Dr. Steve Marsh

Metalogix EMEA Director of Technology & Product Marketing

The Myths and Truths about BLOBs, SharePoint and the FILESTREAM

Provider

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#SPSBE25

WHO AM I?

• Metalogix

• Ex-Microsoft

• Physicist & Microelectronics Engineer

• @drstevemarsh

• steve.marsh@metalogix.com

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Agenda

• Why is this subject relevant?

• What is a BLOB?

• What is BLOB Offloading?

• Myths and Truths

WHY MYTHS AND TRUTHS OF SHAREPOINT BLOBS?

• SharePoint adoption is growing• 125,000,000 licenses to 65,000

Customers

• 62,000,000 licenses for SharePoint 2010

• 80 % of Fortune 500 have SharePoint

• 700,000 developers working on SharePoint, 1,062 books

• Content is growing• 2010 – 1.2 ZB

• 2020 – 35 ZB

• Content is growing at 60% Year over Year

WHAT IS A BLOB?

• BLOB Binary Large OBject

• BLOB is the data stream associated with a file

• SharePoint file metadata and BLOBs are stored in SQL databases

• BLOBs do not participate in query operations

• Sample BLOB operations: Get, Put, Read range, etc.

SHAREPOINT - WHEN BLOBS ATTACK!

WHAT IS REMOTE BLOB STORAGE?

• RBS (or EBS) is the API set from Microsoft

• Allows BLOBs to be separated from the File metadata

• BLOBs can be stored outside of SQL DB

TIME FOR SOME AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

• Myth or Truth?

MYTH OR TRUTH?

• Does SharePoint have native or out of the box Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) capability?

MYTH

THE TRUTH• SharePoint has no capability to offload BLOBs out of the

box

• SharePoint requires additional software to turn it into an RBS aware application

MYTH OR TRUTH?

• Do the new Content DB size guidelines mean we don’t need BLOB off-loading anymore?

MYTH

THE TRUTH

• A SharePoint Content DB is defined as the metadata and the BLOBs regardless of where the BLOBs are stored

• Putting 4TB of SharePoint content into a single SQL only Content DB is a bad idea

MYTH OR TRUTH?

• Is BLOB offloading detrimental to SharePoint performance?

MYTH

THE TRUTH

• Writing BLOBs into SQL is a slow, resource intensive process

• Poor performing/inefficient RBS providers often cite 1MB as the average file size to consider using RBS

• The reality is that the average file size can be as small a few tens of KB

MYTH OR TRUTH?

• Can an RBS solution be used instead of archiving?

TRUTH

THE TRUTH

• What are we trying to achieve with “Archiving”?

• RBS Providers can integrate with SharePoint Information Management Policy

• Enterprise-class RBS solutions are Proactive Storage Optimisation combined with Traditional Archiving Concepts

MYTH OR TRUTH?

• Can using RBS make your disaster recovery strategy more complex?

MYTH

THE TRUTH

• Need to consider the back-up of the BLOB store

• SQL becomes easier to manage and maintain

• Native SQL and SharePoint back-up tools are now more effective and a realistic option

MYTH OR TRUTH?

• Is Microsoft’s FILESTREAM Provider an enterprise-class solution for BLOB offloading?

MYTH

FILESTREAM PROVIDER• WSS 3.0 with the WIDE (Windows Integrated Database) option does not have a

database size limit, thus organizations can and have put large volumes of content into this "at no additional charge“

• With release of SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SQL Server 2008 Express edition, Microsoft introduced database instance limits.

• SQL Server 2008 R2 Express Edition has a 10 GB instance limitation

• The FILESTREAM Provider lacks basic features required to call it an enterprise solution.

• No user interface

• Lack of support for "remote" storage,

• Lack of a multithreaded garbage collection process

• FILESTREAM does not bypass SQL Server for the processing of BLOBs

MYTH OR TRUTH?

• Can BLOB offloading reduce SharePoint storage costs, improve performance and scalability?

TRUTH

Improved Scalability

Increased Performance

Reduced Network and Storage Requirements

Simplified Backup and Restore

More Secure Transmission and Storage

Tiered Storage/HSM Options

Off-premise Storage Platform Options

Leverage Advanced Storage Technologies

…Without sacrificing performance, functionality, or user experience!

WHY OFFLOAD BLOBS?

THE SIMPLE CASE FOR RBS

(1) 50GB SharePoint Content database

Example: One TB of Content

MetadataPPT

PDF

XLS

DOCTIFF

Content

Dire

ct-

Atta

ched

Netw

ork-

Addr

essa

ble

Clou

d

950GB of file-based BLOB store(s)

On average, 90-95% of a SharePoint content database’s storage overhead is comprised of content BLOBs.

• BLOBs can be stored on less-expensive storage and SQL clusters can be right-sized sans all the BLOB I/O.

• Eliminates SQL Server as the bottleneck for performance and scalability

• Smaller content databases. Can leverage DFS, snapshot-ing, and/or mirroring for BLOB store recovery.

• BLOBs can be stored on WORM-compliant storage platforms like EMC Centera, Hitachi HCAP, or OSAR.

• You can implement HSM where content can be moved to less expensive storage tiers as it becomes less relevant.

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