Farrellys Avoiding avoidable mistakes Tim Farrelly August 2010.
Avoiding 10 common SharePoint Administration mistakes
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Transcript of Avoiding 10 common SharePoint Administration mistakes
Dodge the bullet10 ways to avoid common mistakes in SharePoint Administration
#SPSUK08
Benjamin Athaweswww.benjaminathawes.com@benjaminathawes
2
Who am I?
− SharePoint server junkie for just over 3 years
− Head of IT Infrastructure at eShare Limited in West Berkshire (near Reading)
− SharePoint 2010 admin/dev MCTS, MCITP & MOS
− SharePoint User Group speaker (#SUGUK)
• The only specialist provider of “governance” software
• 220 + trusts
• Pensions / Health / Charities / Corporates
• UK / Holland / Australia / South Africa
• Hosted solution based on SharePoint Server and K2
• Data centre located in Newbury, Berkshire
The slide my boss made me add…
Our clients
Who are you?
• IT PRO?
• Dev?
• Business?
• A bit of everything?
• Wrong session?
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Why this session?Similar administration questions keep recurring with each new version of SharePoint...
“I have 100 Web apps and my farm
seems slow. How do I speed things up?”
“I’ve made changes in
<SQL/IIS/the file system>, why have I got “an unexpected
error”?
“Why am I getting a warning in Central
Administration saying that the Farm
Account shouldn’t be a local admin?”
“I have a 500GB content database
and I’m having trouble upgrading
to SharePoint <version>, what
can I do?”
Dodge the bullet.wmv
Why the same old questions?
• Sophisticated product
• Poor documentation
• Success involves collaboration
• Growing complexity!
SharePoint is a complex platform – it gets tougher
every time!
“Why?”
Ok, so how do we dodge the bullet?
“If someone has dodged a bullet,
they have successfully avoided a
very serious problem.”
1. Put SharePoint in your job title
Failure to dodge means...
Too much to juggle
− BIG product - not just SharePoint
− Training
− ‘One man army’ probably not realistic
2. Start with an appropriate topology
Yup, another standalone install
− Beware of SharePoint’s default settings:
− Plan the install
SQL Server Express (R2 =10GB/DB limit)
No User Profile Service!
Failure to dodge means...
Limited scalability / no redundancy
The evil button
SQL Server Express
Full fat SQL – use this
3. Understand capacity planning recommendations
− Easy to push under the rug
− Software boundaries normally involve a trade-off
− No magic numbers or a silver bullet (e.g. RBS)
− Not always documented e.g. Web application scalability
Failure to dodge means...
Risk to supportability and potential
performance issues
Capacity Planning Example: too many Web apps
Web
Ap
ps
Sit
e C
oll
ecti
on
sC
on
ten
t D
atab
ases
Department A
Department B
Public Site A Project A Project B
Department A
Department B
Public Site A
…n Web apps; up to a recommended maximum of 20/farm
Project A Project B
Department A
Department B
Public Site A Project A Project B
Capacity Planning Example: scaling with site collections
Web
Ap
ps
Sit
e C
oll
ecti
on
sC
on
ten
t D
atab
ases
Secure Web App (HTTPS)
Public Web Sites (HTTP)
SPCA MySites CTHub
SPCA
…n site collections; recommended max 2000/content DB (!)
CTHub
Secure Web App (HTTPS)
Public Web Sites (HTTP)
SPCA MySites CTHub
A B C D EF G H I JK L M N OP Q . . .
A B C D EF G H I JK L M N OP Q . . .
A B C D EF G H I JK L M N OP Q . . .
Common reasons for Web apps…
Reason Potential Solution
Vanity URLs Host named site collections
Authentication provider Extend Web app (2007); multiple providers in 2010 in single Web app
SSL Extend Web app
Partitioning Multi-tenancy (not trivial to implement)
Web.config customisations Try to avoid them!
4. Utilise SharePoint's provisioning capability
− If it’s not packaged in a solution, don’t deploy it!
− Solutions are:− Scalable− Backed up− Quicker (e.g. branding
artefacts on file system)
Failure to dodge means...
