This document summarizes best practices for SharePoint infrastructure design presented by Michael Noel. It discusses small, medium, and large farm models with separate web, app, and database servers. Hybrid cloud scenarios including one-way and two-way topologies are presented. Ensuring high availability through techniques like SQL AlwaysOn, database mirroring, and network load balancing is also covered. The presentation concludes with discussions of security best practices, documentation, and virtualization performance monitoring.

1. The Ultimate SharePoint Infrastructure
Best Practices Session
Michael Noel
Convergent Computing (CCO)
www.cco.com
925-933-4800

2. Michael Noel
• Author of SAMS Publishing titles “SharePoint 2013 Unleashed,” “SharePoint 2010 Unleashed”, “Windows Server
2012 Unleashed,” “Exchange Server 2013 Unleashed”, “ISA Server 2006 Unleashed”, and a total of 19 titles that
have sold over 300,000 copies.
• Partner at Convergent Computing (www.cco.com) – San Francisco, U.S.A. based Infrastructure/Security
specialists for SharePoint, AD, Exchange, System Center, Security, etc.

3. Architecting the Farm

4. Web
Service Apps
Data
Architecting the Farm
Three Layers of SharePoint Infrastructure

5. • ‘All-in-One’ (Avoid)
DB and SP Roles Separate
Architecting the Farm
Small Farm Models

6. Architecting the Farm
• 2 SharePoint Servers running Web and
Service Apps
• 2 Database Servers (AlwaysOn FCI or
AlwaysOn Availability Groups)
• 1 or 2 Index Partitions with equivalent
query components
• Smallest farm size that is fully highly
available
Smallest Highly Available Farm

7. Architecting the Farm
Best Practice ‘Six Server Farm’
• 2 Dedicated Web Servers
(NLB)
• 2 Service Application Servers
• 2 Database Servers (Clustered
or Mirrored)
• 1 or 2 Index Partitions with
equivalent query components

8. Architecting the Farm
Ideal – Separate Service App Farm + Content Farm(s)
• Separate farm for Service
Applications
• One or more farms
dedicated to content
• Service Apps are consumed
cross-farm
• Isolates ‘cranky’ service
apps like User Profile Sync
and allows for patching in
isolation

9. Architecting the Farm
• Multiple Dedicated Web Servers
• Multiple Dedicated Service App
Servers
• Multiple Dedicated Query
Servers
• Multiple Dedicated Crawl
Servers, with multiple Crawl DBs
to increase parallelisation of the
crawl process
• Multiple distributed Index
partitions (max of 10 million
items per index partition)
• Two query components for each
Index partition, spread among
servers
Large SharePoint Farms

10. Cloud and Hybrid
Scenarios

11. www.cco.com
Cloud and Hybrid Scenarios
One-way Outbound Topology

12. www.cco.com
Cloud and Hybrid Scenarios
One-way Inbound Topology

13. www.cco.com
Cloud and Hybrid Scenarios
Two-way Inbound/Outbound Topology

14. Identity Management in Hybrid Mode
• Single Sign On possible between environments using
Azure Active Directory Synchronisation Tool
• Azure Active Directory Connection Required, regardless
of SSO or non SSO (non-SSO just synchs passwords)
• Consider the use of the OnRamp for Office 365 toolkit
(https://onramp.office365.com/OnRamp/)
• Server to Server Authentication also required (Certs)
www.cco.com

15. SharePoint Virtualisation

16. SP Server Virtualisation
Sample 1: Single Server Environment
Allows organisations that wouldn’t normally be able to have a test environment to run one
Allows for separation of the database role onto a dedicated server
Can be more easily scaled out in the future

17. SP Server Virtualisation
High-Availability
across Hosts
All components
Virtualised
Sample 2: Two Server Highly Available Farm

18. SP Server Virtualisation
Highest
transaction servers
are physical
Multiple farm
support, with DBs
for all farms on the
SQL AOAG
Sample 3: Mix of Physical and Virtual Servers

19. SP Server Virtualisation
Scaling to Large Virtual Environments

20. Virtualisation of SharePoint Servers
Virtualisation Performance Monitoring
• Processor (Host Only)
• <60% Utilisation = Good
• 60%-90% = Caution
• >90% = Trouble
• Available Memory
• 50% and above = Good
• 10%-50% = OK
• <10% = Trouble
• Disk – Avg. Disk sec/Read or Avg. Disk
sec/Write
• Up to 15ms = fine
• 15ms-25ms = Caution
• >25ms = Trouble
• Network Bandwidth – Bytes Total/sec
– <40% Utilisation = Good
– 41%-64% = Caution
– >65% = Trouble
• Network Latency - Output Queue
Length
– 0 = Good
– 1-2= OK
– >2 = Trouble

