1. #comdaybe
Tuning SQL Server for SharePoint:
what every SharePoint consultant
should know
Isabelle Van Campenhoudt
Serge Luca

2. Us.About()
Serge Luca
•
•
•
•
•
•
SharePoint MVP & MCT
Blog: http://sergeluca.wordpress.com/
Author SharePoint Pro Magazine
Works with SharePoint since 2001
Co-author of a book on SharePoint 2013
Working on a book on Workflows in SharePoint 2013
Isabelle Van Campenhoudt
SQL MVP & MCT
Blog: http://thesqlgrrrl.wordpress.com/
Works with SQL Server since 2000
Co-author of a book on SharePoint 2013
2

3. Credits
• Serge Luca as SharePoint accidental
DBA
• Isabelle Van Campenhoudt as the
$@!### SQL guru

4. Agenda
Basic SharePoint DB Concepts
Operating System settings
Installing SQL Server
Database settings
SharePoint and SQL Server Integration concepts
Tuning SQL Server
HA and DR : SQL 2012 Always On Availability Groups & SharePoint 2013

5. Agenda
Basic SharePoint DB Concepts
Operating System settings
Installing SQL Server
Database settings
SharePoint and SQL Server Integration concepts
Tuning SQL Server
HA and DR : SQL 2012 Always On Availability Groups & SharePoint 2013

6. Basic SharePoint Concepts
95% of SharePoint
content stored in
SQL Server
Farm Configuration
information stored
in configuration db
Central
Administration
content stored in
own content db
Most Service
Applications have at
least one content db
All Web Apps have
at least one content
db
Farm has several
databases; >20 if
spousal installation

7. Agenda
Basic SharePoint DB Concepts
Operating System settings
Installing SQL Server
Database settings
SharePoint and SQL Server Integration concepts
Tuning SQL Server
HA and DR : SQL 2012 Always On Availability Groups & SharePoint 2013

8. NTFS Allocation Unit Size
64K is optimal, 4K =
30% Performance
Penalty
Use chkdsk
<drive>Verify
Use Format to Configure:
• Format <drive> /Q /FS:NTFS /A:64K /V:<volume> /Y

9. Agenda
Basic SharePoint DB Concepts
Operating System settings
Installing SQL Server
Database settings
SharePoint and SQL Server Integration concepts
Tuning SQL Server
HA and DR : SQL 2012 Always On Availability Groups & SharePoint 2013

10. SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2012
for SharePoint 2013
• SQL 2012 SP1 for the BI Stack
Don’t share the
instance
Run the service
with sp-sqlsvc
• No special permission
Don’t install SSMS
on the SQL Server
machine
Use Named
Instances:
SharePoint

11. Set default collation settings to
Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS_WS
(for SP db)
(Any CI collation is supported
for tempdb, master, but the
Latin1_xxx_ is recommended)
SP uses this collation when it
creates its own db
Cannot be changed after the
setup

12. Max Degree of
Parallelism = 1

13. Set Minimum
and Maximum
Server Memory

14. Use alias for the connection string
• Client alias or DNS alias (preferred)
• Or (see later) Always On Availability Group
Listener
Good practice : every SP Content db must
be created (and documented) by a DBA
after a strict capacity plan

15. Agenda
Basic SharePoint DB Concepts
Operating System settings
Installing SQL Server
Database settings
SharePoint and SQL Server Integration concepts
Tuning SQL Server
HA and DR : SQL 2012 Always On Availability Groups & SharePoint 2013

16. Some basic SQL Server Concepts
User databases
Model :
template for
other dbs
Msdb : for
automation
System
databases
Master : similar
to the SP
configDB
Tempdb :
temporarily
results
The SP db

17. Some basic SQL Server Concepts
Simple Recovery Model
Content Database Located on Hard Drive
Data
Add
Content
.LDF
Checkpoint
Data
Simple Recovery Model
.MDF

18. Some basic SQL Server Concepts
Full Recovery Model
Content Database Located on Hard Drive
Data
Add
Content
.LDF
Checkpoint
.MDF
Data
Full Recovery Model (Recommended)

19. Model db : recovery
model = full
Contend DB = full
Tempdb : recovery
model = simple
SharePoint DB :
recovery model ?
Config DB = simple
Services App Dbs = its
depends:
•http://technet.micros
oft.com/enus/library/cc678868.a
spx

20. Model db settings
Increase Initial Size
Setting
Increase
Autogrowth Settings
(Use MB Not %)
Cannot Modify
Collation on Model
DB
Use Full Recovery
Model

21. Tempdb settings
Configure Tempdb Data
Files
• #files = #cores
• (on sql server 2012 Max 8 if
#cores > 8)
Configure Tempdb Size
• At Least 10% of Total Content
DB’s Size or
• Size of Largest Table - Whichever
Greater
Tempdb Database Settings
• Increase Initial Size Setting
• Increase Autogrowth Settings (Use MB Not %)
• Use Simple Recovery Model
• Place on Different Drive Than Content Databases

22. Files Placement
Priority (Fastest to
Slowest Drive)
 Tempdb Data and
Transaction Log Files
 DataBase Transaction
Log Files
 Search Database Data
Files
 Content Database Data
Files
Use Multiple Data
Files for Content
and Search DB’s
 Distribute Equally-Sized
Data Files Across
Separate Disks
 Number of Data Files
Should Be <= Number
of Processor Cores
 Multiple Data Files Not
Supported for Other
DBs