Farm inconsistencies and a brittle
configuration
Provisioning example: manual assembly deployment
5. Avoid the default SQL DB growth settings
Pre size ldf/mdf files Autogrow in MB not %
− Default SQL autogrowth settings mean fragmentation
− Index maintenance still relevant to SSDs
− Mechanical disks – don’t forget OS fragmentation!
Failure to dodge means...
Steady reduction in performance due to
fragmentation
6. Remember that virtualisation isn’t magic sauce
Failure to dodge means...
Inexplicable performance issues and risk
to supportability
− You can’t get away from normal physical limitations:
− SQL IOPS− Hardware failure− NIC throughput
− Ensure Non Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) has a direct impact on:
− RAM installed in box− Allocation of RAM to VMs
NUMA NUMA?
The NUMA misnomer?
The NUMA myth…
Don’t assume the NUMA guidance
applies to your kit – check!
− NUMA = a scalable CPU design for multi core processors (a good thing).
− The “rule of thumb” guidance for determining NUMA boundaries:
− RAM / logical cores− E.g. 64 GB RAM / [2 * quad
core CPU] = 8GB boundary
− My guidance: “It depends” on your hardware:check your specific configuration using CoreInfo & PerfMon
− Hypervisor agnostic
NUMA exampleA HP DL380 G7 with 64GB RAM and 2 hex core processorsHyper threading enabled
In this particular case, there is a 1:1 ratio between CPU sockets and NUMA nodes, meaning that there are 2 NUMA nodes of 32 GB each.
7. Design and test a back up strategy
− Document your farm configuration using PowerShell or 3rd party tools e.g. SPDocKit
− Remember SQL backups don’t cover everything (farm config)
− Align strategy with SLAs
Failure to dodge means...
Potential RPE* *Résumé Producing Event nnn
What’s backed up?Configuration Setting 2007 SP2010 farm-only config SP2010 with SPDocKitA/V settings. N Y YDiagnostic logging settings. N Y YIRM N Y YFarm solution store N Y YApplication pool settings, including service accounts (all accounts that run as Web applications, including the crawler account and the search account).
N NY
Alternate access mapping settings. N N YFarm-level search settings. N N YExternal service connection settings. N N YWorkflow management settings. N N YE-mail settings. N Outbound only YUsage analysis processing settings. N N YContent deployment settings. N N YTimer job settings. N N YRecycle Bin settings and other Web application general settings.
N NY
Administrator-deployed form templates. N N YDefault quota templates. N N YDatabase names and locations. N N YWeb application names and databases. Be sure to document the content database names associated with each Web application.
N NY
Crawler impact rules. N N YActivated features. N N YBlocked file types. N N Y
Check out SPDocKit at http://tinyurl.com/c6p6lus
8. Test, test and test again
Failure to dodge means...
Impact on availability / reputation
“No test farm equals no production farm!”
Andrew Woodward
− Includes: Cumulative updates Service Packs Topology changes IIS changes
− Every environment is different
9. Utilise PowerShell− STSADM is deprecated
− Not just for developers
− MS product agnostic
− Dozens of uses: removing GUIDs, automating installs, log checking, etc
…but don’t forget to test your scripts!
Failure to dodge means...
Lack of readiness for future versions of
SharePoint
10. Use crowd wisdom
− “Many Are Smarter Than the Few”
− Use social networking tools to keep up to date, e.g.
“RBS is not ‘the solution to world hunger’”Spencer Harbar
“Cumulative Updates are not Service packs”Todd Klindt
“SharePoint’s farm-only config leaves a lot to be desired”Sean McDonough
Failure to dodge means...
Risk of out-dated practices and limited
networking opportunities
Summary
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− Understand the capabilities and supported scenarios
− It’s not just SharePoint
− “Default settings” aren’t always sufficient
− Plan early to “dodge the bullet”
− Social tools can aid decision making
Technical success depends largely on our
understanding of SharePoint's underlying
technologies
Thanks…
…to you for listening
…to Sean McDonough
for reviewing most of the slides