SharePoint 2016 and Office Online Server (Excel Services) architecture question

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SharePoint 2016 and Office Online Server (Excel Services) architecture question

Damon Norris 0

We upgraded on-prem SharePoint 2013 to SharePoint 2016. Excel Services and dashboard functionality is no longer integrated with SharePoint 2016 and now offered through Office Online Server (OOS). Prior to the upgrade, all of our external users accessed SharePoint 2013, excel services and dashboarding all through a single FQDN (example: https://site.domain.com). With SharePoint 2016 and OOS being separated out, is it possible to still have a single FQDN servicing our external user base for excel services and dashboarding, or MUST we obtain a second FQDN specifically for Office Online Server and allow yet another port open directly to OOS for the external users. We are hoping to use a single entry point FQDN to SharePoint 2016 and have SharePoint talk direcly to OSS and not be forced to allow direct access to from external to the OOS. All of this would be configured behind a F5 load balancer. Problem is that I don't see any clear documentation on how to setup the way we want using the single entry point from external to SharePoint.

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Answer 1

Ling Zhou_MSFT 23,620 Microsoft External Staff

Hi @Damon Norris,

Thank you for posting in this community.

I would like to confirm your question to you: you want to set up a FQDN to SharePoint2016 and then SharePoint2016 can link to Office Online Server so that external users can access the Office Online Server through Share Point2016, do I understand correctly?

I noticed that you mentioned in your question about configuring on a F5 load balancerIf you still need to use a F5 load balancer for configuration, I suggest you go to F5 load balancer community for more help.

For SharePoint, we can configure Office Online Server for SharePoint Server.

This is the article on configuration: Configure Office Online Server for SharePoint Server. You can see if you can use it as an alternative.

Thank you for your kind understanding.

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Damon Norris 0 Reputation points

2023-07-10T12:58:57.2766667+00:00

Your confirmation is correct. I am less worried about "how-to" on the F5 part.
Damon Norris 0 Reputation points

2023-07-10T18:44:15.2133333+00:00

You referenced the article on configuration: Configure Office Online Server for SharePoint Server, but this example shows configuring Office Online Server with its own external FQDN. I'm looking for instructions on how to this working through our existing SharePoint FQDN. I don't end users hitting the Office Online Server directly.
Ling Zhou_MSFT 23,620 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2023-07-25T07:17:04.55+00:00

Hi Damon Norris,

Please accept my apologies for the late reply. It took me a bit of time for testing and information because of the complexity of the issue.

Unfortunately, it seems that SharePoint and OOS can't use the same FQDN because they can't be installed on the same server.

You can read this article to confirm:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/officeonlineserver/plan-office-online-server.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

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Damon Norris 0 Reputation points

2023-07-25T12:28:42.5033333+00:00

Ok, since SharePoint and OOS need different FQDNs, does this mean that the external end user needs to be able to resolve the OOS FQDN. Furthermore, if the end user does need to resolve the OOS FQDN, does this mean that TCP 443 traffic will need to be allowed from external to the OOS? If this is the case, I don't see the point in the integration steps between OOS and Sharepoint. The documentation states that OOS can be setup as a true stand alone solution or can be integrated with SharePoint. What am I gaining with the sharepoint integration method if the external end user must still be required to resolve and access both OOS and Sharepoint?

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SharePoint 2016 and Office Online Server (Excel Services) architecture question

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