SharePoint world of ECM and Information Management : Administration

How SharePoint Farm size impacts on planning and support

Michael — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:34:00 GMT

When you start new SharePoint project it's very important to understand the size of a farm you are planning to end up, because it impacts on :

SharePoint farm topology
SQL Server hardware
Staff needs
Capacity planning

SharePoint Farm Topology size

There are 3 farms topologies, you choose between - Small, Medium and Large. Your farm topology choice is usually dictated by the number of users and content your plan to use inside SharePoint.

They recommend the following values. (I would delete them on 10, actually)

Small farm: Typically < 50,000 users
Medium f : Typically < 100,000 users
Large farm: Typically < 500,000 users

The number of users varies depending on usage profiles, type of data being saved, and the type of hardware and network the system is deployed on.

SQL Server hardware

Determine your deployment size by using the following table:

If your deployment parameters are generally < than the listed values, your deployment can be considered small - 4 GB is the minimum required memory (SQL 2005)
If your deployment parameters are approximately = to the listed values, your deployment can be considered medium - 8 GB is recommended for medium size deployments
If your deployment parameters are generally > than the upper limits of most of the listed values, your deployment can be considered large - 16 GB and greater above is recommended for large deployments

Metric	Value
Content database size	100 GB
Number of content databases	20
Number of concurrent requests to SQL Server 2005	200
Users	1000
Number of items in regularly accessed list	2000
Number of columns in regularly accessed list	20

Staff needs

One commonly overlooked component of a successful implementation is staffing. Architects and administrators usually do a good job creating a bill of goods for hardware and software, but they often forget to secure funding for personnel to adequately develop and maintain a new system. SharePoint Server 2007 can consume a large amount of human resources if used to its full potential. Understand what types of dedicated personnel are required in the beginning, and start getting stakeholders' support immediately.

(Note: F = One full time person and P = One part time person.)


Staff position	Small farm	Medium farm	Large farm	Multiple farms
System administrator	F	F	F F	F F
Search administrator	P	F	F P	F F F
Site designer	P	F	F F	F F F
Software developer	N/A	P F	F F	F F F
Software tester	N/A	P	F	F F
SQL DBA	P	F	F	F F

Capacity Planning

The general rule is to plan for 1 RPS (requests per second) per 1000 users (on the minimum recommended hardware)

Small Farm (single WFE) can serve about 100 RPS
Medium Farm (2 WFE) can serve about 200 RPS

Sources: 1, 2

Mirror: http://sharepoint.devs-sandbox.com/index.php?/Practices/Recommendations/how-sharepoint-farm-size-impacts-on-planning-and-support.html?directory=14

The Services of the 2007 Microsoft Office System

Michael — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:42:00 GMT

In these days I'm working with OBA for SharePoint, and was looking through different materials, trying to find the necessary information. In one of the OBA books I stumble over the very interesting diagram, that I decided to post here. I found it really useful, because it categorize the services by logical view.

This diagram can help you when create the vision/scope of your project and operate with the logical keywords, that are translated to the specific services of SharePoint.

Collaboration	ECM	People	Search	BPM	BI
Discussions Calendars E-Mail Presence Project Mgt Outlook Sync	Approval Policy Rights Mgt Retention Multi-Lingual Web Publishing Staging	MySites Targeting People Finding Social Networking Privacy Profiles	Indexing Relevance Metadata Alerts Customizable UX	Rich\Web Forms Biz Data Catalog Data in Lists LOB Actions Single Sign-On BizTalk Integ	Server Calc. Web Rendering KPIs Dashboard Tools Report Center SQL RS\AS Integ
Core Services
Storage Repository Metadata Versioning Backup	Security Rights\Roles Pluggable Auth Per Item Rights Trimming	Management Admin UX Delegation Provisioning Monitoring	Topology Config Mgt Farm Services Feature Policy Extranet	Site Model Rendering Templates Navigation Visual Blueprint	APIs Fields\Forms OM and SOAP Events Deployment
Web Parts \| Personalization \| Master Pages \| Provider Framework (Navigation, Security…)
Database Services	Workflow Services
Operating System Services

