Technology Services....

Ahead of Times

Diaspark White Paper

April 2011

SharePoint 2010 Best

Practices- Analyze
your SharePoint 2010
Investment
Contents

Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 3

SharePoint Server 2010 - Technical Requirements ........................................................................... 4

Capacity Planning for Content Databases ............................................................................................ 5

Formula for calculating the Database Size ........................................................................................... 5
Physical Architecture - Server Roles ....................................................................................................... 8
SharePoint 2010 Security Best Practices ............................................................................................ 9
Administrative and Service Accounts ..................................................................................................... 9
Setup User Account ...................................................................................................................................... 9
FGP can be expensive in terms of both operations oversight and performance .................... 10

SharePoint 2010 Upgrade & Migration - Best Practices ...............................................................11

Backup and Restore ....................................................................................................................................13
Virtualization Support ................................................................................................................................14
Annexure- I ....................................................................................................................................................15
Conclusion......................................................................................................................................................16
Biography of the Author ...........................................................................................................................16
Executive Summary

From inception to SharePoint Server 2010, the product has rightfully succeeded in
bringing advanced features which is coupled with enhanced platform requirements. The
reason to bring in this information on board and share among the masses is to make sure
that the product is being installed, deployed and supported under a controlled
environment so as to get the maximum return from the investment, which is sometime
neglected. So here goes The Best Practices- SharePoint 2010.

The Best Practices for SharePoint 2010 will cover basic and minimum requirements
guidelines, Database topology, SQL Server best practices to be followed, Physical
Architecture of the servers and virtualization support for SharePoint 2010.

Who Should Read this whitepaper

Architects, Solution Implementers, Developers, who are looking for a fresh

deployment of their SharePoint 2010 Server environment or planning their
upgrade or migrate from previous SharePoint version to SP2010.

The information contained in this document represents the current view of

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must
respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a
commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Diaspark cannot guarantee the
accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. Certain
portions of this whitepaper have been excerpted from Microsoft Best Practices
Guidelines.

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 SharePoint Server 2010 - Technical Requirements
There has been a significant change in the SharePoint framework which is a 64
Bit environment only and there are enough reasons for the new version of the
SharePoint for being 64 Bit. The minimum RAM suggested by the SharePoint
team is 8GB with 80GB Hard Drive. SharePoint 2010 brings in an important
change It doesnt support single level domain names. The operating support is
Windows Server 2008 SP2/R2 64 Bit. There is a complete support for
virtualization of SharePoint 2010.
The reason for looking back at the minimum requirements, even after a long
release of the product itself is because all attributes may affect the migration,
upgrade and part of best practices to manage SharePoint 2010 environment.

Technical Requirements

Minimum RAM 8GB

Hard Drive 80GB

Operating Support Windows Server 2008 SP2/R2 64 Bit

Database
The SQL Server versions quoted below are best advised, including 80GB Hard
Drive of the SQL Server machine.

SQL Server 2005 SP3 Cumulative Update 3 64-Bit

SQL Server 2008 SP1 Cumulative Update 2 64-Bit
SQL Server 2008 R2 64-Bit

Few tips for SQL consideration would include - choosing right SQL Server
version and edition, plan for capacity, design and storage and finally Harden the
SQL Server.
How to harden the SQL Server:
Configure named instances of SQL Server to listen on a nonstandard port
Block UDP port 1434

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 Block TCP port 1433
Configure SQL Server Client aliases on all front-end Web Servers and
application servers in the server farm.

Capacity Planning for Content Databases

It wont be fair to just add a pointer under Best Practices about capacity
planning. The whole question is how to arrive at an approximate capacity that a
content database can be designed for. The capacity can be arrived at by
determining the database size. Let us take a case in perspective keeping the
following as base.

Until a document is fully deleted from both the first stage and second
stage recycle bin, it occupies space in a content database
Audit data can quickly compound and use large amounts of space in a
content database, especially if view auditing is turned on
If Office web apps are being used, the office web apps cache can
significantly affect the size of a content database. Its Default value is 100
GB.

Formula for calculating the Database Size

1. Calculate the expected number of documents.

This value is referred to as D in the formula
2. Estimate the average size of the documents that you will be storing.
This value is referred to as S in the formula
3. Estimate the number of list items in the environment.
This value is referred as L in the formula
4. Determine the approximate number of versions.
This value is referred to as V in the formula.

