Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified Storage and Microsoft Hyper-V Reference Architecture
Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published May, 2010 EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. Benchmark results are highly dependent upon workload, specific application requirements, and system design and implementation. Relative system performance will vary as a result of these and other factors. Therefore, this workload should not be used as a substitute for a specific customer application benchmark when critical capacity planning and/or product evaluation decisions are contemplated. All performance data contained in this report was obtained in a rigorously controlled environment. Results obtained in other operating environments may vary significantly. EMC Corporation does not warrant or represent that a user can or will achieve similar performance expressed in transactions per minute. No warranty of system performance or price/performance is expressed or implied in this document. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. Part number: H7169 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 2
Table of Contents Reference architecture overview... 4 Solution architecture... 6 Key components... 10 Validated environment profile... 13 Hardware and software resources... 14 Conclusion... 15 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 3
Reference architecture overview Document purpose EMC's commitment to consistently maintain and improve quality is led by the Total Customer Experience (TCE) program, which is driven by Six Sigma methodologies. As a result, EMC has built Customer Integration Labs in its Global Solutions Centers to reflect real-world deployments in which TCE use cases are developed and executed. These use cases provide EMC with an insight into the challenges currently facing its customers. This document describes the reference architecture of an EMC Virtual Infrastructure solution for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 enabled by EMC Celerra unified storage and Microsoft Hyper-V. This solution was tested and validated by the EMC Unified Storage Solutions group. Solution purpose This solution investigates how to leverage EMC s expertise and proven technologies to demonstrate the functional and performance aspects of a SharePoint 2007 application server environment by using EMC Celerra unified storage platforms. The purpose of this solution is to determine: How to design a well-performing virtualized Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 environment using Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 R2. The ability to provide a highly available and protected environment by using a combination of Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V and an EMC Celerra unified storage platform. The performance statistics during vital operations of SharePoint Server such as virtual machine migration. This reference architecture is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to every aspect of the EMC Virtual Infrastructure solution for MOSS 2007 enabled by EMC Celerra unified storage and Microsoft Hyper-V. The business challenge MOSS 2007 is a server application that facilitates collaboration, provides content management features, and implements business processes. It provides an integrated platform to plan, deploy, and manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across and beyond the enterprise. SharePoint uses multiple servers in various roles to organize and deliver website collaboration and information sharing across organizations. Critical business information stored in SharePoint sites is rapidly increasing. Therefore, the need to manage these SharePoint sites is greater today than ever before. When knowledge workers collaborate on projects and author documents, it results in the following challenges: Storage requirements increase Data compliance and security become important Processes and policies require high-availability servers Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 4
These challenges demand a solution with acceptable performance that also offers effective and affordable protection of the SharePoint implementation. The technology solution It is important to work with an experienced provider of infrastructure solutions one with a strong track record and the ability to deliver. EMC provides a range of solutions for companies of all sizes. With EMC s Information Lifecycle Management (ILM), the level of protection can be increased as requirements change and businesses grow. EMC has designed solutions for protecting MOSS 2007 database environments by using Microsoft Hyper-V, Microsoft SCVMM 2008 R2, and EMC Celerra unified storage platforms. This solution demonstrates how an EMC Celerra unified storage platform can be used to design a robust SharePoint Server environment. In this solution, a Microsoft failover cluster is configured to protect the virtual machines against server hardware failures. SCVMM 2008 R2 is used to manage and monitor the Hyper-V environment. The solution benefits Enables consolidation of physical servers: By deploying SharePoint farms in virtual environments, any legacy SharePoint servers can be migrated using a Physical to Virtual (P2V) conversion. In addition, testing and development servers can be easily provisioned as virtual machines without the need for extra physical servers. Provides high availability of SharePoint Server virtual machines: Clustering Hyper-V servers protects against physical host failure and thereby enables virtual machines to restart on the surviving hosts in the cluster. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 5
Solution architecture Architecture diagram The following figure shows the overall physical architecture of the solution. Reference architecture overview The validated solution is built using a virtualized SharePoint Server 2007 environment on an EMC Celerra unified storage platform. The key components of the physical architecture are: Two servers running Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Server Core with Hyper-V SCVMM 2008 R2 EMC Celerra unified storage platform MOSS 2007 SP2 and SQL Server 2008 are installed on two virtual machines in a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V environment. These virtual machines are created from a two-node cluster that is configured to access a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV). SCVMM R2 is used to manage the Hyper-V machines and Windows Server 2008 R2 features such as quick migration and live migration. The EMC Celerra unified storage platform is used to store databases, log files, and virtual machine system volumes. In this solution, an iscsi connectivity method is used for the following components: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 6
