“Successfully deploy Project Server on VMware with shared infrastructure”

Sacha Cohn, CTO of CPS

29th September 2011

A Project Server and SharePoint

Architect for over 10 years, Sacha

has architected many global scale

Project Server and SharePoint

solutions. As a Microsoft Certified

Scalability tester for the past 5

years, Sacha has focused on

pioneering load and performance

testing of Project Server and

SharePoint solutions, to achieve the

best value from VMware, Hyper-V

and physical infrastructure.

Contents

• About CPS

• Business process considerations

• Technological considerations

• Example Architecture Process

• Summary

Who are we?

• Experts in Microsoft Project Server, SharePoint, Resourcing, P3M

Consulting and training

• Established 1995

• Microsoft Gold Competency Partner

• Client list of over 700 organisations

• The only UK APMG accredited consulting organisation that can provide

Microsoft Project Server solutions & P3M consulting.

• Over 11,000 delegates trained

Project Server Architecture Methodology • The aim of CPS’s architecture methodology is to produce an Project

Server architecture which fits the client’s business requirements as well

as their infrastructure capabilities:

– Technical Workshop

• Business Architecture Questionnaire (Sizing, usage etc..)

• Infrastructure Questionnaire (Security, Infrastructure etc..)

– A Living Architecture Review Document, addressing the client’s:

• Architecture requirements, both business and IT

• Security, Logical, Network, Physical, Virtual and Specification designs

• Key concerns driving the architecture design

Why is Virtualisation different ?

You have to Share

It’s Virtual, it’s Simple

It’s good for us

• Our approach is to understand:

– Organisation

– People

– Process

– Technology

Organisation

• Why have you deployed VMware?

– Disaster Recovery

– Failover

– Simplification

– Cost savings

– Standardisation

• How will the use of Project Server work with the above goals?

People and Process

• Who will own Project Server?

– Business Owner?

– Infrastructure (IT) Owner?

– Is there more than one?

• What is your technology experience with Project Server?

• How is a new system deployed on VMware?

• How is the new system maintained?

• What is your VMware resource allocation model?

Dif

fere

nt

Tea

ms

Diff

eren

t D

epar

tmen

ts

People and Process

Technology

Project Server is

not just a Web

application Project Server is not

just single Planning

tool

VMware can

scale

Change resource

requirements quickly

Project Server is an online toolset encompassing: demand

management, scheduling, resourcing, time sheeting, project

management – it’s living, it’s dynamic

Technology

• Project Server has a heart, a Queue, if you constrict it, everything slows .. it stops.

• It is a resource intensive application

When a Project Manager updates their plan…

A plan is stored in 4 Main Databases…

It’s referenced in circa 10 databases

Every time you publish it; it triplicates it

The databases are used for very different purposes, e.g. from Published to

Reporting is a ETL process, very CPU and Disk IO intensive, Microsoft know this

so they use memory to “Cache” these transactions.

Technology

• What is VMware sitting on?

– Storage – SANs

• Have they got space?

• How are they designed?

– Fault redundancy

– Performance

• Is it over-utilised?

• Is bandwidth constrained?

– Network

• Too many hops?

• Bandwidth

– Hosts

• Over allocated?

• Old or poor hardware specification (low CPU core speed)?

Technology

Processor

MemoryData centre

Storage

Technology

Processor

Processor

Resource Allocation

No. of Cores

Technology

Memory

Processor

Data centre

Storage

Memory

Resource Allocation

Windows Memory Size

and Ballooning

Technology

Storage

Processor

Data centre Memory

Storage

• SAN performance is fundamental to how Project Server will perform. There are 2

main reasons:

– Project Server relies heavily on SQL server, as discussed

– Project Server it’s self is continually writing to the ULS log, which can rapidly

grow in size.

• The correct SAN driver, sounds minor, but in our experience in deploying the

manufacturer’s SAN Driver can significantly improve Disk IO performance

– Dell EqualLogic SAN, went from 45mb’s to 90mb’s per second

Technology

Data centre

Processor

Memory

Storage

Cluster

• When purchasing or calculating the Physical host specification, it is important to

take into account the requirements for the Host overhead of running a Virtual

Machine. The scale is not linear, below are some examples

Technology

Example – Architecture Process

More information There are many great resources out there to help you scale correctly your deployment

for the Virtual infrastructure you are deploying on.

Setting the number of Cores per Processor (need to

be used when going over 4 CPU, with Windows

Server 2008 R2 standard edition) http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=dis

playKC&externalId=1010184

VMware

Guide to VMware resource management, special

interest are:

• Page 18 – Virtualisation overhead of CPU

virtualisation

• Page 30 – Host memory overhead

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40_u1/vsp_40_u1_resource_mgmt.pdf

Disabling the Balloon driver http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=disp

layKC&externalId=1002586

Microsoft Project Server best practise when

virtualising, a great source of links to other MS articles

in relation to virtualisation http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectadministration/archive/2011/04/14/microsoft-

project-server-2010-virtualization.aspx

Microsoft

Guide to SharePoint virtualisation

Visio (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=195021)

PDF (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=195022)

XPS (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=195023)

Quick reminder checklist http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectadministration/archive/2011/06/21/project-

server-best-practices-for-virtualization.aspx

Summary

• Conduct an Architecture Review to ensure:

– Business and IT are fully engaged

– An appropriate architecture is recommended

– Underlying infrastructure investment is highlighted

– VMware infrastructure investment is highlighted

• Do not over commit hosts

• Do not limit Processor or Memory, to less than has been allocated to the Guest

• If your Project Server deployment is of a medium to large size, you will need to

invest in dedicated hosts

• Appoint the appropriate system owners

Contact me at:

sacha.cohn@cps.co.uk