EMC Backup and Recovery for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 · 2009-10-14 · Blueprint EMC Backup and Recovery for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Enabled by EMC

Blueprint

EMC Backup and Recovery for Microsoft Office

SharePoint Server 2007

Enabled by EMC CLARiiON CX4, EMC Replication Manager, Kroll Ontrack,

and Microsoft Hyper-V

Copyright © 2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published October 2009 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. The performance characteristics detailed in this document are intended to give indicative performance information on a single building block. If deploying at larger scale, then further validation should be carried out to ensure that the proposed environment performs as expected. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. Part number: H6600

EMC Backup and Recovery for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enabled by EMC CLARiiON CX4, EMC Replication Manager, Kroll Ontrack, and Microsoft Hyper-V Blueprint Page 2

Table of Contents

Overview ................................................................................................................................................4 Key components ....................................................................................................................................7 Physical architecture..............................................................................................................................9

Environment profile .........................................................................................................................10 Design and validation...........................................................................................................................12

Interoperability.................................................................................................................................13 Functionality ....................................................................................................................................24 Performance....................................................................................................................................27

Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................................38

EMC Backup and Recovery for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enabled by EMC CLARiiON CX4, EMC Replication Manager, Kroll Ontrack, and Microsoft Hyper-V Blueprint DRAFT Page 3

Overview

Overview

Purpose The purpose of this document is to demonstrate the speed and efficiency of EMC®

CLARiiON® replication technology integrated with Replication Manager to protect Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 environments. Kroll Ontrack PowerControls provides simple item-level recovery of SharePoint data. By harnessing the power of the EMC CLARiiON CX4 series, this Blueprint proves how Replication Manager can: • Streamline SharePoint farm discovery and protection within minutes • Provide rapid, online Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) backup and near-

instant recovery • Ensure negligible performance impact during backup • Enable access to application-consistent replicas allowing off-host backup • Work seamlessly in a mixed virtual and physical SharePoint environment • Provision for single-item recovery through Kroll Ontrack PowerControls

Blueprint definition

An EMC Global Solutions Blueprint documents the interoperability, functionality, and performance test results of a combination of EMC and third-party products chosen to meet a specific customer requirement. In contrast to Proven Solution validation, a Blueprint does not include scalability testing results. While individually a Blueprint provides important customer value, it may also be used to feed into the development of a Proven Solution. Blueprint results are used to create Work Package deliverables for EMC KB.Wiki, Powerlink®, and EMC.com.


Overview

The business challenge

Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 has easily found a place in the core business application platforms of many organizations. This is due to SharePoint providing an ideal platform for content management, business collaboration, workflow processes, and other productivity functions, including business intelligence and information accessibility through its search functionality. Therefore, for businesses, SharePoint quickly becomes a critical business tool that must be appropriately protected. Customers need to back up/protect large amounts of SharePoint data within a limited backup window. In most cases, native SharePoint backup tools are not adequate and do not scale as SharePoint data grows. Another business requirement for SharePoint administrators may be to provide a fast nondisruptive backup mechanism while facilitating straightforward item-level restore capability. For example, it may be vital for SharePoint application administrators to access copies of production data in a rapid, safe, and simple manner for the purposes of test and development. All these requirements may seem achievable through native tools at the initial dataset size, but as the content size increases through SharePoint sprawl, these tools and methods do not scale adequately. Faced with the challenge of continuing to meet SharePoint Service Level Agreements (SLA) as a business-critical application, IT resources are stretched to do more, and faster, while continuing to manage IT costs and business disruption risks. Not only do organizations need to manage demands for SharePoint availability and protection, they also need to guarantee preparedness for future growth, while ensuring data center efficiency.


Overview

Blueprint solution

This Blueprint illustrates how EMC, with its application experts, their in-depth testing, and a close partnership with Microsoft can create best-in-breed solutions for growing SharePoint farms that ensure availability, scalability, and protection. The customer’s application experience was a paramount concern during the planning and testing of this Blueprint. In addition, the Blueprint shows how to reduce the cost of a SharePoint investment while ensuring the best levels of performance, high availability, and recoverability. This Blueprint illustrates: • Ease of use and performance

o SharePoint data protection with Replication Manager becomes a simplified, nonintrusive, automated task, which has little or no impact to SharePoint performance

o Granular recovery/migration of SharePoint items is a straightforward, quick task with no risk to the production SharePoint farm

o A “best of both worlds” experience of rapid online replication and item-level recovery is achieved

o Storage provisioning and management are simplified o Virtual infrastructure management and deployment are streamlined

through Microsoft’s Virtual Machine Manager 2007

• Cost effectiveness o Storage efficiency is maximized in a single storage platform; in this

instance, the EMC CLARiiON CX4 series o Data center costs or total cost of ownership (TCO) are minimized

through Hyper-V virtualization resulting in the reduction of servers, power and cooling, floor space, and connectivity

o Tiering on all levels (servers, connectivity, and storage)

