Sharepoint Remote BLOB stores with EMC Isilon and ... · PDF fileSHAREPOINT REMOTE BLOB STORES...

White Paper

Abstract

This white paper describes how to externalize Microsoft

SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Server 2013 BLOB

stores to EMC Isilon Scale-out NAS by using Metalogix

StoragePoint.

October 2014

SHAREPOINT REMOTE BLOB STORES WITH

EMC ISILON NAS AND METALOGIX STORAGEPOINT

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2 SharePoint Remote BLOB Stores with EMC Isilon NAS and Metalogix StoragePoint

Copyright © 2014 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as

of its publication date. The information is subject to change

without notice.

The information in this publication is provided “as is.” EMC

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specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or

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Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in

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For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC

Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com.

EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo, Isilon, OneFS, AutoBalance, and

SmartConnect are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC

Corporation in the United States and other countries.

VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc.

in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other

trademarks used herein are the property of their respective

owners.

Part Number h11371


Table of Contents

Executive summary ........................................................................................ 4

Solutions overview ......................................................................................... 4 Key results/recommendations ......................................................................... 5

Introduction ................................................................................................... 5 Purpose ........................................................................................................ 5 Scope ........................................................................................................... 5 Audience ...................................................................................................... 5 Terminology .................................................................................................. 5

Fundamentals of SharePoint storage.............................................................. 6

Technology overview ..................................................................................... 7

Advantages of EMC Isilon scale-out storage ................................................... 7 Scalability ..................................................................................................... 8 Simplicity ...................................................................................................... 8 Automatic balancing for performance and efficiency ........................................... 8 Data protection ............................................................................................. 8 Reduced costs through greater utilization ......................................................... 9

Metalogix StoragePoint .................................................................................. 9 File Share Librarian ........................................................................................ 9

Architecture ................................................................................................. 10 Hardware and software resources .................................................................. 10

Physical deployment .................................................................................... 12 Storage configuration ................................................................................... 12

Disk pool configuration .............................................................................. 13

Baseline performance results ....................................................................... 14 Test Scenario 1: adding files to SharePoint using StoragePoint File Share Librarian15

Configuration ........................................................................................... 15 Results .................................................................................................... 16

Scenario 2: externalizing BLOBs with StoragePoint .......................................... 16 Configuration ........................................................................................... 16 Results .................................................................................................... 16

Scenario 3: performance during externalization ............................................... 16 Results .................................................................................................... 17

Validation and testing .................................................................................. 17 Test methodology ........................................................................................ 17 Notes on performance test results.................................................................. 18 Results summary ......................................................................................... 18 Storage performance results ......................................................................... 18

Conclusion .................................................................................................... 20

References ................................................................................................... 20

About EMC Isilon .......................................................................................... 21 Contact EMC Isilon .................................................................................... 21


Executive summary

The Microsoft SharePoint market is growing steadily; more businesses are relying on

SharePoint as a business critical application. SharePoint provides a wide range of

functionality that encompasses enterprise content management, collaboration, social

networking and document management. Nearly 75 percent of businesses surveyed

cite “Document Collaboration” as the most often used feature within SharePoint.

Customers are interested in migrating content to SharePoint and using the rich set of

functionalities available when data is managed in a structured framework.

One significant challenge all SharePoint administrators face is that all data on the

content database is stored within SQL server. Because of performance requirements,

SQL server databases are typically stored on the highest performing set of disks

possible. This means that file based content such as PDFs, Microsoft Office

documents, media files and other large files are stored in SQL server databases

residing on the highest performing tier of storage. An alternative is to use a lower tier

of storage to house these files (also known as Binary Large Object or BLOBs) while

keeping SQL database content on the highest performing set of disks.

Another major inhibitor is the migration time and effort required to move content

from file shares to SharePoint, and the performance and cost challenges created by

storing unstructured content in SharePoint’s SQL Server content database.

This white paper describes how to externalize Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and

SharePoint Server 2013 BLOB stores to EMC® Isilon® Scale-out NAS by using

Metalogix StoragePoint software.

Metalogix StoragePoint can rapidly migrate file based content into SharePoint and

transparently externalize this unstructured content using tiered storage to keep the

Microsoft SQL Server database lean and responsive. This offers users and

administrators all the benefits of SharePoint’s content management features and

access controls.

Solutions overview

The solution combines the use of Metalogix StoragePoint software and EMC Isilon

scale-out NAS to provide a cost-effective SharePoint content storage solution that

transparently reproduces a standard customer environment that includes both the

structured SQL meta data and unstructured BLOB data.

Metalogix StoragePoint software is also used to catalog File Share data into

SharePoint and move and manage the BLOBs outside of SQL Server. StoragePoint is

also used to enable remote BLOB storage for SharePoint 2010 and 2013 onto EMC

Isilon scale-out NAS.

This solution uses Isilon storage as the platform for virtualizing Microsoft SQL Servers

and SharePoint 2010 and 2013 Servers, as well as providing storage for remote

BLOBs.


Key results/recommendations

As described in this paper, StoragePoint integration is a highly efficient method for

moving file share content into SharePoint, and for externalization of unstructured

SharePoint content into remote BLOB storage. With this solution you can:

Use StoragePoint to improve your organization’s overall storage usage and reduce

the physical footprint while still meeting SLAs.

