0. Real World SharePoint 2013 Implementation
Patrick Curran, MCT
6/18/2014 #CAPSPUG

1. Planet Technologies Founded in 1998
Microsoft Partner with Five Gold Competencies, 11 Silver Competencies
One of only 35 Microsoft Nationally Managed Partners
Six Time Microsoft Federal Partner of the Year and Three Time Microsoft SLG Partner of the Year
Highly Skilled Staff
Microsoft Certified Masters
Microsoft MVP’s (SharePoint, Exchange)
Microsoft Certified Trainers
Microsoft Certified Partner for Learning Solutions (CPLS)
130+ Microsoft Consultants
Office Locations – DC, Denver, Harrisburg, Redmond, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)
Vertical Markets include Federal, State and Local Government, Education, Healthcare and Private Sector
Work Experience in 42 States and 33 Countries

2. Patrick Curran MCT, MCPD, MCITP, MCP, MCTS, MCSA
Director, Federal Practice, Planet Technologies.
SharePoint Architect.
Co-Author of Microsoft SharePoint 2013: Designing and Architecting Solutions.
Working with SharePoint since 2003.
PCfromDC.com
@PCfromDC

3. Microsoft® SharePoint® 2013: Designing and Architecting Solutions

4. Introduction to ContosoPharma.
Introduction to ContosoPharma IT.
Review architecture and verify solution.
Review supporting documentation.
Review implementation of Server 2012 and SQL2012.
Review implementation of WAC (OWA) farm.
Review implementation of Server 2012 and SP2013.
Review implementation of Workflow Manager farm.
Preparing for Disaster Recovery
Review a Different Production Environment

5. Meet ContosoPharma Let’s get started!
We have won a bid for deploying SharePoint 2013 at Contoso Pharmaceuticals. The winning proposal is to deploy a SharePoint 2013 farm for 25 people growing to 100 people.
IT has already purchased 2 servers!
Let’s get started!

6. Meet ContosoPharma
Make sure that if you use acronyms that everyone in the room understands what you mean. Do NOT assume that even the most basic of concepts will be understood. For example, HA, means High Availability, meaning if a server or service fails that there is a continuity of operation with minimal end-user impact… While using network load-balancing will allow for distributed load on the network, it is needed for high availability, even if the farm is only for 50 people.

7. Kickoff Meeting Scenario
Day 1 Conclusion: Client would like 1 SharePoint farm, created in HA (high availability mode). Already purchased hardware (although needed specs still). Schedule meeting with IT Staff to validate requirements without CIO in the room.

8. Kickoff Meeting Scenario
Farm drawing at this point

9. SQL Server Always-On

10. SQL Server Always-On

11. New for SharePoint 2013! Office Web Application
(WAC- Web Access Companion) Server
New “disconnected” Service
Cannot be installed on a SharePoint Server

12. (WAWS- Windows Azure Workflow Server)
New for SharePoint 2013!
Workflow Manager 1.0
(WAWS- Windows Azure Workflow Server)
Another “disconnected” Service
Can be installed on a SharePoint Server
1 or 3 servers (not 2 or 4). Yes, only 1 or 3
A great example of the new SharePoint application model. Workflow communications happen via the core app model technologies, CSOM and REST, and authenticates through OAuth.
Current Versions
Workflow Manager = 1.0 Refresh
Service Bus = 1.1

13. IT Meeting Scenario
This is basically the meeting to really see what is going on within the organization and to see what they really want / need. Also verify with IT any questions that were left outstanding and see if IT and the CIO are on the same page.
Make sure that if you use acronyms that everyone in the room understands what you mean. Do NOT assume that even the most basic of concepts will be understood. For example, DR, means Disaster Recovery, meaning if your primary location fails to exist that there is a continuity of operation without any or minimal end-user impact…
I am not referring to Dr Hibbert or Dr Nick when I say DR

