“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: