SQL Server for SharePoint geeksA gentle introduction

Thomas Vochten • September 8, 2011

About Me

• SharePoint Infrastructure Consultant atAtos (before Siemens IT Solutions & Services)

• Accidental DBA

• Lousy .NET developer

thomasvochten.com@thomasvochten

What we’ll cover

• Disclaimer

• Who needs a DBA anyway?

• Importance of SQL for SharePoint

• The SQL Landscape

• Configuration tips

• Common problems

• Troubleshooting Tips

• Counter Intelligence

• Resources

Disclaimer

• There are no exact truths in SQL

• The standard answer always is...

PART 1 - SETTING THE SCENE

Who needs a DBA anyway?

• A quick poll...

Who manages a production SQL instancethat isn’t a *real* DBA?

• Don’t worry - you’re not alone...

Meet the “Accidental” or“Involuntary” DBA

Common Problems

• Data and log file management

• Backups

• Corruption

• Performance troubleshooting

• Index fragmentation

• Configuration issues

Importance for SharePoint

• SharePoint performance = SQL performance

• All your data is in a database

• The’re a lot of them:

SharePoint Databases

Other Important Considerations

• Capacity planning

• Performance planning

• HA / DR requirements

• Information Architecture

• Limits & Boundaries: from 100 GB to 200 GB to 4 TB and beyond

Why SharePoint makes DBAs cry

• GUIDs all over the place

• Don’t touch! support policy

Getting rid of the GUID

• Grey wizard is good

• White wizard is bad

SQL Landscape

Software Requirements

• SharePoint 2010 requires 64 bit all the way

• SQL Server 2008 R2 is your best friend

• Other 2008 or 2005 editions are supported too

Editions

• Standard or Enterprise?

Standard vs Enterprise

• Hardware

• Enterprise-Only

• Snaphots

• TDE

• More online operations

• PowerPivot

Standard Enterprise

# CPU 4 8

Memory 64 GB 2 TB

What about RBS?

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

Pro

• Potentially cheaper storage

• Move-SPSite (after SP1)

• Disk I/O optimizations

Cons

• Backup / restore complexity

• Not supported together with mirroring

• General operational burden

• 3rd party software

A case for RBS

• Heavily focused on document libraries

• The vast majority ( >70%) of those files exceed 1MB in size.

• The SharePoint content databases holding these files are relatively large ( >200GB) now or in the immediately foreseeable future

• You have Disaster Recovery tools that are either directly RBS aware, or have processes designed to synchronize backups

• You have highly skilled, expert SQL and Windows administration staff that is currently or has the capacity and directive to be well trained in RBS use, administration, and troubleshooting

[Source: Chris Mullendore, MSFT PFE]

PART 2 - CONFIGURATION TIPS

Pre Setup (1)

• Use the latest service pack

• Consider the latest cumulative update

• Different databases: different I/O needs

TempDB

Logs

Search DB’s

Content DB’s

Pre Setup (2)

• Use a normal domain user account as service account

• Learn about instant file initialization

• Learn about “lock pages in memory”

• Check partition alignment

• Perform a stresstest with sqlio

Setup

• Choose the right product features

• Change the default database paths

• Put TempDB in the right place immediately

• Only use Windows Authentication Mode

Post Setup

• Make sure SQL Server Agent is started

• Check Windows Firewall

• Explore server & database options

• Minimum & maximum memory usage

• Set fill factor to 80% for SharePoint

• MAXDOP to 1 for SharePoint

• Backup compression

• Autogrowth settings

• # of database files per database

• Model database (not for SharePoint)

• Create and test SQL aliases on your SharePoint servers

• Pregrow your SharePoint databases!

Maintaining SQL

• Check database integrity weekly with DBCC CHECKDB

• Look at index fragmentation

• Learn about Maintenance Plans

*Source: “Database Maintenance for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products” (revised)+

Caution

• Shrinking database files: are you sure?

• Autoshrink: the exception to the “it depends” rule

It’s evil!

Common Problems, Revisited

Most common issues

• Data and log file management

• Backups

Due to lack of understanding of

• Recovery models and their influence on space and backups

• Backup types (full, differential & logs)

Recovery models

• Choosing between SIMPLE or FULL recovery model and what they bring to the table

Troubleshooting Tips

Learn how to use the tools

• Perfmon

• Activity Monitor

• PAL

• Profiler

Learn the basics, like

• Don’t restart SQL server in case of corruption

• Don’t detach and reattach problematic databases

Counter Intelligence

Get to know your SQL server, fast!

• Blitz! scripts by Brent Ozar

• Diagnostic scripts by Glenn Berry

Resources

Where do I go for SQL help?

Paul Randal (blog | twitter)

Kimberly Tripp (blog| twitter)

Brent Ozar (blog| twitter)

Glenn Berry (blog| twitter)

Fancy some blogs?

http://thomaslarock.com/rankings

Get help – fast!

#sqlhelp on Twitter

We now have #sphelp too you know

Quick Wins Summary

• Partition Alignment

• Instant File Initialization

• Databases & logs on different spindles

• Multiple datafiles, but not for TempDB or for logfiles

• Tune server memory usage

• Fill factor to 80%

• MAXDOP to 1

• Tune autogrowth settings

• Use SQL aliases

• Presize your databases

• Check integrity often

• No shrinking of data files (autoshrink is evil)

• Know the recovery models & their impact on drive space

Thank you