Collaboration

ECM

People

Search

BPM

Discussions

Calendars

E-Mail

Presence

Project Mgt

Outlook Sync

Approval

Policy

Rights Mgt

Retention

Multi-Lingual

Web Publishing

Staging

MySites

Targeting

People Finding

Social Networking

Privacy

Profiles

Indexing

Relevance

Metadata

Alerts

Customizable UX

Rich\Web Forms

Biz Data Catalog

Data in Lists

LOB Actions

Single Sign-On

BizTalk Integ

Server Calc.

Web Rendering

KPIs

Dashboard Tools

Report Center

SQL RS\AS Integ

Core Services

Storage

Repository

Metadata

Versioning

Backup

Security

Rights\Roles

Pluggable Auth

Per Item

Rights Trimming

Management

Admin UX

Delegation

Provisioning

Monitoring

Topology

Config Mgt

Farm Services

Feature Policy

Extranet

Site Model

Rendering

Templates

Navigation

Visual Blueprint

APIs

Fields\Forms

OM and SOAP

Events

Deployment

Web Parts | Personalization | Master Pages | Provider Framework (Navigation, Security…)

Database Services

Workflow Services

Operating System Services

This diagram represents a logical view of the service architecture for the 2007 Microsoft Office system. At the bottom of the diagram are the more fundamental services. Each succeeding layer then uses the services below it to build more specific services to support business operations. At the top level are specific business services that can be used independently or organized to support business applications and processes.

SharePoint #Tip 38. Do you know “how to register a site template for a SITE”?!

Michael — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:27:00 GMT

SharePoint Site Template has one very handy feature – it can be registered inside a Site or you can restrict certain sites to use only certain templates.

It’s obvious how to do this for site collection, because UI provides you specific links, but it’s a bit tricky to assign templates for a Site, so do the following:

1) Upload an existing site template to the site template gallery (Site Settings –> Modify All Site Settings –> “Site Templates") link under the "Galleries" section. Alternatively, you may also use the “stsadm -o addtemplate” command.

The next step is registering uploaded template available to individual sites. (for example Site A can use template X, but Site http://A/B can use only template Y)

2) Open the following link in browser http://<yoursiteurl>/_Layouts/AreaTemplateSettings.aspx Take into account that there is no way to get to this link via UI. For site collection you are using Site Sections –>”Page layouts and site templates “ under “Look and Feel”, but for Site you need to use hardcoded URL

3) Pick the templates you want to be available for this site

Source

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SharePoint Tip #13. Do you know “that people picker selects disable account by default”?

Michael — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:36:20 GMT

People Picker is a nice feature of SharePoint which allows search for a user/group when assigning permissions for example. But it has one issue, selecting accounts and groups which are “disabled” by default. To do this you need to apply LDAP filters via STSADM command

stsadm -o setproperty -pn peoplepicker-searchadcustomfilter -url ">">http://<site> –pv (!userAccountControl=514)

Source

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SharePoint Tip #2. Do you know “why OOTB Roles must be customized”?

Michael — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:00:00 GMT

SharePoint has predefined set of OOTB permissions level, such as: Full Control, Contributor, Designer, and etc. But those permissions not always provide you desired functionality – its either too wide or very narrow.

Start out with a small set of users who have the fewest permissions possible, to avoid [Your_Headache = Number_of_Users X User_Permissions] because out-of-the-box permissions levels either too liberal or they are too limiting

The most commons scenario of role customization you can meet is Design role in publishing sites. When you have an approval workflow and assigned specific user to “Design” role as approver you need to take into account that “Design” role has delete permissions. So, what actually happens, sooner or later, is that your approver accidently deletes what he needs to approve :) It’s not what you expect from him.

The solution for this is to edit OOTB permissions for Designer roles and to prohibit “delete items” action, or create new role. And pay attention to roles you are using in production system just to avoid such cases.

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