts, We have a fully functional intranet farm with 2 front end, 1 Index and 1 SQL server. Everything is working fine. Now we have a need for an Extranet access to SharePoint and found "Split back-to-back topology" more promising. We wanted to host only the WFE is the perimeter network and have Index and SQL inside our corporate domain. This way, we can manage external users in out perimeter AD / domain controller. This is a must. In this scenario, can we use the existing Index server and SQL server for extranet as well? What is the best configuration especially on hardware and network perspective? Thanks for your help. Parthi

You can use the existing Index server and SQL server for extranet, provided that you setup the perimeter network domain to trust the corporate network domain so that you can use the corporate domain account as services and content access account for those services run in perimeter network . Please read http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262834.aspx#section3 for detail.

GuYuming, Thanks for the reply. Creating new databases in existing SQL Server is straight forward, but can we have one index server used in 2 farms? I guess I am little confused. Thanks again Parthi

There is only one SharePoint farm mentioned in the split back-to-back topology. All the services in perimeter network and corporate network belong to the same SharePoint farm. Why are you going to use one index server for 2 farms? Why are there 2 farms?