SharePoint - From Denial to Acceptance

SQL SERVER DAYS 2013

SHAREPOINT

FROM DENIAL TO ACCEPTANCE

THOMAS VOCHTEN

ABOUT ME

• SharePoint MVP• SQL Server enthousiast• Platform architect • Trainer

@thomasvochtenhttp://thomasvochten.comhttp://linkedin.com/in/thomasvochten

AGENDA

• Introducing SharePoint & SQL• Planning for SharePoint• Setup Good Practices• Maintenance Tasks• Backup & Restore• High Availability & Disaster Recovery

CONFESSIONS

I’M NOT A REAL DBA

MEET THE INVOLUNTARY DBA

Someone who is made to assume a DBA role or take on DBA responsibilities, usually against their will

(*)

(*) Paul Randal

WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT SHAREPOINT?

• It’s everywhere! Used by 80% of the Fortune 500• Microsoft’s fastest selling server product• Importance of SQL for SharePoint is huge• Many frustrations among SQL Server professionals

WHICH FRUSTRATIONS?

• The support policies• The strange schema• The database settings• The default database names• The server rights they ask for• The unconventional maintenance practices• The GUID’s all over the place• SharePoint likes to create its databases itself• …

ABOUT SHAREPOINT & SQL

The Dynamic Duo

SHAREPOINT 2007

SHAREPOINT 2010

SHAREPOINT 2013

DATABASES VS SHAREPOINT VERSIONS

SharePoint Foundation

SharePoint Standard

SharePoint Enterprise

SHAREPOINT - THE LEGACY

• Database schema concept goes way back• Every SharePoint update modifies the schema!• The newer the version, the more databases• Many improvements with SharePoint 2013• What is stored inside SQL Server?

THE SHAREPOINT OBJECT HIERARCHY

• Farm• Service Applications• Service Application Databases• Servers• Web applications• Content Databases• Site collections• Sites• Lists• Items

SITES AND THEIR DATABASES

Site Collectionhttps://intranet.contoso.com

Content Database

Subsite

SharePoint Farm

Web Applicationhttps://intranet.contoso.com

Web Applicationhttps://extranet.contoso.com

Content Database

Content Database

Other Databases

Site Collectionhttps://intranet.contoso.com/projects/1

Site Collectionhttps://intranet.contoso.com/customers/1

Subsite

Subsite

CONTROLLING CONTENT DATABASE SIZE

• Site collection can only live in 1 content database• Balance site collections across content databases• Use site collection quota’s to control growth and size

DATABASE, ANYONE?

• A lot of SharePoint databases• Each with different needs

THE (ALMOST) DEFINITIVE LIST

• Configuration Database• Central Administration

Content Database• Content Database• App Mgmt Database• Business Connectivity

Services Database• Search Administration

Database• Analytics Reporting Database• Crawl Database• Links Database

• Secure Store Database• Usage Database• Subscription Settings

Database• Profile Database• Synchronization Database• Social Database• Word Automation Database• Managed Metadata Database• Machine Translation Database• PerformancePoint Database• State Service Database

DATABASE TYPES

Configuration Database 1

Service Application Databases Multiple

Content Databases Multiple

DATABASES WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

IOPS intensive databases in a SharePoint environment:

• TempDB• Logging database• Search databases

> Effect on storage planning!

SAY WHAT?

GET RID OF THE GUID

Grey wizardGOOD

White wizardBAD

POWERSHELL TO THE RESCUE

• New-SPConfigurationDatabase• AutoSPInstaller• Naming convention matters!

http://autospinstaller.codeplex.com

NEW WITH SHAREPOINT 2013

• Many schema optimizations• Reduced IO operations• Distributed Cache• Less need for the dbo role• Sparse columns• Shredded Storage

SHREDDED STORAGE

• Performance & Sizing impact• SharePoint feature• Evolution from the Cobalt protocol in SharePoint 2010• Document is stored as separate BLOB’s in SQL Server• Only changed BLOB’s will be sent back to SQL Server• Reduced IO & Storage needs

