SharePoint 2013 Infrastructure Planning

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SharePoint 2013 Infrastructure Planning

SharePoint Configuration

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SharePoint 2013 Infrastructure

Planning

Confidential and Proprietary Information

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SharePoint Configuration — SharePoint 2013 Infrastructure Planning

Introduction

Scholantis Web and Portal Editions (SWE/SPE) provide consistent and easily maintained public websites and portal sites for a school district and each of its schools. SWE and SPE are developed on the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 platform.

This document is provided to assist in the planning of Scholantis deployments and addresses the following topics:

Technical overview and typical deployment scenarios Provide further reading and technical resources

Architectural Overview

Scholantis Web and Portal Editions leverage a number of Microsoft products to provide a rich experience for visitors of the website, website editors and system administrators. All products should be configured with the latest available patches unless otherwise specified.

1.1 Software

1.1.1 Required

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (64 bit) Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter, or Windows Server 2012 (64 bit) Standard or Datacenter

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Standard or Enterprise (64 bit) edition is required for advanced collaboration, web publishing, security and editing capabilities.

SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 or Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (64 bit) is required for the storage of SharePoint configuration and content databases.

Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 or later is required for system administrators and content editors.

Internet Explorer 8 or later, Mozilla Firefox (latest release), Safari (latest re-lease), Chrome (latest release) are required for system administrators and content editors.

1.1.2 Optional

Microsoft ISA 2006, Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 or Fore-front Unified Access Gateway 2010

Microsoft has recently discontinued Forefront TMG and it is no longer avail-able for purchase. New implementations should look to UAG 2010 SP3 or third party solutions.

Exchange Server 2007 or later

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2 Deployment Scenarios

Every school district has unique requirements and existing infrastructure. The following deployment scenarios are based on the following estimates when assessing capacity requirements.

Install Type Schools Students Parents Staff Total

Small 20 10,000 16,000 1,500 27,500

Medium 50 30,000 50,000 3,500 83,500

Large 100 60,000 100,000 7,000 167,000

2.1 Assumptions

The following assumptions were made in developing the deployment scenarios: Scenarios are based on Microsoft products and infrastructure as outlined in Section 1.1.1

This guide is based on the implementation of a dedicated SharePoint server environment to host Scholantis solutions.

Concurrent usage is estimated at 15% of total number of students and teachers.

Database and storage requirements can vary dramatically, it is the responsi-bility of the school district to monitor and manage capacity.

The school district is responsible for all software licensing.

Deployment scenarios are not configured for high availability. Load balanc-ing, clustering and additional hardware would be required to achieve maxi-mum redundancy.

The implementation and management of anti-virus protection, such as Mi-crosoft Forefront, is the responsibility of the school district.

All user accounts are located in a single Active Directory domain hosted by AD DS 2003 SP2 or later

SMTP mail server such as Exchange 2007 or later is available for outbound email.

SharePoint cannot be installed on an Active Directory domain controller, Ex-change or Forefront TMG server.

Hardware recommendations assume dedicated hardware, but equivalent configurations are required in virtualized environments.

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3 Small/Medium Deployment (Typical)

This deployment scenario typically applies when SWE or SPE are the only Share-Point applications.

3.1 Recommended Infrastructure

The SharePoint 2013 server provides Web, Search, Indexing and Application functionality. A separate SQL server ensures optimised disk performance. The SharePoint server is configured behind a firewall and is typically located in-side a DMZ. Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 server (TMG) is not required but provides firewall and security features, redundancy, network load balancing, reverse-proxy, single sign-on, and link translation.

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3.1.1 Hardware

Server Configuration

SQL Server One or two quad core 64-bit Processors 8- 16 GB Memory

80 GB RAID1 – system volume 500 GB RAID(1/5) – data volume SharePoint Application Server One or two quad core 64-bit Processors

8 GB Memory

80 GB RAID1 – system volume 200 GB RAID(1/5) – data volume SharePoint Web Front End Server

(recommended for medium)

One or two quad core 64-bit Processors 8 GB Memory

80 GB RAID1 – system volume TMG Server (optional) One quad core 64-bit Processor

4 GB Memory 40 GB Hard Disk

SQL server disk space requirements are proportional to the expected volume of content. Content databases require approximately 2.5 times the amount of disk space as the source content. E.g. 10 GB of documents stored in SharePoint will require approximately 25 GB of SQL disk space.