14. IT Meeting Scenario IT Hands over Pre-Purchased server documentation
IT has been informed that a Dev environment is a good idea
And a 3rd server has magically been allocated to the project.
Start conversation of SLAs, RTOs, and RPOs
Server Hardware Dell PowerEdge R720 (x3)
CPUs 2
Cores / CPU 8
Threads / CPU 16
Total Threads 32
RAM 64 GB
Drive Letter C: D: E: F: G: H: Z:
Drive Function
Host OS & VM SQL Temp Files
VM OS Drives
VM SQL Data Files
VM SQL Backup Files
Host "Hot Spare"
Host DVD Drive
RAID Level
1 (Mirror)
10 (Mirror/Stripe) NA
Individual Drive Size
146GB
500GB
900GB
Spindle Speed
15k
10k
Total Drive Size
1000GB
1800GB

15. IT Meeting Scenario Minimums Host A Host B CPU 24 threads 20 threads
SharePoint Server Minimums (3 tier)
CPU: 4 cores
RAM: 12 GB
SQL Server Minimums (small deployment < 1,000 users)
RAM: 8 GB
Minimums
Host A
Host B
CPU
24 threads
20 threads
RAM
68 GB
56 GB

16. IT Meeting Scenario
Oh, so you don’t want own any datacenter CALs and you don’t want to purchase any?
Server 2012R2 Datacenter Processor + CAL $6,155
Server 2012R2 Standard Processor + CAL $882

17. IT Meeting Scenario Where is the 2nd NIC card…
Intel Chipset (in Servers) vs Realtek vs GigE vs Broadcom (in Dell, HP, and IBM Servers)

18. IT Meeting Scenario
Farm drawing at this point
HQ- Washington, DC

19. Oh, So That’s Not What You Meant?VS
After updated drawings are handed back over to IT for review, it is determined by the client that they want one production farm in DC and another COOP farm in VA for disaster recover.
COOP = Continuity of Operations

20. Oh, So That’s Not What You Meant?
As of April 2014, it is now supported to do an asynchronous commit of content and services databases. For a complete listing of all the databases supported review:

21. Oh, So That’s Not What You Meant?
Farm drawing at this point
HQ- Washington, DC VA

22. Oh, So That’s Not What You Meant?
What you really want is a stretched farm…
Stretched Farm = “A single farm that has servers in multiple physical locations”
Originally not supported for SharePoint 2013
Must be less than 1 millisecond latency between all the SQL Servers and the front-end Web servers in one direction, and at least 1 gigabit per second bandwidth.
There must be a highly consistent intra-farm latency of <1ms, 99.9% of the time over a period of ten minutes. (Intra-farm latency is commonly defined as the latency between the web front-end and database servers)
Distributed topologies across one or more geographic areas is not supported. (huh?)

23. Oh, So That’s Not What You Meant?
What you really want is a stretched farm…
What does this really mean?
I cannot find another reference other than Stefan’s that says no geographic border crossing of data.
Latency is latency… <1ms does not care if data is traveling 1m or 1km
Reality is that a bad switch setting or a slow network will not even allow for a supported SharePoint farm let alone a stretched farm.
Sorry Contoso Pharmaceuticals, not supported, not doing it…

24. Oh, So That’s Not What You Meant?
What you really want is a stretched farm…
Dark Fibre: unlit fibre, meaning that there are no other lasers using that piece of glass
Typically set as a 10GB/s link requiring 2 fibre channels 1 for TX and 1 for RX.
Fibre bandwidth does not change latency
You cannot defy physics, the speed of light in fibre is 300 x 10^6 m/s * 0.66 = 200 x 10^6 m/s (roughly 200km / ms or 124 miles / ms)
If out of fibre channels, you can always increase bandwidth by multiplexing

25. Oh, So That’s Not What You Meant?
What you really want is a stretched farm…
If you are one of those, “I hate physics, can you please just tell me what I need to know” people:
Copper
Fibre
Formula for distance in 0.1ms
18000 / (180 x 10^6 m/s)
/ (200 x 10^6 m/s)
Distance in 1ms
18km (11 miles)
200km (124 miles)

26. Oh, So That’s Not What You Meant?
Farm drawing at this point
HQ- Washington, DC VA

27. Review Current Documentation
Note: At this point in time, HQ and COOP sites are in different IP ranges. HQ
COOP
xxx
xxx
Issues
Requires a lot of IP addresses
DNS replication and DHCP updating needs to happen quickly (was not happening with ContosoPharma)
Show original Excel Sheet then Updated Excel Sheet