• Growth o Farm sustainability and growth are achieved through the CLARiiON

CX4 series providing highly available and scalable storage to all aspects of the solution, from virtual machine (VM) to SQL Server storage


Key components

Key components

Introduction The following section identifies and briefly describes the major components of this

solution. The components used are: • EMC CLARiiON CX4-240 • EMC Replication Manager • EMC PowerPath®/VE • Windows 2008 with Hyper-V • Microsoft Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 • Kroll Ontrack PowerControls

EMC CLARiiON CX4-240

EMC CLARiiON CX4 model 240 provides a powerful networked storage system that scales seamlessly—up to 231 TB of capacity—so more applications can be consolidated. CLARiiON CX4-240 combines CLARiiON 99.999 percent availability with innovative technologies like Flash drives, Virtual Provisioning™, 64-bit operating system, and multi-core processors. The CLARiiON CX4 model 240 provides UltraFlex™ technology with dual-protocol (iSCSI and Fibre Channel (FC)), online-expandable connectivity options and the ability to integrate future technologies. With the CLARiiON CX4 model 240 customers can leverage CX4 advanced functionality to protect data from unexpected events and decrease energy use.

EMC Replication Manager

EMC Replication Manager manages EMC point-in-time replication technologies through a centralized management console. Replication Manager coordinates the entire data replication process—from discovery and configuration to the management of multiple application consistent disk-based replicas. With Replication Manager it is possible to auto-discover a replication environment and enable streamlined management by scheduling, recording, and cataloging replica information including auto-expiration. In addition, the right data can be put in the right place at the right time—on-demand or based on defined schedules and policies. This application-centric product allows customers to simplify replica management with application consistency.

EMC PowerPath/VE

EMC PowerPath/VE delivers PowerPath multipathing features to optimize VMware vSphere and Microsoft Server 2008 Hyper-V virtual environments. With PowerPath/VE, standardized path management can be achieved across heterogeneous physical and virtual environments. PowerPath/VE enables automated optimal server, storage, and path utilization in a dynamic virtual environment. This eliminates the need to manually load-balance hundreds or thousands of VMs and I/O-intensive applications in hyper-consolidated environments.


Key components

Windows 2008 with Hyper-V

With Hyper-V, the Microsoft hypervisor-based server virtualization technology, plus flexible licensing policies, it is now easier than ever to take advantage of the cost savings of virtualization through Windows Server 2008. This enables customers to make the best use of server hardware investments by consolidating multiple server roles as separate VMs running on a single physical machine. It can also efficiently run multiple different operating systems—Windows, Linux, and others—in parallel, on a single server, and fully leverage the power of x64 computing.

Microsoft Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 is a unified, multi-vendor management solution for the virtualized data center that helps to enable centralized administration of physical and virtual assets, increase server utilization, and provide dynamic resource optimization of virtual IT infrastructure.

Kroll Ontrack PowerControls

The Kroll Ontrack PowerControls software suite includes two powerful, yet easy to use applications for searching, recovering, restoring, and managing data in Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server environments. Each application makes searching, recovering, and restoring items at a granular level an easier and less expensive process. Administrators can utilize Ontrack PowerControls to recover lost, deleted, or archived SharePoint server data from any previous full backup of the content database. The product can be used to simply locate the documents, lists, libraries, folders and attachments needed in the source backup; then copy and paste them back into the production SharePoint server or to another location.


Physical architecture


Architecture diagram

The following diagram depicts the overall physical architecture of the Blueprint.



Environment profile

Hardware resources

The hardware used in the Blueprint is listed below.

Equipment Quantity Configuration Storage array 1 EMC CLARiiON CX4-240 array with FLARE® 28 (4.2.8.000.5.706)

Production • 10 x 300 GB FC, RAID 5, 15k rpm disks (Hyper-V) • 22 x 300 GB FC, RAID 5, 15k rpm disks (SQL) • 6 x 300 GB FC, RAID 10, 15k rpm disks (SQL) Clones / Snaps • 25 x 300 GB FC, RAID 5, 15k rpm disks (clone set 1) • 25 x 300 GB FC, RAID 5, 15k rpm disks (clone set 2) • 5 x 300 GB FC, RAID 5, 15k rpm disks (snapshots) Hot Spares • 3 x 300 GB FC, RAID 10, 15k rpm disks

Network 2 Standard 48-port Gigabit Ethernet switches (TCP and iSCSI) SAN 2 32-port 4 Gb/s FC switches Hyper-V servers 3 • 4-socket quad core Xeon E7330 2.4 GHz (16 cores)

• 48 GB RAM • 2 x quad Gigabit Ethernet network interface controllers (NICs)

Active SQL cluster server

1 • 4-socket quad core Xeon E7330 2.4 GHz (16 cores) 48 GB RAM • 1 x quad Gigabit Ethernet NIC • 1 x dual-port 4 Gb/s FC host bus adapter (HBA)

Passive SQL cluster server

1 • 2-socket quad core Xeon E7330 2.4 GHz (8 cores) 48 GB RAM • 1 x quad Gigabit Ethernet NIC • 1 x dual-port 4 Gb/s FC HBA

Replication Manager and SCVMM server

1 • 2-socket quad core Xeon E7330 2.4 GHz (8 cores) 48 GB RAM • 1 x quad Gigabit Ethernet NIC • 1 x dual-port 4 Gb/s FC HBA

Load generation servers

2 • 4-socket quad core Xeon E7330 2.4 GHz (16 cores) • 48 GB RAM • 1 x quad Gigabit Ethernet NIC



Virtual allocation

The virtual allocation of hardware resources used in the Blueprint is listed below.