The SharePoint application server’s search service requires sufficient disk space to create and merge search indexes. Disk space can be estimated as 0.3 times the size of the content databases being indexed. E.g. 30 GB of content data-bases require 10 GB of free disk space on the application server.

3.1.2 Software

Specific software requirements for Microsoft products and infrastructure are outlined in Section 1.1.1

Future plans to scale, cluster or provide high availability should be considered when selecting software versions i.e. standard or enterprise edition. All servers

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4 Large Deployment

This deployment scenario applies when SharePoint is providing a broad set of functionality with multiple applications such as websites, portals and Office Web Apps simultaneously in the same system.

4.1 Recommended Infrastructure

Large deployment scenarios typically consider many factors - such as redun-dancy, cost, and security - these factors are outside the scope of this guide. De-ployments in heterogeneous environments require careful planning to ensure the appropriate security, performance and availability is provided. It is the re-sponsibility of the school district to review the appropriate Microsoft resources, or work with an infrastructure specialist, to develop an appropriate infrastruc-ture plan.

In large deployment scenarios a SharePoint Application server provides admin-istration, search and indexing features. Two or more SharePoint Web Front End servers are used to host the web applications and serve content to end users. Dedicated Application and Search Servers are used in environments where a high volume of content or transactions is expected.

A SQL database cluster increases performance for high traffic sites and improve redundancy and availability, but is not suggested for small or medium sized school districts.

The SharePoint server is configured behind a firewall and is typically located in-side a DMZ. Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 server

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(TMG) is not required but provides firewall and security features, redundancy, network load balancing, reverse-proxy, single sign-on, and link translation. TMG server can also provide single sign on for applications such as an Intranet, Out-look Web Access or file shares.

4.1.1 Hardware

Server Configuration

SQL Server

(Cluster Optional)

Two or more quad core 64-bit Processors 16 GB Memory

80 GB RAID1 – system volume 3x1500 GB RAID(1/5) – data volume 2 x SharePoint Application Server Two or more quad core 64-bit Processors

16-32 GB Memory

80 GB RAID1 – system volume 500 GB RAID(1/5) – data volume

3 x SharePoint Web Front End Server Two or more quad core 64-bit Processors 16 GB Memory

80 GB RAID1 – system volume

TMG Server One or two quad core 64-bit Processors 8 GB Memory

40 GB Hard Disk

SQL server disk space requirements are proportional to the expected volume of content. Content databases require approximately 2.5 times the amount of disk space as the source content. E.g. 10 GB of documents stored in SharePoint re-quire approximately 25 GB of SQL disk space.

The SharePoint application server’s search service requires sufficient disk space to create and merge search indexes. Disk space can be estimated as 0.3 times the size of the content databases being indexed. E.g. 30 GB of content data-bases require 10 GB of free disk space on the application (or index) server.

4.1.2 Software

Specific software requirements for Microsoft products and infrastructure are outlined in Section 1.1.1

Future plans to scale, cluster or provide high availability should be considered when selecting software versions i.e. standard or enterprise edition. All servers

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Further Information & Resources

Infrastructure Planning

SharePoint Server 2013 TechNet Site

Planning and architecture for SharePoint Server 2013 Deployment scenarios for SharePoint Server 2013

Hardware and software requirements (SharePoint Server 2013) Capacity Management for SharePoint Server 2013

Licensing

Microsoft Office and Server licensing can be complex and most educational au-thorities receive substantial discounts, talk to your Microsoft Large Account Re-seller (LAR) or a Microsoft licensing specialist for further information such as Softchoice.

SharePoint 2013 Infrastructure Planning

SharePoint 2013 Infrastructure Planning

SharePoint Configuration

SharePoint 2013 Infrastructure

Planning

Confidential and Proprietary Information

Corporate Address

Introduction

Contents

Architectural Overview

1.1

Software

1.1.1

Required

1.1.2

Optional

2

Deployment Scenarios

2.1

Assumptions

3

Small/Medium Deployment (Typical)

3.1

Recommended Infrastructure

3.1.1

Hardware

3.1.2

Software

4

Large Deployment

4.1

Recommended Infrastructure

4.1.1

Hardware

4.1.2

Software

Further Information & Resources

Infrastructure Planning

Licensing