The SQL database drives are accessed by the SQL Server virtual machines using iscsi. The solution validates three connection methods Microsoft iscsi Software Initiator (MSI), raw device passthrough, and Windows NT File System (NTFS) disk passthrough. The data store containing the virtual machine system volumes is provisioned as an iscsi data store that is connected using MSI to both nodes of the cluster as a CSV. NOTE It is advisable to connect the virtual machine system volume and the backup store through connection methods other than MSI. MSI is not explicitly tested for this solution. Storage layout The following figure shows the overall storage layout of the solution. Storage layout overview The Celerra unified storage platform stores the following items: SQL database and log files Virtual machine boot disks SharePoint Content Index files The validated solution provides storage for system disks of the various virtual machines, SharePoint databases, and log files by using the iscsi protocol. To accommodate the range of potential implementations and to enable several array-based functions, the validated solution specifies that the primary application Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 7
database must reside on Celerra iscsi storage. This area must be sized according to the needs of the user s specific database application. This validated solution uses virtual machines that are set up on a Microsoft failover cluster. A common data store to store the virtual machine boot disks is provided to all the nodes of the cluster. The SharePoint and SQL Server virtual machines are stored on this data store. The virtual machine data store is created by using RAID 5 system disks. The SQL Server databases are placed on RAID 5 serial-attached SCSI (SAS) disks, and the log and tempdb files are placed on separate RAID 1 SAS disks on the same shelf. Network layout The following figure shows the ports on an EMC Celerra NX4. Network layout overview This section describes the network architecture of the MOSS 2007 unified storage solution. To ensure proper functionality, this section explains the recommendations that are consistent with industry-accepted best practices and compatible with the existing network infrastructure and policies. System-wide network design and architecture are outside the scope of this document and solution. Virtual local area networks The validated solution uses virtual local area networks (VLANs) to segregate network traffic of different types. This improves throughput, manageability, application separation, high availability, and security. The three VLANs used are: A client VLAN network that supports connectivity between the SharePoint Server virtual machines and the client workstations. A storage VLAN that provides connectivity between the SharePoint Server virtual machines and the storage by using the iscsi protocol. A VLAN used by cluster nodes to communicate with each other (heartbeat LAN). Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 8
NX4 Data Mover The NX4 Data Mover has four network ports cge0, cge1, cge2, and cge3. Ports cge0, cge1, cge2, and cge3 are used to handle administrative traffic, iscsi traffic, and backup traffic. The Data Mover supports several types of link aggregation for IP traffic. However, in this configuration, no link aggregations or Ethernet channels are configured. As a best practice, the Data Mover network ports connected to the storage network must be dedicated to storage traffic. However, if the ports are not heavily used, they can be shared with non-storage network traffic. EMC recommends monitoring the network to avoid bottlenecks. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 9
Key components Introduction This section briefly describes the key components of this solution. For details on all the components that make up the reference architecture, refer to Hardware and software resources. EMC Celerra unified storage platform The EMC Celerra unified storage platform is a dedicated network server optimized for file and block access, delivering high-end features in a scalable and easy-to-use package. For high scalability, Celerra unified storage platforms leverage both the innovative EMC CLARiiON Fibre Channel RAID storage, delivering best-in-class availability and data protection, and the availability, performance, and ease of management of EMC Celerra. Celerra unified storage systems deliver a single-box block and file solution offering a centralized point of management for distributed environments. This makes it possible to dynamically grow, share, and cost-effectively manage multi-protocol file systems and provide multi-protocol block access. Administrators can take advantage of simultaneous support for NFS and CIFS protocols by allowing Windows and Linux/UNIX clients to share files using the Celerra system s sophisticated file-locking mechanisms and by leveraging iscsi or FC for high-bandwidth or latency-sensitive applications. EMC Celerra provides five 9s (99.999 percent) availability through advanced failover, high availability, and fault-tolerant networking options. The reliability and speed of backup and recovery in traditional backup application environments can be improved by using Celerra unified storage platforms as a backup-to-disk target. Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is an integral feature of Windows Server 2008 R2 and enables users to implement server virtualization with ease. Hyper-V enables users to make the best use of server hardware investments by consolidating servers and enabling a high-performance virtual environment. It eases IT infrastructure management and reduces costs while retaining and enhancing competitive advantages, such as flexibility, reliability, scalability, and security. Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V supports hot plug-in and hot removal of storage. By supporting the addition or removal of passthrough disks while a virtual machine is running, Hyper-V makes it possible to reconfigure virtual machines quickly to meet changing workload requirements. Windows Server 2008 core installation is a minimal server installation for computers running on the Windows Server 2008 operating system or later versions. Server Core provides a low-maintenance server environment with limited functionality. However, it provides all the required features for virtualization and is highly secure. This validated solution uses live migration, quick migration, and failover cluster in a Hyper-V virtualized environment to provide a comprehensive solution for MOSS 2007. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 10
