High availability and disaster recovery are fundamental requirement for mission-critical SharePoint environments but the costs and complexity of deploying, managing and maintaining the necessary components can exceed the reach of many organizations. By leveraging the power of Microsoft Azure to extend your data center into the cloud, you can ensure 24x7x365 continuous operation of your SharePoint farms without the costs and complexity of on-premises infrastructure. In this full-day, interactive workshop you will learn how to easily migrate entire farms to the cloud, provide worldwide redundancy, rapidly scale up to meet increased demands, and fail-over seamlessly in the event of an emergency. With over four hours of step by step demonstrations and a wealth of tips and tricks gained from real-world experience, you will gain the fundamental knowledge needed to begin leveraging the power of Microsoft Azure to meet your service delivery objectives and prevent unplanned outages.

1. A Real-World Guide to Building Highly Available Fault
Tolerant SharePoint Farms
Eric Shupps
President
BinaryWave
Level: Intermediate

2. About Me
Eric Shupps
Office Servers & Services MVP
@eshupps
sharepointcowboy
slideshare.net/eshupps
linkedin.com/in/eshupps
github.com/eshupps

3. Agenda
• Fundamentals
• Architecture
• Implementation
• Validation
• Maintenance

4. Fundamentals

5. !=
+

6. What is HADR?
• Elimination of single
points of failure
• Fully redundant system
and environments
• Seamless continuity
• Geographically
distributed failover
• Operational Stability

7. Why Do We Need HADR?
• Risk mitigation
• Compliance
• Customer Satisfaction
• Revenue Protection
• Safety
• Performance
• Security
• Public Relations

8. Requirements
• Infrastructure
– Devices
– Servers
– Bandwidth
– Storage
• Software
– Windows Server 2012 - 2019
• Failover Clustering
• File Shares
– SQL Server 2012 - 2017
• Always On Availability Groups

9. Considerations
• Resources
• Cost
• Complexity
• Licensing
• Troubleshooting
• Maintenance

10. Architecture

11. Basic (Non-HA) SharePoint
2013/2016 Farm Architecture
WFE
SharePoint Server 2013
Front-end Server
SQL Server 2012 SP2 (2014) PowerPivot Add-In
SQL Server 2012 SP2 (2014) Reporting Services Add-In
APP
SharePoint Server 2013
Application Server
Excel Services Service Application
SQL Server 2012 SP2 (2014) PowerPivot Service Application
SQL Server 2012 SP2 (2014) PowerPivot Add-In
SQL Server 2012 SP2 (2014) Reporting Services Service Application
SQL Server 2012 SP2 (2014) Reporting Services Add-In
WAC
Office Web Apps 2013 Server
SQL
SQL Server 2012 SP2+ (2014)
Database Engine
All Databases and Roles
SQL Server Analysis Services for SharePoint (PowerPivot)
WFM
Workflow Manager Server

12. Basic SharePoint HA Farm
Virtual Host A Virtual Host B
SQL Server installed and configured to support SQL AlwaysOn Availability Groups.
WFE01
SharePoint 2013
Front-end Server
APP01
SharePoint 2013
Application Server
SQL01
SQL Server 2012 SP1+
All Databases and Roles
WFE02
SharePoint 2013
Front-end Server
APP02
SharePoint 2013
Application Server
SQL02
SQL Server 2012 SP1+
All Databases and Roles
F5 BigIP
Network Load Balancer
WFM01
Workflow
Manager
Server
WFM03
Workflow
Manager
Server
WFM02
Workflow
Manager
Server
wfm.<domain>.com
WSFC01
SQLAGL01
WAC01
Office Web Apps 2013
Server
WAC02
Office Web Apps 2013
Server
wac.<domain>.com
• JUST SharePoint
• Is everything on this diagram
‘highly available’?
• What about infrastructure?
– VM Hosts
– Active Directory
– DNS
– WSFC witness (file share)
– Load balancer
– Firewall

13. Network
• Firewalls
• Routers
• Load Balancers
• Switches
• Virtual Hosts
• Network Interfaces
• Storage

14. Storage
• Dedicated vs. Shared
Storage
• Quorum Types
– Node Majority
– Node and File Share Majority
– Node and Disk Majority
– Disk Only
• Witnesses
– Disk
– File Share

15. Active Directory
• Logins
– Service Accounts
– SQL Accounts
– Computer Objects
– File shares
• Cluster permissions
– Read all properties
– Create computer objects

16. DNS
• Configuration
– Location
– Availability
– Replication
• Entries
– Machines
– Cluster
– Listeners
• Permissions

17. SSL
• Encryption
– Communication (SSL)
– Data (TDE)
• Certificate Types
– SAN
– Wildcard
• Challenges
– Cost
– Complexity
– Configuration

18. Clustering
• Windows Server Failover
Clustering
– Required
– Provides base cluster capabilities
– Server level
• SQL Failover Cluster
Instance
– Optional
– Instance level
– No automatic failover w/
Availability Groups

19. Availability Groups
• Group of databases
organized into PRIMARY and
SECONDARY replicas
• Automatic data
synchronization
• Synchronous and
Asynchronous modes
• Optional read-only replicas
• Database-only redundancy
• Listeners (Virtual Network
Names)

20. Aliases
• Provide flexibility and
abstraction
• Best practice
• HA aliases target AG
Listeners NOT
servers or instances
• Use multiple listeners
for scalability