Virtual machine role Quantity Configuration Web front end (running query) 6 4 CPUs, 2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM Application servers 2 2 CPUs, 2.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM Index server 1 4 CPUs, 2.4 GHz, 6 GB RAM Domain controller 2 2 CPUs, 2.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM Software resources

The software used in the Blueprint is listed below.

Software Version EMC Replication Manager 5.2 Service Pack 2 EMC Solutions Enabler 6.5.3 EMC CLARiiON NaviAgent and CLI FLARE 28 EMC PowerPath/VE for Hyper-V 5.3 Microsoft Windows 2008 Enterprise edition (64-bit), Service Pack 2 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise edition (64-bit), Service Pack 3 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Service Pack 2 with cumulative update June 30, 2009 Microsoft Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

Service Pack 1

Kroll Ontrack PowerControls for SharePoint 5.2


Design and validation


Introduction This Blueprint illustrates how quickly and seamlessly busy SharePoint farms can be

replicated (point-in-time backup) and recovered using Replication Manager. SharePoint administrators no longer need to struggle with native SharePoint backup and recovery tools that do not scale and have a negative performance impact. SQL-based backup tools have no integration with SharePoint. In addition, sending TBs of data to staging areas and onwards over the network to a backup server can be a time and resource-consuming exercise. Replication Manager performs farm-level quiescing via the VSS framework and the SharePoint object model to ensure that application-consistent (shared services provider (SSP), content, and configuration data) replicas are created. By using EMC technologies to protect SharePoint, the typical complex backup configuration and scripting tasks are eliminated, backup and recovery times are dramatically reduced, and SharePoint administrators are enabled with rapid access to replica copies of SharePoint data. Note: For further information on the design considerations for an enterprise SharePoint farm, refer to the following document on Powerlink: EMC Virtual Architecture for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC CLARiiON CX3-40,Microsoft Windows 2008, and Hyper-V Integration Guide.

Contents This section contains the following topics:

Topic See Page Interoperability 13 Functionality 24 Performance 27



Interoperability

Overview The sequence of activities to validate the interoperability of the solution components

was: • Build an enterprise-level SharePoint farm constructed using best practices • Validate farm functionality • Perform baseline performance tests prior to introducing Replication Manager to

the environment • Test and document the ease of installation and integration of Replication

Manager into the SharePoint environment and record the effects on farm performance during replication jobs

Time and attention were taken to ensure the SharePoint farm was operating at optimal performance using a client load emulation tool provided by an independent third-party vendor, KnowledgeLake, Inc., an accredited Microsoft Gold Partner.

SharePoint farm configuration

The SharePoint farm was designed as a publishing/collaboration portal. There was 1.5 TB of user content consisting of 15 SharePoint sites (document centers), each populated with 100 GB of random user data in one site collection. The SharePoint content databases were: • 110 GB datafiles on 200 GB LUNs (this low fill factor layout addresses potential/

expected content database datafile growth due to SQL index rebuilds and SharePoint sprawl).

• 23 GB log files on 25 GB LUNs (SharePoint database log files can grow rapidly

due to large document BLOBs).

SharePoint search configuration

In a full farm backup, the SharePoint VSS writer mandates an inter-dependency on all SharePoint required objects for backup. This includes SharePoint search. For more information, refer to the following article: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services VSS Writer. There are two types of search in SharePoint: • Enterprise search engine — Office SharePoint Server Search service

(OSearch) • SharePoint Help Information — WSS Search service (SPSearch). SPSearch is

a very small search index (<100 MB), but it still needs to be backed up. Both OSearch and SPSearch engines were configured to store their: • Content Index (CI) files on the same physically exposed drive letter (LUN) on the

Index server. This means that Replication Manager could snap the one drive letter to obtain both search engines’ indexes.

• SharePoint SQL databases on the same set of dedicated LUNs. Note: This is a mandatory requirement by Replication Manager for future support of full farm recovery.


http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc264326.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc264326.aspx


Networking SharePoint best practices for networking were adhered to and dedicated virtual local

area networks (VLANs) and NICs were used to set boundaries to aid in security and performance of the farm as an entity. The Web front ends (WFEs) were dual-homed as the boundary between the client and data center back-end networks. Two networks were used for iSCSI connectivity to provide fault tolerance and load balancing via PowerPath/VE for the Hyper-V Servers and VMs to the CLARiiON array.

IP Range Network VLAN Description 10.10.10.x Back end Back-end hosts (WFE, SQL, Index,

applications) 172.x.x.x Front end Front-end hosts (WFE, domain controller, user

load) 11.0.0.x Heartbeat Hyper-V and SQL cluster heartbeat VLANs 12.0.0.x iSCSI path #1 First iSCSI network to the CX4-240 13.0.0.x iSCSI path #2 Second iSCSI network to the CX4-240 192.168.0.x Backup Backup VLAN (obsolete after Replication

Manager was introduced into the environment)



Disk layout This Blueprint used Microsoft’s maximum recommended sizing of 100 GB for each

SQL SharePoint 2007 content database. A total of 1.5 TB of user data (equating to 6,818,250 documents) was split into 15 x 100 GB content databases on 200 GB volumes, which was spread across 15 x 300 GB disks using RAID 5 for redundancy. All VMs used the CX4-240 for operating systems and content drives, except for the SQL cluster, which had local operating system drives. As shown in the following diagram, clone LUNs and snapshot LUNs were on separate disks from the production LUNs.



Volume layout The following table details the volume layout, size, and quantity across this

SharePoint solution. The table enforces the concept that a centralized, intelligent shared storage maximizes storage efficiency.

Description Allocation Size (GB) Quantity Total

(GB)

Boot volume – WFEs Hyper-V cluster 40 6 240 Query volumes – WFEs Hyper-V cluster 50 6 300 Boot volume – Index server Hyper-V cluster 50 1 50 Index volume – Index server Hyper-V cluster 200 1 200 Boot volume – app. servers Hyper-V cluster 50 2 100 Domain controllers Hyper-V cluster 30 2 60 SQL cluster disk quorum SQL cluster 2 1 2 SQL cluster mount points SQL cluster 3 1 3 SQL system databases (DBs) SQL cluster 5 1 5 SQL TempDB SQL cluster 100 4 400 SQL MOSS configuration (DBs) SQL cluster 100 1 100 SQL MOSS SSP (DBs) SQL cluster 100 4 400 SQL MOSS content (DBs – data) SQL cluster 200 15 3,000SQL MOSS content (DBs – log) SQL cluster 25 15 375

Hyper-V infrastructure

A three-node Hyper-V cluster was formed using a node majority quorum configuration. All servers in the environment were VMs except for the SQL Server cluster. Hyper-V leverages Microsoft’s Failover Clustering to enable flexible migration of VMs between the Hyper-V cluster nodes. This functionality enabled scaling of the servers as required, based on usage and load. In this environment, three enterprise-class servers formed the Hyper-V cluster. Each Hyper-V Server had two iSCSI NICs Initiators connected to the CLARiiON array, load-balanced to four CLARiiON iSCSI storage ports. The VM boot volumes and Query volumes (on WFEs) used virtual hard disk (VHD) enumeration at the parent level. The SharePoint CI file system on the Index server used the in-child Microsoft iSCSI Initiator (MSI) connected directly to the CLARiiON. This enabled hardware-based VSS snapshots, which is required by Replication Manager. This is illustrated in the following diagram.



The reason for using the in-child MSI for the indexed content volumes was because certain SCSI IOP codes were unintentionally blocked in the Windows 2008 (fixed in Windows 2008 R2) Hypervisor, which can affect storage operations. This configuration is fully supported by Microsoft and EMC. From multiple test observations, it was proved that FC is unnecessary for Hyper-V SharePoint VM storage connectivity as the storage I/O profiles do not require it. It is acceptable to have cost-effective Gigabit Ethernet iSCSI connectivity instead.



Microsoft SQL Server 2005

An active/passive SQL cluster was used for redundancy. The SharePoint content databases were pre-configured (datafile disk space was pre-allocated for optimum performance). Separate data and log LUNs were also used. As it is vital to ensure that the SQL Server has enough I/O bandwidth, 4 G/bs FC connectivity was used to the CLARiiON array. Heavy bursts of I/O are frequently expected on the SQL back end of a SharePoint farm due to systematic processes, such as SSP search indexing, rebuilding content indexes, and unexpected user activity. If the SQL Server is starved of resources or I/O, performance of the entire SharePoint farm will suffer. The SQL Server cluster used clustered drive letters as the root for its mount points for the SQL databases. This is a clustering best practice and Replication Manager fully supports this configuration. The following image illustrates this layout. Note: Replication Manager requires that SharePoint’s SQL search database (SSP) is on dedicated LUNs. This is a SharePoint best practice.

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 VM resources

As the WFEs are CPU-intensive, each WFE VM was allocated four virtual CPUs. The Excel calculation server was configured as the central administration server, and there was one generalized application server used to serve farm purposes, for example document conversions. As crawling is a CPU-intensive activity the Index server was configured with four CPUs. To improve the crawl speed, the Index server also ran a dedicated WFE role, so all Index requests were maintained on one machine. The incremental crawl schedule was set to 15 minutes. In addition, every WFE server was a query server for search purposes.



EMC Replication Manager configuration

Replication Manager uses a client/server principle in its communication and operation. A host was designated as a Replication Manager server and was Fibre-connected to the CLARiiON array to maximize bandwidth in order to minimize the time required to backup replicas to tape. Replication Manager relies on some underlying EMC software components to automate the discovery and control of EMC storage and hosts. These are small, lightweight components, which do not require host reconfiguration or reboot. As shown in the following table the components were installed on the required hosts.

Components Required hosts Solutions Enabler 6.5.3 EMC Navisphere agent and CLI FLARE 28 EMC Replication Manager client 5.2 (SP2)

WFE(s), Index server, SQL cluster nodes and Replication Manager replica mount host

The required hosts were added to the Replication Manager server as Replication Manager clients, as shown in the following image.

During the process of adding the host(s), the CLARiiON array was automatically detected. Access privileges were entered into Replication Manager and the configuration of the array was discovered, as shown in the following image.



As detailed in the EMC Replication Manager 5.2.2 Product Guide on Powerlink the Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) VSS Writer is enabled on the WFE: Writer name: 'SharePoint Services Writer' Writer Id: {c2f52614-5e53-4858-a589-38eeb25c6184} Writer Instance Id: {cc1cb179-1559-4713-abd8-bd96b3510229} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error This allows Replication Manager to query the VSS Writer to obtain a view of the SharePoint environment and understand what is required to get an application-consistent replica. By selecting New Application Set… the WFE is used by Replication Manager to quickly and easily discover the SharePoint farm, as shown in the following image.

By providing the SharePoint system account details, which are stored in a secure encrypted database on the Replication Manager server, Replication Manager can discover the entire SharePoint farm within seconds. This is shown in the following two images.



The first image shows the Application Credentials window.

The second image shows the Application Set Wizard window.

Once the SharePoint farm is discovered, a job (method of replication) is created for SharePoint, as shown in the following image.



The CLARiiON SnapView clone is selected from an option of clone, snapshot, and SAN Copy™ (full or incremental replication to a disaster recovery array). Advanced options, such as pre- and post-replication customizations, are also available through scripting. Administrators can select the storage they would use as the target replication devices. They can also freely select storage that is included in Replication Manager for replication use, or a pre-defined storage pool, allowing storage and application administrators to group their devices into easily recognizable pools, as shown in the following image.



The administrator is then presented with options to mount the SharePoint replica to the mount host. The mount options include the ability to select where and how to mount the replica, and the ability to automatically invoke a backup script and attach the SQL content databases to another SQL instance for data re-purposing / mining. The following image details the options available.

Integration summary

In terms of integration ease, SharePoint application uptime and performance were unaffected. No application reconfiguration or host restart was required. The only interaction required with the SharePoint application was to enable the SharePoint VSS writer on the desired WFE, which is a read-only process to the SharePoint farm. When no jobs are running, the Replication Manager agents are idle and cause no CPU overhead on any hosts. Even when the Replication Manager jobs are running, the maximum observed CPU utilization spike was 6 percent for 12 seconds on a four-core VM.



Functionality

Overview The CLARiiON CX4 series is built using a scalable approach. A CX4 series array

may be purchased with a smaller amount of disks and connectivity ports to reduce initial costs. This approach enables future growth to be sustained through connectivity tiering and storage scaling. In this solution, both iSCSI (1 Gb/s) and FC (4 Gb/s) connectivity options were used (based on host payloads), as a form of connectivity tiering. The following image represents storage port connectivity for both CX4-240 service processors. Each physical storage slot is called a “Slick”.

In this solution, four of the five available storage processor communication slots (storage ports) were utilized per storage processor. These slicks can be hot swapped with zero downtime. For example, if the connectivity bandwidth requirements are not being met by 1 Gb/s iSCSI ports, they can be replaced online with a 10 Gb/s iSCSI slick. Overall connectivity utilization never exceeded 26 percent on any iSCSI port and 8 percent on any FC port. This can be attributed to PowerPath, which ensured that all I/O was evenly balanced across the storage processor ports on the same storage processor. Additionally, full SharePoint farm replication meant that Replication Manager was synchronizing 36 source LUNs to clone LUNs in a single job. To minimize the storage processor overhead for this operation, all LUNs were evenly balanced across both CLARiiON service processors.



Test configuration

The test configuration consisted of the following tasks:

• CLARiiON array configuration for Replication Manager • SnapView clones and Replication Manager job creation • SnapView snap and Replication Manager job creation • Job schedule creation • Kroll Ontrack PowerControls for SharePoint installation

CLARiiON array configuration for Replication Manager

The CLARiiON array was configured with enough storage to provision Replication Manager full SharePoint farm jobs of:

• Two sets of SnapView clone replicas • Two sets of SnapView snapshot replicas

SnapView clones and Replication Manager job creation

Using the same application set, a clone job was created using the CLARiiON SnapView clone technology. To maximize the utilization of raw disk, all clones were RAID 5 LUNs. Cloning from RAID 10 production LUNs to RAID 5 clone LUNs is fully supported with CLARiiON SnapView technology. Using SnapView clones guarantees that there is a fully independent copy of the data. Any subsequent clone LUN I/O load after replication, for example, backup, and data mining has no effect on SharePoint production LUNs or application performance.

SnapView snap and Replication Manager job creation

Using the same application set, a “Snap” job was created using CLARiiON SnapView Snap technology. SnapView snapshots are an ideal way of generating multiple point-in-time replicas of data over short periods of time. SnapView snapshots also allow administrators independent access to a replica of the production data with minimal replica storage requirements. At any point in time, the clone or snapshot replica can be mounted to the mount host, or any host connected (FC or iSCSI) to the CLARiiON array, that is not part of the production cluster in the environment.

Job schedule creation

From within the same Replication Manager console, specific schedules can be set up on a per-job basis that enables automation of replication. The clone job was scheduled to run every six hours, while the snap job was scheduled to run every hour.



Kroll Ontrack PowerControls for SharePoint installation

PowerControls for SharePoint 5.2 was installed on the Replication Manager server (also the mount host). This is a standalone application that only needs authentication to the domain where the SharePoint farm resides (to perform direct item recovery back into the SharePoint farm). PowerControls for SharePoint and Replication Manager complement each other, as Replication Manager provides rapid access to replicated data, while PowerControls for SharePoint provides item-level recovery from this data. Note: In Replication Manager’s 5.2 Service Pack 2 support for SharePoint, only content database-level recovery is supported. Full farm recovery is not supported, but will be available in a future release of Replication Manager. Using Kroll Ontrack PowerControls with Replication Manager is a simple three-step process. The following table provides a high-level overview of the process.

Step Action 1 Mount the Replication Manager replica 2 Open PowerControls and point to the mounted Replication Manager

database files 3 Browse the content and restore the required file(s)

The following image provides a visual interpretation of the three-step process.

Note: This process is also detailed in Testing approach >Test 6: Kroll Ontrack PowerControls item recovery.



Performance

Testing approach

A Microsoft heavy user load profile was used to determine the maximum user count that this SharePoint farm could sustain while ensuring average response times remained within acceptable user limits. As per the Microsoft standard, a heavy user performs 60 RPH, that is, one request every 60 seconds. Refer to the following article for further information on user capacity calculation: Estimate performance and capacity requirements for Windows SharePoint Services collaboration environments (Office SharePoint Server). The following table details 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 < 3 seconds

In these tests, a user profile with a mix of 80 percent browse, 10 percent search and 10 percent modify was used. Acceptable user response times were met during all testing, with and without clone or snapshot operations in progress. Each test performed consisted of a 20-minute test stabilization period, followed by a 20-minute baseline performance period. The second baseline gives an indication of a heavily utilized SharePoint farm. These periods are noted in the performance charts shown in the following sections.

Test tools

To properly test the SharePoint environment, a set of tools designed by KnowledgeLake were used. The tools used were: • Data population (uses the SharePoint front end to insert unique documents into

the SharePoint farm) • Load generation code (uses a custom code solution in Microsoft Visual Studio

Team System (VSTS) where load agent hosts simulate user requests to the SharePoint farm across all WFEs)

Test counters

The following table details the test counters used.

Counter Purpose Passed tests/sec

VSTS counter illustrating the overall performance of the SharePoint farm through full user actions per second (browse, search, and modify)

Transactions/sec The amount of transactions that are performed by the SQL server during testing

SharePoint SQL Server - % Processor Time

Processor utilization of the 16-node active node SQL Server during testing

WFE processor time Processor utilization of the 6 WFEs


http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261795.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261795.aspx


Tests run

Six different tests were run, with each test being run a number of times to ensure consistency. Note: Each test replicated all SharePoint farm databases.

Test number Test description

1 Full clone synchronization job during full user load

2 Full clone synchronization job during a full Index crawl

3 SnapView snapshot job during full user load

4 Incremental clone synchronization job during full load

5 Single content database recovery from a full farm replica

6 Kroll Ontrack PowerControls item recovery



Test 1: Full clone synchronization job during full user load

The purpose of this test was to perform a full clone synchronization job during full user load. In this test, forcing full clone synchronization extended the duration of the Replication Manager job. The intent of this action was to ensure that SharePoint performance was not impacted during a lengthy clone synchronization job. Full clone synchronization is only required on the initial job run, or for reasons where the clone relationship was lost, for example clone group deletion. Because of full user load, the WFEs were the bottleneck with full CPU utilization, while the SQL 16-core back end ran between 35 percent and 65 percent CPU utilization. The intent was to ensure that the tests performed were at least above the typical workload a customer would experience on their production SharePoint environment. This test took 3 hours, 11 minutes to complete with zero impact to SharePoint performance, while the SharePoint application itself was in backup mode for 24 seconds. This was achieved by using a combination of the SharePoint VSS and SQL online VDI backup technologies, which were coordinated by EMC Replication Manager and made possible by EMC array technology. The typically associated cost of a full backup occurred in the underlying storage array, away from the host I/O subsystem, processors, and applications. The vast majority of time was spent in synchronizing the source LUNs to clone LUNs (3.8 TB), which is an invisible process to the user and application. The following chart shows no degradation of SharePoint performance during the full clone synchronization. • Average passed tests per second = 41 • Maximum capacity = 246,000 heavy users at 1 percent concurrency



The following chart shows that no additional SQL CPU utilization was caused by the backup.

The following chart shows zero loss in transactional performance on the SQL Server.



The following chart shows all WFEs at maximum capacity for the duration of the test. Note: The dips in CPU utilization are attributed to IIS application pool recycling.

The following chart illustrates that CLARiiON production disk utilization never exceeded 56 percent utilization, even during heavy cloning operations. In addition, the SharePoint farm showed no performance degradation.

Note: Full clone synchronization is a rare event and typically happens only once after the initial job is run. This test highlights the capability of the CLARiiON array in ensuring quality of service to the production environment, even during a significant synchronization task that spans many hours.



Test 2: Full clone synchronization job during a full Index crawl

The purpose of this test was to perform a full clone synchronization job during a full Index crawl. Test 2 completed successfully — within the same time periods and results as those in Test 1. For the purpose of this paper, Test 1 is profiled in more detail as it is more relevant to a typical use case scenario. An important point is that during Test 3, the Index server was at an average CPU utilization of 98 percent without any impact to the Replication Manager job.

Test 3: SnapView snapshot job during full user load

The purpose of this test was to perform a SnapView snapshot job during full user load. The CLARiiON SnapView snapshot job completed successfully — very close to the same time of Test 4 (quicker by 1 minute, 10 seconds). This test was run at full user load and there was zero performance impact to the SharePoint farm during replication or the activation (mounting) of that snapshot replica. Snapshot replicas are designed to be kept for short-term periods as they will grow over time as writes occur on the source LUNs. Note: Snapshot copy on first write (COFW) technology may incur a performance penalty for source (production) LUNs in an I/O intensive environment. SharePoint content database I/O is relatively low and was therefore a suitable candidate for this Blueprint. For more information on CLARiiON Snapshots, refer to the following document: EMC CLARiiON SnapView Snapshots and Snap Sessions Knowledgebook – a Detailed Review.

Test 4: Incremental clone synchronization job during full load

The purpose of this test was to profile a daily Replication Manager clone job and the level of data change since the last replication job run, which would be typical of a 24-hour period in a customer environment. Prior to this test, a typical daily change rate of 1.4 percent (21 GB) was generated and applied to the SharePoint user data. The same set of clone LUNs from the full clone job was used. The incremental clone synchronization test ran for a total of 1 hour, 50 minutes, with the first 20 minutes used to stabilize the environment. The incremental clone job took 8 minutes, 1 second to complete. The incremental clone synchronization rate was set to ASAP. The clone synchronization process took 17 seconds to complete. The following chart shows that there was no production performance impact during the incremental clone job.


http://www.emc.com/collateral/software/white-papers/h1349-emc-clariion-snapview-snapshots-snap-sessn-knwldgbk-wp.pdf

http://www.emc.com/collateral/software/white-papers/h1349-emc-clariion-snapview-snapshots-snap-sessn-knwldgbk-wp.pdf


As per Test 1, there was no additional SQL CPU utilization or drop in transactional performance. The following chart shows that CLARiiON source LUN utilization remained very low — continually under 4 percent during testing, even during incremental clone synchronization.

Note: On average, SharePoint content databases experience low I/O demand. But, in terms of utilization, systematic processes such as search crawling and SQL table re-indexing can potentially saturate disk utilization. If the disks are slow, these operations take a significantly longer time to complete. Such considerations must be kept in mind when designing storage for SharePoint.



For more information on this subject, refer to the following document on Powerlink: EMC Virtual Architecture for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 - Enabled by EMC CLARiiON CX3-40,Microsoft Windows 2008, and Hyper-V Integration Guide.

Test 5: Single content database recovery from full farm replication

The purpose of this test was to validate the ability of Replication Manager to recover one or more content databases without affecting other active content databases in the SharePoint farm. The following table provides a high-level overview of the recovery procedure for a single content database.

Stage Description 1 Right-click an existing clone replica in the Replication Manager console,

and select Restore, as shown in the following image.

2 Select a single content database, as shown in the following image.

Replication Manager also supports the option of only recovering datafiles. This option is suited to scenarios where only the SQL datafile was lost and transactional roll-forward to the latest log sequence was required.

3 Specific recovery options are now available on the Recovery Wizard window, as shown in the following image.



4 Click Finish at the bottom of the Restore Wizard window for the recovery process to begin.

To coordinate a clean recovery of a content database, the entire recovery process adheres to the Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) VSS framework. The content database is deleted from SharePoint by the WSS VSS writer prior to the SQL content database recovery. Replication Manager then requests that the content database is added back to SharePoint by the WSS VSS writer once the SQL recovery is complete. All sites that previously existed on that content database are now accessible again. The recovery process for a single content database with a 1.4 percent (21 GB) change rate (since the job was performed) took just under 7 minutes.