28. Review Current Documentation
Farm drawing at this point… What’s Wrong?
HQ- Washington, DC VA

29. Review Current Documentation
Farm drawing… Final?
HQ- Washington, DC VA

30. Server, SQL, and WAC Installation
Have scripts prepared for setting up the VMs on the host server.
You should have different scripts for SQL and SharePoint
Have scripts prepared to set up the virtual server from a “SYSPREP’d” state.
As of April 2014 CU, SharePoint now has SQL Availability Group cmdlets.
Get-AvailabilityGroupStatus
Add-DatabaseToAvailabilityGroup
Remove-DatabaseFromAvailabilityGroup
Trevor Seward has a nice post

31. Server, SQL, and WAC Installation
Review database management for SharePoint 2013
Move site collections between databases
Move all databases
DO NOT CREATE A NLB CLUSTER ON THE SQL SERVER ALWAYS-ON SERVERS!

32. Server, SQL, and WAC Installation
Create your SQL backup jobs now
If you have not already started your backup and restore strategy with client, start it now.
Do not put all of your eggs in one basket
Content is KING!

33. Server, SQL, and WAC Installation
Anything WAC related refer to Wictor Wilén
Configuring Office Web Apps in SharePoint 2013 (Steve Peschka)
Configure Office Web Apps for SharePoint 2013 (TechNet)
Office Web Apps 2013: Patching your WAC farm with no downtime
Apply software updates to Office Web Apps Server

34. Server, SP2013, and WAWS Installation
Enable all required features on the server.
Install all SharePoint and Workflow bits.
SYSPREP the server.
Export the image from Hyper-V and validate.
Create new VM run through scripts and make sure everything works.
When new bits are updated in farm, update bits on image, sysprep again retest.
Create all SharePoint servers in the farm based off of this image.
Have scripts prepared to set up the virtual machine from a “SYSPREP’d” state. Including having the scripts available to add the new server to the SharePoint Farm.

35. Server, SP2013, and WAWS Installation
Name your workflow instance appropriately, don’t just go with the default name of “SharePoint”
$site = "
$workflowHostUri = "
$scopeName = “SharePoint-Production"
Register-SPWorkflowService -SPSite $site `
-WorkflowHostUri $workflowHostUri `
-ScopeName $scopeName

36. Server, SP2013, and WAWS Installation
Anything WAWS related refer to Spence Harbar
Has an excellent 4 part blog post on Workflow
Just in case you want not as good information, here is msdn
And here is TechNet

37. AppFabric (Distributed Cache Service) Farm

38. AppFabric (Distributed Cache Service) Farm
By default (and in SharePoint), cached items in an AppFabric Named Cache are stored only once across the entire cluster.
SharePoint uses 10 Named Cache Stores
Cache Name
TTL
Configuration Location
ActivityFeed
168 hours
UserProfileApplication.FeedCacheTTLHours
ActivityFeedLMT
UserProfileApplication. FeedCacheLastModifiedTimeTtlDeltaHours
LogonToken
10 hours
SPSecurityTokenServiceManager.WindowsTokenLifetime
ServerToAppServerAccessToken
24 hours
(hard coded)
ViewState
31 minutes
SPWebApplication.FormDigestSettings.Timeout + 1
Search
SecurityTrimming
Default
Access
1 hour
Bouncer

39. AppFabric (Distributed Cache Service) Farm
If the cache host storing the cached item crashes or is shutdown “non- gracefully”, that item is no longer available in the cache.
AppFabric is NOT SharePoint’s responsibility
Currently at v1.0 CU5
Must Reads

40. Preparing for Disaster Recover
Haven’t you already done this?
You have:
SQL Always-On up and running moving data asynchronously up to Azure (or DR location of choice) to warm standby farm.
Standby images to add servers to Farm if need be.
Scripts have been tested and proven.
Documentation created on what to do in case of an emergency.
Not just tested once and forgotten, but added to and updated after each test
Save master file in your SharePoint Farm, but DO NOT save current version in SharePoint. Have physical copies printed, .pdf’s ed, just something to walk your team through a restore if SharePoint goes down.

41. Another Type of Production Farm

42. Questions?
Blog:

43. Thank You!!!
Blog: PCfromDC.com