21. Storage
• Windows Server Failover Cluster
– File Share Quorom
– Disk Witness Quorom
• Failover Cluster Instances
– Shared storage between
cluster members
– Storage “owned” by active
member
• Availability Groups
– Discrete storage for each
replica

22. Implementation

23. Farms
• Hot (MTTR < 1 hr) $$$$$$
– Automatic failover
– Fully-configured and operational secondary
farm
– Isolated system & service application
databases
– Mounted (read-only) content databases
• Warm (MTTR < 4 hrs) $$$$
– Manual failover
– Same as HOT except: optional service
application databases, available unmounted
content databases
• Cold (MTTR < 24 hrs) $$
– Manual failover
– Pre-configured farm components in standby
state

24. Farm Considerations
Hot
• Cost
• Bandwidth
• Configuration
changes
• Monitoring
• Network
Configuration
• Hybrid
Warm
• Content
synchronization
• Environment
configuration
• Reaction time
• Manual change
risk
Cold
• Actual recovery
time
• Environment
differences
• Functional
variances
• Service quality

25. Databases
• Synchronous Replicas
– All databases in production data
center
• Asynchronous Replicas
– Content databases between data
centers (R/O Hot Mounted, R/W
Warm Unmounted)
• Unreplicated
– Search
– User Profiles
– Usage and Health

26. Database Considerations
Performance
I/O (disk, network) is critical for sync replicas
Spread availability groups across clusters
Stagger primary and secondary nodes
Data Integrity
WAN latency can lead to data loss in async
replicas
Limit inter-farm, non-replication traffic
Monitor replica states
Availability Group 2
Availability Group 2

27. Always On Compatability
Database Name Sync Async
User Profile Application Yes Yes
User Profile Sync Yes No
User Profile Social Yes Yes
Word Automation Yes Yes
Managed Metadata Yes Yes
Translation Yes Yes
BDC Yes Yes
Project Server Yes Yes
PowerPivot Yes Yes
PerformancePoint Yes Yes
Database Name Sync Async
Config Yes No
Central Admin Yes No
Content Yes Yes
App Management Yes Yes
Search Admin Yes No
Search Analytics Yes No
Search Crawl Yes No
State Service Yes No
Secure Store Yes Yes
Usage and Health Yes* No
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj841106(v=office.15).aspx
* Remove prior to running PSCONFIG

28. Search
Async replication NOT supported
Risk of deltas between on-disk indexes and
databases is HIGH
Sync Replication Challenges
Administration
Analytics
Database size
Crawl/Re-Indexing time
Single-farm hybrid connection

29. User Profiles
Full database replication
possible but can be
problematic
Synchronization is best done “live”
Options
Backup and restore
Reprovision
User Profile Service
Application
Profile
DB
Sync
DB
User Profile
Synchronization Service
Active
Directory
Profile
DB
Sync
DB
Microsoft Identity
Manager
MIM MIM Sync

30. Distributed Cache
Independent cache with no DB
persistence
Configurable memory allocation
Max 16GB per server
Max 32GB per farm
Dedicated mode recommended for
High Availability
HA possible in collocated mode with sufficient
hardware resources
Cache
Dependencies
Feeds
Content
Search
Web Part
Login
Tokens
Access
Cache
Security
Trimming
App
Tokens
View
State
OneNote
Throttling

31. Access Services
Leverages “Contained Databases”
feature of SQL 2012
Requires changes to SQL Server
protocols, settings and authentication
mode
HA requires Contained Database Authentication
Access DB’s are NOT automatically
added to availability groups

32. Business Intelligence
SSAS
Can be configured for read-only replicas
SSRS
Treat catalog as content DB’s (mount R/O for Hot,
disable RS Service for warm/cold)
Isolate availability group
MultiSubnetFailover not supported
Account for encryption keys and agent jobs
(subscriptions)

33. Validation

34. Node Failover (HA)
No
Vote

35. HA Wisdom
Downtime you may have, if failover you
must.
Misbehave nodes will, if monitored they are
not.
If isolate you do not, regret it you will.
If create it you do, put it in a group you must.
Put it back you will, if remove it you have.

36. Farm Failover (DR)

37. DR Wisdom
Do or do not, there is no try partial failover.
Disaster leads to failover. Failover leads to
failback. Failover without a failback plan
leads to suffering.
Content databases you will share. All others
you will not (SSRS leads to the dark side).
Ready are you? What know you of ready?
Have you tested it???

38. Maintenance

39. Patching
Business
continuity
Content access
Maximum
uptime
System
integrity
Data
protection
Minimum risk
Online
Offline

40. Online
Update SxS token
Secondary: dist cache remove, PSCONFIG, dist cache return
Primary: dist cache remove, PSCONFIG, dist cache return, rebalance secondary web
Patch secondary role servers, reboot
Patch primary role servers, reboot
Unbalance secondary web server, patch, reboot
Unbalance primary web server, patch, reboot, rebalance
Enable SxS file copy
Zero Downtime Failover
Failback (AOAG, DNS, Network)
PROD UAT
PROD patching
DNS, networking failover
DR database update scripts
AOAG Failover to DR

41. Offline
Production
Resume synchronization
Enable sites, smoke testing, UAT testing
Apply SP patches, run PSCONFIG
Apply OS patches
Stop synchronization
Disable sites
Disaster Recovery
Smoke testing
Mount databases
Apply SP patches, run PSCONFIG
Apply OS patches
Dismount databases

42. https://www.slideshare.net/eshupps
https://www.github.com/eshupps