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 Database size = ((D * V) * S) + (10KB *(L + (V * D)))
It is quite critical to give due importance to Capacity Planning for Service Application
Databases. SharePoint Search crawl should be 0.0.46*(sum of content databases). User
Profile database requires approximately 1MB per user. The new fabulous features of
SharePoint 2010 like Managed Metadata which is directly affected by the number of
content types and keywords used in the system, while Web Analytics is proportionate
to retention period, the daily volume of data being tracked, and the number of site
collections, sites and sub sites. Similarly for other features like Word Automation
Service and Performance Point Recommendation is to allocate 1 GB.

Storage Architecture
Direct Attach Storage (DAS) is a digital storage system that is directly attached
to a server or workstation, without a storage network in between. DAS physical
disk types include Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial Attached ATA (SATA)
Storage Area Network (SAN): SAN is an architecture to attach remote computer
storage devices (such as disk arrays and tape libraries) to servers in such a way
that the devices appear as locally attached to the operating system.
Network Attached Storage (NAS): A NAS unit is a self-contained computer
that is connected to a network. Its sole purpose is to supply file based data
storage services to other devices on the network.
Note: NAS is only supported for use with the content databases that are configured
to use remote BLOB storage. Any network storage architecture must respond to a
ping within 1 ms and must return the first byte of data within 20 ms.

Browser Support
It is interesting to know about the new Browser support. The products do not
support Internet Explorer 6.0 anymore. The support on windows operating system
is for IE7, IE8, and Firefox 3.X.
(More about Browser Planning in SharePoint 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/
en-us/library/cc263526.aspx)

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 SQL Server-Best Practices Guideline
One of the most important pillars while considering any Best Practices Guidelines is to
factor SQL Server and its components. Following are some important take away:

1. Tempdb data files

Dedicated disks for the tempdb

Tempdb should be placed on RAID 10
The number of tempdb files should be equal the number of CPU Cores,
and the tempdb data files should be set at an equal size
The size of the tempdb data files should be equal to the (Physical
memory\ no. of processor). Thats the initial size of the tempdb data
files.

2. Enough headroom must be available for the databases and log files, plus
enough capacity to keep up the requests

3. Recommendations must be used in the following list to keep database

servers performing optimally
Pre grow all databases and logs if you can. Be sure to monitor the sizes
so that you do not run out of disk space
When using SQL Server mirroring, do not store more than 50 databases
on a single physical instance of SQL Server

4. Database servers should not be overloaded by using too many databases or data

The content databases must be limited to 200GB. Limit content databases to

200GB

Indices must be Defragmented and rebuilt daily, if users can absorb the
downtime required to rebuild
More than 25% disk space must be free.
Another instance of SQL must be created for data exceeding 5 TB.
When using SQL Server mirroring, more than 50 databases must not be
stored on a single physical instance of SQL Server

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 5. Monitor the database server (Key performance counters to monitor)

Network Wait Queue: at 0 or 1 for good performance

Average disk queue Length (latency): less than 5 ms
Memory used: less than 70%
Free disk space: more than 25%

Physical Architecture - Server

Roles

Web Front End (WFE)

Host web pages, Web Services and

web parts
In small farms, this role can be shared
on a server with a query role

Application Server
Each service represents a separate
application service and that can be
on a dedicated application server
Combined Crawl &
Services with similar usage and Query Servers
Other Application Server and Roles

performance characteristics can be

grouped on a server and scaled out
into multiple servers together.

Database Server

In small farm environment, all

databases can be deployed to a
single server Search Database All other SharePoint Database

In larger environments, databases are

grouped by roles and then deployed
to multiple database servers

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 SharePoint 2010 Security Best Practices
Security Consideration for a SharePoint 2010 site is little different than any
classic web application, though the purpose is same. The Important factor here
is to understand different accounts and the permissions associated with these
accounts. While the world is moving from hosted to shared or mixed
production environments, it becomes much more critical to tighten the
security.

Accounts and Permissions covered

Setup User Account
Farm Service Account or Database Account
Fine-grained Permission

Administrative and Service Accounts

There are various accounts which fall under SharePoint administrative and services
modules. A quick list is made available at the end of the document as Annexure*.
While two most critical Account types and associated permission is mentioned below.

