MinRole and SharePoint 2016

Roy Polvorosa

Roy Polvorosa

• Managed Services & Support Manager at Imaginet.

• Rich experience architecting and deploying SharePoint

solutions for a wide variety of business verticals.

• Specialize in: Office 365 and Azure, ADFS, SharePoint,

SQL, Exchange and Active Directory

• Twitter: @rpolvorosja

• E-mail: royp@imaginet.com

ImaginetImaginet is your trusted Dallas technology partner who turns your business innovation ideas into reality.

AZURE SOLUTIONSTake Advantage of the Cloud. Now.

SHAREPOINT SOLUTIONSThe New Way to Work. Together.

OFFICE 365 SOLUTIONSCloud-Powered Productivity. Anywhere.

SKYPE FOR BUSINESS SOLUTIONSUnify Communications. Everywhere.

VISUAL STUDIO AND TFS SOLUTIONSDevelop Software. Better.

SQL SERVER AND BI SOLUTIONSManage Big Data. Effortlessly.

BIZTALK SOLUTIONSUnite Your Enterprise. Faster.

EXCHANGE SOLUTIONSWorking Together. Smarter.

18+YEARS

1,200+CUSTOMERS

2,500+SUCCESSFUL

ENGAGEMENTS

Agenda

• What is MinRole?

• SharePoint Server Roles

• How does it work in SharePoint 2016?

• The Benefits

• MinRole topologies

• Using MinRole in your SharePoint 2016 Farm

• MinRole Administration

• Opting out of MinRole

MinRoleA SharePoint 2016 feature “Built from the cloud up”.

What is MinRole?

• Exclusive to SharePoint 2016.

• Administrators define each server’s role in the farm topology when a new farm is created

or when a server is added to an existing farm.

• SharePoint automatically configures the services on each server based on the server role

specified and optimizes performance of the farm based on the topology.

SharePoint Server Roles

Front-End

• Service applications and components that serve user requests. These servers are optimized for low latency.

Application

• Server optimized for high throughput e.g. Service applications that serve backend tasks (background jobs).

Distributed Cache

• Service applications and components that are required for a distributed cache belong on Distributed Cache servers.

SharePoint Server Roles

Search

• Service applications and components required for search.

Custom

• Custom service applications, services and components that do not integrate with MinRole belong on Custom servers.

Single Server Farm

• Service applications and components required for a single machine farm.

List of Services: http://tinyurl.com/jtknksz

How Does MinRole Work?

How does it work?

• Starts a base set of service instances that are required for the server’s role

when a new farm is created or when a server is added to an existing farm.

• Detects which additional services have been enabled and starts services as

appropriate for the server’s role.

• Starts and stops corresponding service instances in the farm.

• In the past, SharePoint administrators had to manually define roles and

services on each server.

What does this mean for architecting SharePoint 2016 environments?

Benefits of using MinRole in your SharePoint 2016 farm

Simpler Deployments

• SharePoint Administrators no longer need to worry about which services have been

enabled on which servers.

• Administrators reduce the risk of slight misconfigurations during installation by

leveraging a template-type deployment.

• Administrators can focus on what functionality to enable in the farm and let SharePoint

take care of the rest.

Improved Performance and Reliability

• Microsoft has been operating SharePoint online since 2011 and has analyzed key

performance characteristics of operating SharePoint at an internet scale such as CPU,

memory, disk I/O and network latency.

• SharePoint services have been optimized for the MinRole topology based on that

analysis.

• Improved service application load balancer services requests from local service

instances instead of going across the farm to another server.

Simpler Capacity Planning and Farm Scalability• In SharePoint 2016, Microsoft bases capacity planning on the MinRole topology

• Leverage predictable and perspective capacity-planning guidance by deploying a farm

based on the MinRole topology.

• As SharePoint needs grow, easily add more servers to the farm and SharePoint will

automatically configure the additional servers.

MinRole TopologiesWhat to expect in SharePoint 2016

Typical SharePoint 2013 Topology

• SharePoint Administrators manually configure services on

each server to fit these roles.

• As features and services are added, Administrators have to

determine where these components should run based on

best practices, current server load, etc.

Web Front-ends

Application Servers

SQL Servers

SharePoint 2016 Minimum MinRoleTopology• The supported minimum MinRole configuration

requires a server with each role.

• If SQL is included - need at least 5 servers for MinRole.

• Minimum configuration does not have any resiliency.

Front-end Distributed Cache

Application Server Search

SQL Server

Highly Available SharePoint 2016 MinRoleTopology• Two of each server role is recommended

• Three servers required for Distributed

cache in a cluster quorum

• Add SQL availability groups to achieve HA in

the SQL layer.