PLANNING FOR SHAREPOINT

IMPORTANCE TO SHAREPOINT

• SharePoint performance impact• Almost everything is stored in SQL

LIMITS & BOUNDARIES

Content database sizing revisited

General purpose 200 GB

Controlled < 4 TB

Structured > 4 TB

ESTIMATE CONTENT DATABASE SIZE

• ((D × V) × S) + (10 KB × (L + (V × D)))

- Number of documents (D)- Average size of documents (S)- List items (L)- Number of non-current versions (V)

LIMITS & BOUNDARIES

Content database limits

• 500 content databases per farm• 60 million items in a content database• 10.000 site collections in a content database*

* 5000 is recommended

SUPPORTED VERSIONS OF SQL

For SharePoint 2013

• SQL Server 2012 x64• SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 x64

Editions supported:

• Express, Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter

SHAREPOINT BENEFITS WITH SQL ENTERPRISE

• Online index rebuilds• Availability Groups• Transparent Data Encryption• Table Partitioning• Snapshots• Remote BLOB Storage• Resource Governor• PowerPivot• …

SQL SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS WITH SHAREPOINT

• CPU

64 bit, 4 cores for small deployments64 bit, 8 cores for medium deployments

• Memory

8 GB for small deployments16 GB for medium deployments

VIRTUALIZATION

Supported for SharePoint across the board

Best Candidates Web ServersLightweight Application Severs

Good Candidates Search Application Servers

Possible Candidates SQL Servers

PLAN YOUR DISKS

Differentiate & prioritize based on IO needs

1. tempdb2. logs3. search4. other databases

SETUP GOOD PRACTICES

DISK PREPPING

The usual suspects…

• Partition alignment (1024K)• NTFS cluster sizes (64K)• TempDB importance• SQLIO to the rescue!

INSTANT FILE INITIALIZATION

• Speeds up data file creation enormously• Disables zeroing out data files• Does not work for log files• Set “Perform volume maintenance tasks”

Not only for SharePoint!

INSTANCE PREPPING

• Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS_WS collation• MAXDOP must be set to 1• FILL FACTOR to 80% (for 2007 or 2010 only)• Use a domain account as service account• Set MAXMEM• Dedicated instance for SharePoint• SharePoint only needs the database engine• Don’t forget to start SQL Agent• Enable backup compression

MEMORY

DATABASE SETTINGS

ADVANCED (MAXDOP)

MAXDOP TO 1 IS MANDATORY IN 2013

DATABASE TUNING

• Multiple database files per database• Realistic autogrowth settings, don’t use %• Choose your recovery model wisely• SharePoint supports read-only content databases• Pregrow database & log files

OPTIONS

PERMISSIONS

SharePoint setup/admin user needs:

• dbcreator• securityadmin

Why do SharePoint admins ask for sysadmin role membership?

PRE-CREATING DATABASES

• By default, SharePoint creates its own databases• DBA’s can pre-create databases for more control• Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS_WS collation for SharePoint

What do you do after the farm has been created?

SHAREPOINT’S WAY - OR MORE FRUSTRATIONS

• Auto Create Statistics = off• Auto Update Statistics = off• GUIDS as clustered indexes• No referential integrity• Model Database is not used by SharePoint

SQL ALIASES

• Use SQL Aliases to connect SharePoint to SQL Server• Use multiple aliases for different database types:

core databasescontent databasessearch databaseslogging database

WORK WITH YOUR SHAREPOINT PEOPLE

• Naming conventions• Precreation of databases• Site collections placement• Impact of SharePoint creating databases:

backupsHA & DR techniquesnaming conventionsdatabase options

DEMO

Anatomy of a SharePoint database system

MAINTENANCE TASKS

How not to ruin it with Microsoft support

REQUIRED READING

• KB841057 supported & unsupported actions to databases

• Database Maintenance for SharePoint 2010 Products

* Still relevant for SharePoint 2013 and SQL Server 2012

DON’T

• Adding database triggers• Adding new indexes or changing existing indexes within tables • Adding, changing, or deleting any primary or foreign key relationships • Changing or deleting existing stored procedures • Calling existing stored procedures directly• Adding new stored procedures • Adding, changing, or deleting any data in any table of any of the databases• Adding, changing, or deleting any columns in any table• Making any modification to the database schema • Adding tables to any of the databases• Changing the database collation • Running DBCC_CHECKDB WITH REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS• Enabling SQL Server change data capture (CDC)• Enabling SQL Server transactional replication• Enabling SQL Server merge replication

