Since I’ve been doing a number of SharePoint 2007 designs for clients recently, I figured that people might be interested in reading about some of the common questions that come up and the answers I provide.
A fundamental question is that of design. Clients are interested in knowing what the “best practice” is for implementing SharePoint 2007 in terms of number of servers, the roles to apply to each server etc. While it usually takes a 15 minute to half hour discussing to really go over things such as overall goals for the project, SLA and DR requirements, budget for hardware and software, and company standards, I can provide some general guidelines. I’ll provide a few in this post and follow up with additional ones in later posts.
We’ll assume that the client has decided on SharePoint Server 2007 rather than Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 for this discussion topic.
How many servers do I need? While an all-in-one server (with SQL Server 2005 and SharePoint Server 2007 on one server) can technically meet the needs of thousands of users, this configuration is generally not considered “enterprise ready.” Most organizations prefer to split SQL Server and SharePoint Server 2007 on different servers since the database administrator(s) is/are responsible for the SQL server and other specialized resource(s) is/are responsible for the SharePoint 2007 configuration and maintenance. Often the SQL server administrators don’t want SharePoint (often Web Operations resources) having administrator rights on their servers, and may have different fault tolerance requirements (such as clustering) than the SharePoint administrators. In addition, many organizations want to use the SQL 2007 server for housing other dbs, especially if they “beef up” this server (see below on that topic). Splitting up the SharePoint 2007 software from the SQL dbs also allows much more flexibility of design for the SharePoint front-end web server(s), and “application” server(s).
So a general decision made by organizations, regardless of size, is to implement a server farm consisting of one or more SQL back-end database servers, and one or more SharePoint 2007 servers.
How many SQL servers do I need? In terms of SQL servers, most small (<100 network users) to medium (100-500 network users) organizations choose to implement a single SQL server initially, track and gauge the adoption and criticality of the data stored, and then upgrade to a cluster environment in the future.
How do I size the SQL server? SQL Server 2005 Standard typically meets most organization’s needs, as it is capable of basic clustering and it is much less expensive than SQL Server 2005 Enterprise. I generally recommend that clients use the 64 Bit version of Windows Server 2003 and of SQL Server. The primary reason is that the 64 bit versions of the NOS and SQL Server support up to a terabyte of RAM while the 32 Bit versions only support 4GB natively (you can “cheat” and access additional RAM but with a performance sacrifice), performance is enhanced, and the 64 Bit platform is a better long-term investment. SQL Server 2005 benefits greatly from additional RAM, especially if you are running additional tools such as Reporting or Analysis services, and housing databases for applications other than SharePoint 2007. 16 GB of RAM or more can then be used in the server. Hard drive requirements vary by organization, but don’t underestimate how quickly databases can grow.
How many SharePoint 2007 servers do I need? Once again, this can be an involved conversation, but a single SharePoint 2007 server can suffice for small organizations, while larger organizations may choose to implement two or more SharePoint 2007 servers. When two servers are used, one will be what’s called an “application server” in SharePoint parlance. It will contain the Central Administration service, and the Office SharePoint Server Search service (indexing) (and other enterprise services such as Excel Services) and could be named something like FE1. The other server houses the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service, the Windows SharePoint Services Search (crawling) and could be named FE2. This offers a lot of flexibility for the future. Additional front-end web servers (similar to FE2) could be added to provide redundancy, or components from the “application server” (FE1) could be broken off to separate servers. There are a variety of rules to be followed to make sure your configuration is officially supported by Microsoft, so additional research may be needed here.
How do I size the SharePoint 2007 Server(s)? Typically the 32 Bit version of Windows Server 2003 suffices, and is in fact preferable, since there can be compatibility issues with third party ifilters and web parts with the 64 Bit NOS. And these third party applications will need to be installed on the front-end(s). 4 GB of RAM normally suffices, and hard drive requirements are reasonable since “all” of the data is stored on the SQL server.
Feel free to post follow up questions, and I’ll refine this entry as needed.
The Leader in Network Knowledge
Hello All
I have been trying to find out the system requirement for a sharepoint server able to support 3000+ concurrent users.
Can anybody help?
Thanks in anticipation
3000+ User design
Number of users is only one of the variables that will affect the final design.
For example I've managed a SP 2003 environment for 5000 users that ran off a single front end and single back end. But we then upgraded to a more complex multi-tiered farm environment when the usage started to take off.
I'd be happy to start a separate thread with you via email if you want to. Feel free to email me as
Thx
Colin