• Potentially requires 11 servers

• Added Office Online Servers totals 13

Servers

Front-end

Application Server Search

SQL Server Office Online Servers

Distributed Cache

Custom 3 Tier MinRole Topology

• Front end servers benefit from MinRole.

• Configure custom servers to run majority of SharePoint

service applications and reduce number of servers.

• Manual configuration of services and monitoring

required on custom servers.

• SharePoint Administrators determine which custom

server will run which services.

Custom Servers

SQL Servers

Front-End Servers

Custom HA Topology with Search

• Two load balanced servers with Front-end

role.

• Two custom servers running distributed

cache, User Profile Sync, Secure Store.

• Two servers with Search server role.

• SQL servers configured with always on

availability groups.

Front-End Servers

Custom Servers

SQL Servers

Search Servers

How Does This Impact My SharePoint 2016 Upgrade?

SharePoint 2016 Upgrades and MinRole

• You still need to plan and design.

• MinRole Topology is recommended but not the only option.

• If you’re upgrading from SharePoint 2013, database-attach method is available

• Versions prior to SharePoint 2013 will need additional planning.

Using MinRole in your SharePoint 2016 Implementation

Configuring SP2016 for the first time

• See MinRole when running the SharePoint

Configuration Wizard for the first time or when

joining a server to an existing farm.

• There is no order in which server to configure

first - start with any server role.

• Also use the SharePoint Management Shell or

PSConfig.exe command line tool

MinRole and the Management Shell

• New LocalServerRole parameter allows a server’s role to be specified when using the

management shell or PSConfig.exe command line tool.

• Existing deployment scripts may have to be updated with this new parameter.

Service Applications and MinRole

• A minimum MinRole topology or custom topology needs to be setup first before

deploying any service applications.

• MinRole doesn’t automatically create service applications when a server’s role is defined.

• When configuring a new Search Service Application, MinRole detects which server in the

farm holds the Search Server role, turns on the search services and configures the

search topology appropriately.

• MinRole also stops service instances automatically if you delete a service application.

MinRole Administration

Central Administration Changes

• Updated Farm Servers page shows a server’s role and MinRole compliancy status along

with currently running services.

• The compliant column will also display a “Fix” link if a server does not meet compliancy.

Central Administration Changes

• Updated manage services

page in Central Admin has

been updated to display the

state of each service in the

farm and current MinRole

Compliancy status.

• Enable or disable auto

provisioning of services.

Central Administration Changes

• Updated Services on Server page now

displays current MinRole compliancy

status for each service.

• Action column has changed. Start and

stop links removed for services managed

by MinRole.

• To start or stop a service, go back to the

Manage services farm page.

MinRole Compliancy

• Once a Server’s role is configured, only those services appropriate for that role can run

on that server.

• SharePoint 2016 has a new set of Health Analyzer rules and timer jobs to identify when a

server isn’t MinRole Compliant.

• If a service is accidently turned on and shouldn’t be running on that server, SharePoint

will automatically turn it off.

Custom Server

Services Running: Central AdministrationClaims to Windows Token ServiceMicrosoft SharePoint Foundation Incoming E-mailMicrosoft Foundation Web ApplicationMicrosoft SharePoint Foundation Workflow Timer ServiceSearch Administration Service

Application Server

Services Running: Central AdministrationClaims to Windows Token ServiceMicrosoft SharePoint Foundation Incoming E-mailMicrosoft Foundation Web ApplicationMicrosoft SharePoint Foundation Workflow Timer Service

MinRole Compliancy

Search Administration Service

Changing a Server’s Role

• Minrole isn’t set in stone. SharePoint Administrators can change a Server’s role through

Central Admin or through the SharePoint Management Shell.

• To avoid MinRole compliancy warnings in the Health Analyzer, decommission existing

service applications before changing the roles.

• Plan your SharePoint 2016 farm appropriately and not have to change roles.

What About 3rd Party Apps?

• Answer – Custom Server Role.

• 3rd party SharePoint applications like PerformancePoint or Nintex Workflows would best

fit the custom role.

• The Custom Server Role is excluded from the MinRole Compliancy checks as it can run

any service the Administrator configures.

Opting Out of MinRole

• SharePoint 2016 supports backwards compatible behavior of previous versions of

SharePoint with the custom role.

• SharePoint farm administrators can assign zero, some or all servers to the Custom Role

and manually manage service instances on these servers.

• Specify the ServerRoleOptional parameter when creating a new SharePoint farm if

existing deployment scripts need to remain intact.

• This is done using the PSConfig.exe command line tool or Powershell cmdlet.

Thank YouLet's Continue the Conversation!

Email me at royp@imaginet.com. Twitter: @rpolvorosja

www.imaginet.com

What's Next?Q&A with Roy

Fill out a Speaker Evaluation

Enter our Grand Prize Drawing for an Amazon Echo