Setup User Account

This account is used to set up each server in the farm by running the
SharePoint Configuration Wizard, the initial Farm Creation Wizard and the
Windows Power Shell, with the following permission set:

It must have domain user account permission

It must be member of the local administrators group on each server in
the SharePoint Server 2010 farm, excluding SQL server and the Simple
Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server.
The account must have access to the SharePoint Server 2010 databases
If you use any Windows PowerShell operations that affect a database,
the setup user administrator account must be member of the db owner
role.
The account must be assigned to the security admin and db creator SQL
Server security roles during setup and configuration

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 Farm Service Account or Database Account
The server farm account is the database access account and is used as the
application pool identity for Central Administration, and the process account for
the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Timer service. Apart from having
domain user account permissions, on SQL Server following should be considered:

Dbcreator fixed server role

Securityadmin fixed server role
Db_owner for all the SharePoint Server 2010 databases
Membership in the WSS_Content_Application _POOLS role for the
SharePoint
Server 2010 server farm configurationdatabse
Membership in the WSS_Content_Application _POOLS role for the
SharePoint
Server 2010 SharePoint_Admin content database

Fine-grained Permission

FGP can be expensive in terms of both operations oversight and performance

Best Practices guidelines always try to make a best match between Security and
Performance. Given below are few considerations for SharePoint 2010
environment, especially to avoid fine-grained permission:
Break permission inheritance as infrequently as possible
Groups based on directory membership must be used to assign
permissions
Recommendation: Use SharePoint groups to assign permission to sites,
instead use Domain groups.
Permissions should be assigned at the highest possible level
Documents that require fine-grained permission must be segregated
into different
document libraries
Different document publish level should be used to control access

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 For non-document libraries (lists), ReadSecurity and WriteSecurity
permission levels must be used.

We must ensure that we do not have too many items at the same level
of hierarchy in the document libraries.
Event handlers must be used to control edit permission. We can have an
event handler that registers an event using the
SPEventReceivertype.ItemUpdating and
SPEventReceiverType.ItemUpdated methods, and then use code to
control whether the update should be allowed
AddToCurrentScopeOnly method can be utilized to assign Limited
Access membership within a SharePoint group

SharePoint 2010 Upgrade & Migration - Best

Practices
Servers or Server Farm can be upgraded from a previous version of the SharePoint
Products to a new version or content can be migrated into a new SharePoint envi-
ronment. This page helps us plan and prepare for upgrade as well as perform the
upgrade process. There are standard recommended steps to be followed while
doing an upgrade or migration process. Excerpt is given below:
1. Upgrade SharePoint V3 Environment to Service Pack 2
2. Make sure you dont have any errors on your current farm
3. Run pre-upgrade checker and look for potential issues
4. Understand the upgrade approaches and choose one
5. Prepare a test farm with actual content databases and perform the trial upgrade
6. If you are using Fabulous 40 templates then test those separately before you
proceed with the production upgrade
7. Plan capacity for SharePoint 2010 environment

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PLAN UPGRADE
Upgrade your SharePoint V3 Environment
to Service Pack 2
Make sure you dont have any errors on
your current farm
8. Plan the downtime
Run pre-upgrade checkerand
andsend thefor
look communication to end users
potential issues the Environment and perform a test restore
9. Backup
Understand the the
10. During upgrade
upgrade approaches and perform any changes to farm
process, dont
choose one
11. After upgrade review the upgrade status page and resolve the issues f there
Prepare aaretest
anyfarm with actual content
databases and perform
12. Review the sitesthe trial
and subupgrade
sites after upgrade

Test Fabulous 40 templates separately

PLAN UPGRADE
before you proceed with the production OR MIGRATE
upgrade Plan capacity for SharePoint 2010
Upgrade your SharePoint V3 Environment
to Service Pack 2 environment

Make sure you dont have any errors on Plan the downtime and send the
your current farm communication to end users

Run pre-upgrade checker and look for Backup the Environment and perform a
potential issues test restore

Understand the upgrade approaches and During the upgrade process dont
choose one perform any changes to farm

Prepare a test farm with actual content After upgrade review the upgrade status
databases and perform the trial upgrade page and resolve the issues f there are
any

Test Fabulous 40 templates separately
before you proceed with the production
upgrade
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Review the sites and sub sites after
upgrade
OR MIGRATE
Plan capacity for SharePoint 2010
environment
Plan the downtime and send the
communication to end users
Backup the Environment and perform a
test restore
During the upgrade process dont
perform any changes to farm
12 status
After upgrade review the upgrade
page and resolve the issues f there are
any
Review the sites and sub sites after
 Backup and Restore
Perform Backup and perform the test restore

Minimize latency between SQL Server and the backup location

Avoid processing conflicts
Dont start the backup of all the databases at the same time for large farm
Keep databases small for faster recovery times
Use incremental backups for large databases
Use compression during backup
Use SQL Server backup and restore optimization recommendations
Carefully choose Backup Threads parameter with Backup-SP Farm
cmdlet DMP 2010 can be used to automate backups & easy recovery

Site Collection size and backup tool

Less than 15 GB use the windows PowerShell command Backup-SPSite

15-100 GB use SharePoint products and technologies tool, a SQL

Server tool, or other database backup tool to protect the
content database that contains the site collection.