The following table provides a summary of the advanced features and benefits of this solution. Feature Benefits Microsoft failover clustering Failover clustering in Windows Server 2008 R2 can help users build redundancy into the network and eliminate single points of failure. This helps to reduce downtime, guard against data loss, and reduce total cost of ownership. Windows Server 2008 R2 failover clusters are less expensive than other comparable systems. Ease of deployment and affordability make Windows Server 2008 R2 an ideal high-availability solution for organizations of all sizes. Integration with Windows PowerShell enables the creation and management of clusters using scripts. Live migration Administrators can move a virtual machine between clustered hosts in a way that is completely transparent to the users connected to the virtual machine and with no disruptions to the applications running on the virtual machines. Administrators have greater flexibility in responding to planned downtime. Quick migration Quick migration is the migration of a virtual machine s storage, both within the same host and across hosts, while the virtual machine is running with a minimum downtime, typically less than two minutes. Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) A single, consistent storage space that enables hosts in a cluster to concurrently access virtual machine files on a single, shared LUN. CSV enables live migration of virtual machines without impacting other virtual machines sharing the same LUN. CSV eliminates the restriction of placing one virtual machine on one LUN and coordinates the use of storage with greater efficiency and higher performance. Microsoft SCVMM 2008 R2 Microsoft SCVMM 2008 R2 provides unified management of physical and virtual machines in a virtualized data center. It also increases server utilization and provides dynamic resource optimization of virtual IT infrastructure. The SCVMM Administrator Console provides a central work area for changing the resource settings of the virtual machines and for migrating them from one host to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 11
another to optimize physical resources. SCVMM is fully cluster-aware, that is, it can detect and manage Hyper-V host clusters as a single unit. This provides greater flexibility for administrators to respond to planned downtime. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 12
Validated environment profile Profile characteristics The solution was validated using the following environment profile. Profile characteristic Value SharePoint farm user data (content 750 GB databases) Concurrency 10% Enterprise Portal Collaboration site 1 Site Collections 10 Number of documents in the 3,902,825 SharePoint farm Size of Content Index on MOSS 17.03 GB Server MOSS virtual machine (standalone 1 SharePoint Server) SQL Server virtual machine 1 Farm user load profiles A typical SharePoint user load profile was used to determine the maximum user count that the SharePoint farm can sustain while ensuring that the average response times remained within acceptable user limits. As per the Microsoft standard, a typical user performs 36 requests per hour (RPH). The following table lists the acceptable user limits for SharePoint operations. Type of operation Example Acceptable user response time Common Browse < 3 seconds Common Search < 3 seconds Uncommon Modify < 5 seconds Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 13
Hardware and software resources Hardware The following table lists the hardware used to validate the solution. Equipment Quantity Configuration Purpose Storage 1 EMC Celerra NX4 DART 5.6.47.11 9 x 300 GB SAS drives (15k rpm) Servers 2 HP DL380 servers Four 3.0 GHz dual-core processors 20 GB RAM 4 Gigabit Ethernet NICs Server 1 Dell 1850 server class Two 2.8 GHz dual-core processors 4 GB RAM 2 Gigabit Ethernet NICs Enterprise network switch 1 Gigabit Ethernet network switch Celerra storage server The two servers are the two nodes of the Microsoft failover cluster The server that hosts Microsoft SCVMM R2 Connect the machines over Ethernet Software The following table lists the software used to validate the solution. Software Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Microsoft SCVMM Microsoft Windows Server Microsoft SharePoint Server Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition Version R2 2008 R2 Windows 2008 Core x64 Enterprise Edition R2 SP2 2 Windows 2008 x64 Enterprise Edition SP2 1 2007 SP2 2008 SP1 EMC Celerra DART 5.6.47.11 EMC CLARiiON FLARE 02.23.050.5.705 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 14
Conclusion Summary EMC delivers the power of EMC Celerra unified storage platforms and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V advanced virtualization to maintain efficient use of resources, high availability, and load balancing for SharePoint Server environments. This solution demonstrates some of these capabilities through the testing of real-world MOSS workloads. By consolidating SharePoint Server virtual machines with a virtualized infrastructure, organizations can achieve significant cost reduction in the areas of network management and IT resources. Next steps EMC can help accelerate assessment, design, implementation, and management while lowering the implementation risks and costs of a virtual infrastructure solution for a MOSS 2007 environment. To learn more about this and other solutions, contact an EMC representative. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC Celerra Unified 15