Test 6: Kroll Ontrack PowerControls item recovery

The purpose of this test was to: • Ensure the compatibility of PowerControls and Replication Manager • Profile the time involved in accessing a SharePoint replica and allowing

PowerControls to access the data As noted in the Functionality >Test configuration section, this is a simple three-step process. The following table provides a high-level view of the test.

Step Action Time taken

1 Mounted the Replication Manager replica (35 volumes, 15 content databases).

4 mins

2 Directed PowerControls to the mounted Replication Manager database files. PowerControls then opened the 100 GB content database containing 465,000 documents.

6 mins

3 Browsed the content and restored the required file(s).

1 min



Note: During Step 2, most of the time taken by PowerControls to open the database is due to the requirement to read the entire content database log file and rehash any uncommitted transactions. On smaller log files, the time taken for this operation is significantly shorter (a matter of seconds). For more information on Kroll Ontrack PowerControls, visit the Kroll Ontrack website: http://www.ontrackpowercontrols.com/solutions/sharepoint-overview/ Note: Kroll Ontrack is available for order via EMC Sales.


http://www.ontrackpowercontrols.com/solutions/sharepoint-overview/

Conclusion

Conclusion

Summary This Blueprint showcases how EMC can streamline and improve SharePoint

availability, performance, and sustainability. This is achieved through EMC CLARiiON, EMC Replication Manager, and Microsoft Hyper-V technologies. Kroll Ontrack PowerControls further enhances the experience by providing flexible item-level recovery.

Findings The results gathered during testing fully validate the environment design used in the

Blueprint to provide optimal performance and functionality for an enterprise-class SharePoint solution. The solution established the following: • Replication Manager is an ideal management tool for providing simplified, rapid

protection of an enterprise SharePoint environment. • CLARiiON CX4-240 indicated ample headroom was available for additional

workload on the specified storage configuration. • Kroll Ontrack PowerControls provided SharePoint item-level recovery with

minimal infrastructure requirements • Hyper-V provided a reliable, well performing virtualization platform that ensured

high availability of the SharePoint farm hosts. • Cost effectiveness was achieved through consolidation at all levels (servers,

connectivity, and storage). Note: The performance bottleneck for this configuration was neither infrastructure nor storage-related, but the cumulative CPU power of the WFEs.

Usability In an increasingly complex IT landscape, simplicity and streamlined management

become key factors for the success of any solution. Sustainability and operational efficiencies for IT teams are significant talking points for decision makers. This solution delivers on these major points. For example, Replication Manager: • Saves time and resources by automating replica management through a

common user interface. • Provides auto-discovery of SharePoint farm environments (production host,

storage, and available replication technologies) and allows customers to quickly take advantage of such time-saving features.

• Utilizes Wizards to step through the processes, linking application intelligence with EMC’s snap and clone software for automating centralized replica management. By simplifying local or remote replica management, resource productivity increases and inefficiencies are eliminated.


Conclusion


Benefits This solution demonstrates how to significantly enhance a customer’s SharePoint

experience through the use of EMC’s storage and replication technologies (over native SharePoint tools). The following table illustrates SharePoint actions and the duration taken with EMC technologies and native SharePoint tools.

SharePoint action Duration with EMC technologies

Duration with native SharePoint tools *

Backup configuration and scheduling

4 minutes, 30 seconds

~30 minutes

Full farm backup (for 2.5 TB of SharePoint production files)

• Clone: 3 hours, 11 minutes

• Snapshot: 9 minutes

39 hours, 30 minutes (14.8 MB/s)

Daily (~1% change rate) incremental SharePoint backup

Clone: 11 minutes Not tested in this environment

Content database recovery (online)

7 minutes 3 hours, 12 minutes (12 MB/s)

Item-level recovery 11 minutes Not tested in this environment (requires recovery farm)

* As tested in a lab environment using the configuration detailed in this Blueprint. Table notes for EMC technologies • SharePoint backup with Replication Manager had no perceived impact to

SharePoint farm performance or functionality. • Full SharePoint farm SnapView snapshot backup had minimal storage space

requirements. • Content database recovery (online) did not affect the rest of the active

SharePoint farm or data. • Item-level recovery from a Replication Manager backup (replica) was a simple

three-step process using Replication Manager and Kroll Ontrack PowerControls.

Next steps EMC can help to accelerate assessment, design, implementation, and management

while lowering the implementation risks and cost of creating a well-performing, flexible SharePoint environment To learn more about this and other solutions contact an EMC representative or visit www.emc.com.

http://www.emc.com/

Documents

EMC Backup and Recovery for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 · 2009-10-14 · Blueprint EMC Backup and Recovery for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Enabled by EMC