Larger than 100 GB use differential backup solution, such as Microsoft SQL
Server 2005 or DPM 2010

Schedule Backup Operations

Store a copy of the backup files off-site
Ensure you have adequate storage space
Have a recovery environment ready (will be useful in case of Disaster)

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 Virtualization Support
Support for SharePoint Server 2010 virtualization includes third-party virtualization
technologies that are hosted or hardware-based, and certified by Microsoft
As of now SVVP partners

CA Technologies
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Citrix Systems, Inc.
Hitachi, Ltd
Novell, Inc.
Oracle, USA Inc.
VMware Inc. Etc.
Note: Licensing of Windows Server, SharePoint and SQL Servers should not be
ignored

What can be virtualized?

The Web Server and application server roles are good candidates for virtualization
before we plan to virtualize SQL server, the following elements need to be considered:
Number of CPU cores required by SQL Server
Failover and availability plan
Optimizing storage
Performance

Post Installation

Configure Diagnostic Logging

Configure Health data Analyzer
Modify default Timer Job schedules

Development

Avoid Farm Solution, encourage sandboxed solutions

Encourage development using COB

Administrative

Separate Content Sources in Search based on data population, setup

schedules accordingly
Enable/configure Resource Throttling
Enable site Quota (Must for My Sites)
Monitor Health Analyzer in Central admin

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Annexure- I
Account Purpose

SQL Server service The SQL Server service account is used to run SQL Server
account instance used for SharePoint

SharePoint Setup user The Setup user account is used to install SharePoint on
account Server and to run the SharePoint products and Configuration
Wizard.

Server farm account Act as the application pool identity for the SharePoint
or database access Central Administration Website & it also runs the Microsoft
account SharePoint Foundation Workflow Timer Service.

SharePoint The SharePoint Foundation 2010 search service account is

Foundation 2010 used as the service account for the SharePoint Foundation
Search Service 2010 Search Service
Account

SharePoint The SharePoint Foundation 2010 search content access

Foundation 2010 account is used by the SharePoint Foundation 2010 Search
Search content service to crawl content across sites
access Account

Service Application The application pool account is used for application pool
Pool Account identity for service application

SharePoint Server The SharePoint Server 2010 Search service account is used
Search Service as the service account for the SharePoint Server 2010 Search
account service

Default content The default content access account is used within a specific
access account service application to crawl content

Excel Services The Excel Services unattended service account is used

unattended service by Excel Services to connect to external data sources that
account require a username and a password

My Site Application Application pool account for my site web application

pool account

Web application Pool The account will be used for any other web application
account

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Conclusion

Following Best Practices in any Solutions development has become like a Goes without Saying
step of the entire Development life cycle. Interestingly, it is more critical to understand and
design solution on any Server Technology Framework like SharePoint. The content covered in this
whitepaper is under win-win situation for a standard farm wide solution. Simple though critical
steps mentioned here should be taken and framed according to your requirements and actual
production and live environment. Further, Best Practices for different offerings under SharePoint
should be considered in depth if your solution is around Business Intelligence, or Content etc.
Review more on Best Practices Upgrade or Migrate to SharePoint 2010.

Biography of the Author

Chandrashekhar is Solutions Architect and a techno manager who brings more than 10 years of
experience working on various technologies and bringing transformation in IT with changing
landscapes into Diaspark s business verticals. Over the years, Chandrashekhar has engaged his
talent onto various platforms with hands on expertise over Microsoft technologies and various
domains like Education, Manufacturing, Health Care, BIFS and many more. He has been
developing and designing SharePoint based solutions from the very initial version of the product.
As an evangelist at the Microsoft Partners Academy he had been involved in framing integrated
Email, Business Collaboration, ERP, CRM etc. based solutions. In addition to his day-to-day work,
Chandrashekhar enjoys writing on varying SharePoint topics and has participated at numerous
technical conferences, such as Ignite 2013

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 To know more about our offerings,

Contact
Read SharePoint Series
Rich Romanik
rich@diaspark.com Do You SharePoint?
Direct: 1.516.942.7098
Mobile: 1.917.365.8700

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2010 Diaspark Inc. This white paper is for informational purposes only. WE MAKE NO WARRANTIES,
EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.