DO

• Operations that are initiated from the SharePoint administrative user interface• SharePoint specific tools and utilities that are provided

directly by Microsoft (PowerShell)• Changes that are made programmatically through the

SharePoint Object Model and that are in compliance with the SharePoint SDK documentation• Activities that are in compliance with the SharePoint

Protocols documentation

REDUCING FRAGMENTATION

• SharePoint Health Analyzer checks

configuration databasecontent databasessome application databases

• Perform index rebuild manually• Consider rebuilding indexes when fragmented over 30%• SharePoint uses a non-default Fill Factor• Not all databases are checked by SharePoint however• AllDocs table is the most likely candidate• SQL Enterprise for online index rebuild (<> table locks)• Offline rebuild for many tables anyhow (BLOB’s)

HEALTH ANALYZER RULES & STORED PROCEDURES

• Databases used by SharePoint have fragmented indices

exec proc_DefragmentIndices (trigger is 30%)

• Search - One or more crawl databases may have fragmented indices

exec proc_MSS_DefragGathererIndexes (trigger is 10%)

• Some content databases are growing too large• Database has large amounts of unused space• Databases used by SharePoint have outdated index statistics

MANAGE INDEXES MANUALLY

DO ALTER INDEX

DON’T DROP INDEXCREATE INDEX

Examples:

ALTER INDEX AllDocs_Url ON dbo.AllDocsREBUILD WITH (ONLINE=ON) GO

ALTER INDEX tp_SiteId ON dbo.AllListsREORGANIZE GO

WATCH OUT FOR THE SHRINK

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

• Causes massive fragmentation• Autoshrink is the root of all evil!• Rebuild indexes & keep free space

Can be considered after special SharePoint operations like moving a site from one database to another

CHECK FOR CONSISTENCY

• Run DBCC CHECKDB regularly• WITH REPAIR_FAST & WITH_REPAIR_REBUILD is supported• WITH REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS is not supported• WITH PHYSICAL_ONLY on very demanding environments

BACKUP & RESTORE

BACKING UP SHAREPOINT

• Backup all databases frequently• Content databases are the most important ones• File system backups are still needed• Simple or Full recovery model

FRUSTRATIONS… AGAIN!

• Configuration database cannot be restored• SharePoint built-in backups may break the backup chain!

does a normal full backupdoes not do WITH COPY_ONLY

Know what goes on in your environment

HIGH AVAILABILITY & DISASTER RECOVERYHow to support SharePoint availability with SQL Server

SHAREPOINT HIGH AVAILABILITY SUPPORT

• Clustering• Synchronous mirroring• Availability Groups synchronous commit

General rule of thumb:Synchronous for HA, supported with most databases

SHAREPOINT DISASTER RECOVERY SUPPORT

• Log Shipping• Asynchronous mirroring• Availability Groups asynchronous-commit mode

General rule of thumb:Asynchronous for DR, supported with some databases

TYPICAL IMPLEMENTATION

TAKEAWAYS

• SharePoint is what it is, don’t try to change it• Work with your SharePoint administrators• Be aware of the limits & boundaries• Know what is supported and what not• Get involved when they are planning SharePoint!

KEY RESOURCES

Best practices for SQL Server in a SharePoint Server farmhttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh292622.aspx

Storage and SQL Server capacity planning and configurationhttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc298801.aspx

Overview of SQL Server in a SharePoint environmenthttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff945791.aspx

Support for changes to the databases that are used by SharePointhttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/841057

Database maintenance for SharePoint http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262731.aspx

Supported high availability and disaster recovery options for SharePoint databases

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj841106.aspx

JUMPSTART

Tuning SQL Server 2012 for SharePoint 2013 Jump Start

4 hours of video by Bill Baer & Brian Alderman

https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training-courses/tuning-sql-server-2012-for-sharepoint-2013-jump-start

BIWUG

SharePoint User Groupwww.biwug.be

Q & A

#sqlserverdays@thomasvochten

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