21. SharePoint Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
• Basic Farm Configuration on Microsoft Azure

22. SharePoint Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
• Highly Available Farm Configuration on Microsoft Azure

23. Data Management

24. Data Management
Sample Distributed Content Database Design

25. Remote BLOB Storage (RBS)
Data Management
• Can reduce the size of Content DBs, as upwards of 98% of space in content DBs
is composed of BLOBs
• Can move BLOB storage to more efficient/cheaper storage
• Improve performance and scalability of your SharePoint deployment – But
highly recommended to use third party as it increases scalability

26. SQL Database
Optimisation

27. SQL Server Optimisation
DB-A
File 1
DB-B
File 1
Volume #1
Multiple Files for SharePoint Databases
DB-A
File 2
DB-B
File 2
Volume #2
DB-A
File 3
DB-B
File 3
Volume #3
DB-A
File 4
DB-B
File 4
Volume #4
Tempdb File 1 Tempdb File 2 Tempdb File 3 Tempdb File 4

28. SQL Server Optimisation
Multiple Files for SharePoint Databases
• Break Content Databases and TempDB into multiple files (MDF, NDF), total should equal number of
physical processors (not cores) on SQL server.
• Pre-size Content DBs and TempDB to avoid fragmentation
• Separate files onto different drive spindles for best IO perf.
• Example: 50GB total Content DB on Two-way SQL Server would have two database files distributed
across two sets of drive spindles = 25GB pre-sized for each file.

29. SQL Database Optimisation
SQL Maintenance Plans
• Implement SQL Maintenance Plans!
• Include DBCC (Check Consistency) and either Reorganize Indexes or Rebuild
Indexes, but not both!
• Add backups into the maintenance
plan if they don’t exist already
• Be sure to truncate transaction logs
with a T-SQL Script (after full
backups have run…)

30. High Availability and Disaster Recovery

31. High Availability and Disaster Recovery
SQL Server Solution
Potential Data Loss
(RPO)
Potential Recovery
Time (RTO)
Automatic Failover
Additional Readable
Copies
AlwaysOn Availability Groups – Synchronous (Dual-phase commit, no data loss, can’t
operate across WAN)
None 5-7 Seconds Yes 0 - 2
AlwaysOn Availability Groups – Asynchronous (Latency tolerant, cross WAN option,
potential for data loss)
Seconds Minutes No 0 - 4
AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instance (FCI) – Traditional shared storage clustering NA 30 Seconds to several
minutes (depending on
disk failover)
Yes N/A
Database Mirroring - High-safety (Synchronous) Zero 5-10 seconds Yes N/A
Database Mirroring - High-performance (Asynchronous) Seconds Manually initiated, can
be a few minutes if
automated
No N/A
SQL Log Shipping Minutes Manually initated, can
be a few minutes if
automated, by typically
hours
No Not during
a restore
Traditional Backup and Restore Hours to Days Typically multiple hours,
days, or weeks
No Not during
a restore
Comparison of High Availability and Disaster Recovery Options
HA and DR

32. AlwaysOn Availability Groups in SQL 2012/2014
HA and DR

33. SQL 2014 AOAGs for SharePoint Database Failover
Demo

34. Network Load Balancing
HA and DR
• Hardware Based Load Balancing (F5, Cisco, Citrix
NetScaler – Best performance and scalability
• Software Windows Network Load Balancing fully
supported by MS, but requires Layer 2 VLAN (all
packets must reach all hosts.) Layer 3 Switches must
be configured to allow Layer 2 to the specific VLAN.
• If using Unicast, use two NICs on the server, one for
communications between nodes.
• If using Multicast, be sure to configure routers
appropriately
• Set Affinity to Single (Sticky Sessions)
• If using VMware, note fix to NLB RARP issue
(http://tinyurl.com/vmwarenlbfix)

35. Security and
Documentation

36. • Infrastructure Security and Best practices
• Physical Security
• Best Practice Service Account Setup
• Kerberos Authentication
• Data Security
• Role Based Access Control (RBAC)
• Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) of SQL Databases
• Transport Security
• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) from Server to Client
• IPSec from Server to Server
• Edge Security
• Inbound Internet Security
• Rights Management
Five Layers of SharePoint Security
Security

37. • Document all key settings in IIS, SharePoint, after installation
• Consider monitoring for changes after installation for Config Mgmt.
• Fantastic tool for this is the SPDocKit - can be found at
http://tinyurl.com/spdockit
SPDocKit
Document SharePoint

38. Michael Noel
Twitter: @MichaelTNoel
www.cco.com
Slides: slideshare.net/michaeltnoel
Travel blog: sharingtheglobe.com
SharePoint 2013 Unleashed:
tinyurl.com/sp2013unleashed