23. Agenda
Basic SharePoint DB Concepts
Operating System settings
Installing SQL Server
Database settings
SharePoint and SQL Server Integration concepts
Tuning SQL Server
HA and DR : SQL 2012 Always On Availability Groups & SharePoint 2013

24. Install SharePoint
Setup account
(sp-install)
must be:
(SQL Server)
Dbcreator
(SQL Server)
Securityadmin
Local admin
Domain
account

25. SQL Server and SharePoint Integration
Content database
contains multiple
site collections
(2,000 Default
Setting)
Farm has several
databases; >20 if
spousal installation
Site Collections
only reside in one
database
If Site Collection >
100GB store in own
content database
Use SharePoint to control size of content
database
•Soft limit maximum
size <= 200 GB
• Quota Templates
• Maximum Number of Site Collections

26. Planning Site Collections and Databases
Need 800 Site Collections at 500MB Each
Web Application
200GB
200GB
200GB
200GB
250
250
250
250
Site Collection
Site Collection
Site Collection
Site Collection
HR
Sites
Projects
Sites
Sales
Sites
Student
Sites

27. SP Health Analyzer
Job will defragment the
indices
Job will update statistics
If fragment >
30% &
rowcount >
10.000
AUTO_CREATE
_STATISTICS
should be set
to OFF

28. Verify Integrity of databases
Check
REPAIR_REBUILD
Option to Fix Errors
(Not Always Possible)
DBCC CheckDB
Time Consuming
Operation, Run During
Non-Peak Hours
For Very Large DBs
consider using option
MAXDOP=1
REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_
LOSS Not Supported

29. Agenda
Basic SharePoint DB Concepts
Operating System settings
Installing SQL Server
Database settings
SharePoint and SQL Server Integration concepts
Tuning SQL Server
HA and DR : SQL 2012 Always On Availability Groups & SharePoint 2013

30. Tools
CPU
I/O (and use SQL I/O to check your SAN)
Network
Memory
Run a trace of
Performance
Counters (24 hours)




Run
PAL(Performance
Analysis of Logs)
 Provides templates of accurate
counters
 Analyse regarding thresholds
Generate meaningfull reports
Use this trace as a baseline!!!

31. Farm Dashboard

34. in-SAN-ity??

35. Agenda
Basic SharePoint DB Concepts
Operating System settings
Installing SQL Server
Database settings
SharePoint and SQL Server Integration concepts
Tuning SQL Server
HA and DR : SQL 2012 Always On Availability Groups & SharePoint 2013

36. SQL Server 2012 Always on
& Availability Groups

37. TWO Solutions
AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances
for instance level protection
AlwaysOn Availability Groups
for database protection

38. AlwaysOn Availability Groups
Database
Active Log Synchronization
Database
Active Log Synchronization
Windows Server Failover Cluster
Availability Group uses Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC)


Inter-node health detection,
Failover coordination,


Primary health detection,
Distributed data store for settings and
state,
Distributed change notifications

 Automatic failover clustering requires
servers to have the proper number of
votes to ‘turn on’ a database copy.
 There must always be a majority of votes
to enable the node.
 If a majority cannot be reached (for
example, if there are only an even number
of votes) the DBs will remain offline.
43

39. Client connection
Group Listener expose a unique Virtual Network Name (VNN)
The listener port (listens for incoming
requests against the listener name)
One or more Virtual IPs (VIPs) that are
configured for one or more subnets to
which the availability group can failover
Configured to use either DHCP or a static
IP
Client only knows the VNN
No change to the connection string
Client must establish a new connection
44

40. AlwaysOn Availability Groups for
SharePoint
Improving Data Tier High Availability and Disaster Recovery
Allows multicopy
database
server failover
on multiple
replicas at the
same time
SharePoint no
longer needs
to be ‘aware’ of
the mirrored
copy
SharePoint
2010 Service
Pack 1 supports
SQL 2012 fully
CAVEAT: Be sure to understand that synchronous mirroring copies
need to be in close proximity and have very good bandwidth, as
data needs to be written into all replicas before the transaction is
committed. SharePoint will lock up if there are any interruptions at
the data tier.

41. AlwaysOn Availability Groups for
SharePoint : DEMO
46

42. Comparison of AlwaysOn with other SQL
HA Greatly Improved HA and DR
Potential
Data Loss
(RPO)
Potential
Recovery
Time (RTO)
Automatic
Failover
Readable
Secondaries
AlwaysOn Availability Group - synchronous-commit
Zero
Seconds
Yes
0–2
AlwaysOn Availability Group - asynchronous-commit
Seconds
Minutes
No
0-4
AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instance
NA
Seconds
-to-minutes
Yes
NA
Database Mirroring - High-safety (sync + witness)
Zero
Seconds
Yes
NA
Database Mirroring - High-performance (async)
Seconds
Minutes
No
NA
Log Shipping
Minutes
Minutes
-to-hours
No
Not during
a restore
Hours
Hours
-to-days
No
Not during
a restore
High Availability and Disaster Recovery
SQL Server Solution
Backup, Copy, Restore

43. Q&A

44. Thanks!