Is a Single Server Sufficient for a SharePoint Deployment?Brainstorm SharePoint Deployment Planning

Mark Macrae

• Director Intelligent Decisioning Ltd• 7 Years SharePoint Exp• SUGUK Organiser for Midlands• SharePoint Saturday• (shh...support West Ham)

About Me

It Depends!

Considerations

• SLAs• Users• Authentication• Licensing• Location • Hardware• Software (client and server)• SQL Server• SharePoint Features• Information Architecture• Staff / Roles

SLAs

• SLAs affect everything– Recovery plan– Topology– Server spec

• At least:– Approx Users– Max down time (RTO)– Max data loss (RPO)

Item Level Recovery

Disaster Recovery

High Availability

SLAs

• Define RTO/RPO targets and design a solution to meet these– RTO (Recovery Time Objective)

• Maximum acceptable duration of time of system inoperability (Downtime)– RPO (Recovery Point Objective)

• Maximum amount of acceptable data loss

Commitment Annual downtime

99% 87 hours

99.9 9 hours

99.99 53 mins

99.999 5 mins

Users• Who are your users?

– You know them individually (Intranet)– You know them as partners/customers (Extranet)– You don’t know them (Internet)

• Define who will be using the system• How will they use it?

– Which browsers?– Mobile?

• Where are your users base?– Local?, Global?, Both?

• How many users?• How will they be using it?

Authentication• How will you authenticate your users?• Depends largely on previous slide

Classic Authentication• Active Directory authenticates a user, provides an NT Token. The token is used to authenticate

to SharePoint. SharePoint consumes that token and it's converted into an SPUser object for authorization

Claims Authentication• SharePoint redirects a client to the associated trusted identity provider. The identity provider

authenticates clients and provides a security token e.g.– NT, SAML, FBA

Kerberos – when and why would you need it? …….

Licensing

• Foundation• Standard• Enterprise• CALs vs External Connector

Location

• On Premise vs Hosted?• Capacity?– Staff / Administrators– Skills– Costs– Worry

• Next session may help

Hardware• Physical vs Virtual?

– Skills– Recovery plan– Budget

• SharePoint 2010 & Foundation – X64 Quad core processor– 4GB for Dev/8GB for production– 80GB System Partition– SQL Server 2008 X64

• Prices

Naming Conventions• Databases• Web Applications• User/Service Accounts• Servers

SQL

• Which version?• Disk – lots!• RAID Configuration• Instances• Business Intelligence• SSRS

Temp Logs Search DataTemp

Even Read/Write

RAID 1/1+0

Logs

Even Read/Write

RAID 1/1+0

SearchN:1

Read/Write

RAID1/1+0

DataN:1

Read/Write

RAID 5

SQL

Recovery Plan

• Disaster Recovery– Not just about Backup/Restore!– List all possible scenarios and plan for each one with

SLAs in mind• Hardware, Software, User error, environmental etc

– Backup Tools• SharePoint vs SQL

– 3rd Party?

• Hosted – do you need to worry?

Recovery Plan

• High Availability– Servers– Services– Topology– Load Balancing solution– Database Availability

• Backup/Restore is not HA– Not quick enough

SharePoint Feature Set

• PerformancePoint Services• Excel Services• Access Services• Visio Services• SQL Reporting Services• ….• = More of everything!!!

SharePoint Databases

SharePoint 2007 SharePoint 2010

There are a lot more databases in 2010!

Domain Account Considerations

• Best Practise of Least Privileges• SharePoint 2010 requires even more accounts!• Basic Accounts

• Farm Account (Database Access Account)• Install/Setup Account• Web Application App Pool Accounts

• Service Application Accounts– App Pool Identities – Unattended Service Accounts

Environments

• Which environments do you REALLY need?– Dev– Continuous Build– UAT– Production

• More environments = – More maintenance = More resources– Patching

• SDLC!!

Resources / Roles

• Most organisations have the familiar role of ‘The SharePoint Guy’

Resources / Roles

• Network Administrator• SQL DBA• SharePoint Farm Administrator• Site Collection Administrators• Business ‘Champions’• Designer• Developers

Scared?

• Governance• Security / Authorisation• Patching/Service Packs• Developed Solutions• ….