Use StoragePoint for effectively managing the externalization of SharePoint BLOBs

out of Microsoft SQL Server Content databases.

Create SharePoint metadata that points to content located in the file share.

Use EMC Isilon as a highly efficient and resilient remote BLOB repository for

SharePoint data.

Introduction

Purpose This white paper provides guidance and recommendations for use of remote BLOB

storage for SharePoint using Metalogix StoragePoint with EMC Isilon NAS storage.

Scope This white paper presents design guidelines, best practices, and validated test results

that were identified during the configuration and test phases of the solution.

Audience This white paper is intended for:

SharePoint architects

EMC Partners

EMC employees and field personnel

Terminology

Table I lists key terminology referenced in this white paper:

Table I: Solution terminology

Term Definition

Binary large object (BLOB) A collection of binary data stored as a single entity

in a database management system. BLOBs are

any files stored in the database, that is,

documents, spreadsheets, media files, etc.

BLOB store External storage location for BLOBs in a SharePoint

farm or environment, for example, an SMB share.


Content database This is a Microsoft SQL Server database, resides in

the SharePoint farm, and contains content users

save in SharePoint. Content can be separated into

multiple content databases at the site-collection

level. A content database can include one or more

site collections, but a single site cannot span

multiple databases. Backing up and restoring sites

takes place at the content database level.

Externalization Externalization dissects the content stored in a SQL

server database into two parts (metadata and

BLOB), where the BLOB can then be routed to a

more cost-effective tier of storage, which reduces

the load on SharePoint and improves efficiency.

Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) A SQL Server API that lets database administrators

store binary large objects in commodity storage

instead of directly on the main database server. An

RBS “provider,” such as Metalogix StoragePoint, is

required to perform the externalization and related

ongoing BLOB management tasks.

Fundamentals of SharePoint storage

Before looking at the architecture of the solution, it is important to understand how

SharePoint stores documents. Most SharePoint deployments host many different

types of files including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF or even media and image files.

By default these files are stored in the SQL Server relational content database. The

content database contains metadata about the file, while the file itself is stored in an

unstructured data format called a BLOB.

Over time, as the content stored in SharePoint increases, the size of the content

database increases making the SQL database grow considerably. Correspondingly,

the frequency with which the data is accessed decreases.

Earlier versions of SharePoint stored all data—both metadata and documents—in SQL

databases. This often meant that —since SQL Server databases are typically stored

on Tier-1 storage —even older, less-valuable SharePoint data was still being stored on

the most expensive disk space.

Beginning with SharePoint 2007 Service Pack 1, Microsoft introduced an API to make

it possible to store BLOBs outside of the SQL Server while keeping metadata, and

pointers to the associated documents, inside the content database.

This externalization requires additional software to enable the database API

component to remove the BLOB from the SQL DB and continually manage them

outside the DB on the external EMC Isilon location. In the solution described in this

document, Metalogix StoragePoint is the RBS service provider that executes and

transparently manages the external storage location. EMC Isilon Scale out NAS

provides the external storage location.


As shown in Figure 1, BLOBs that were originally stored in the content databases are

moved to file-based storage using StoragePoint. Externalizing BLOBs means that the

BLOB data stream itself is moved or stored in a file share, and only metadata is

stored within the SQL Server content database. It is important to note that

externalizing BLOBs has no effect on SharePoint functionality. The externalization

process is handled transparently outside of SharePoint, which means that SharePoint

permissions, versioning and applied workflows are not affected by the process of

externalization. Leveraging StoragePoint and Isilon to remotely store BLOBS is 100%

transparent to SharePoint users.

Figure 1: Solution architecture before and after externalizing BLOB stores

Technology overview

This section provides an overview of the primary technologies used in this solution:

EMC Isilon Scale-out NAS storage

Metalogix StoragePoint

Microsoft SharePoint Server

Advantages of EMC Isilon scale-out storage

EMC Isilon scale-out NAS is a highly scalable storage platform that utilizes a modular

storage architecture that can grow easily with your business. Isilon storage is

powered by an intelligent, distributed file system, the EMC Isilon OneFS® operating

system that provides the intelligence behind all Isilon scale-out storage solutions.


Isilon storage solutions can help you accelerate processes and workflows while scaling

easily to handle massive growth and providing the highest levels of data protection

available. Specific advantages of EMC Isilon storage are described in this section.

Scalability

With EMC Isilon scale-out NAS, you can have massive room for growth. Isilon storage

solutions scale from a minimum 3 node cluster configuration that provides 18TB of

capacity to a 144 node cluster with over 20PB of capacity – all in a single file system,

single volume architecture that is remarkably easy to manage. As additional nodes

are added to a cluster, all components of the cluster scale symmetrically and

predictably. A new storage node can be added to an Isilon cluster in as little as 60

seconds, eliminating the need to over-provision storage for future requirements.

The capabilities of an Isilon storage system allow it to scale for capacity and

performance simultaneously, or independently, resulting in an agile storage

environment that can expand quickly to changing application workloads.

For example, if a given workload is constrained by inadequate disk I/O throughput,

more platform nodes can be dynamically added to the cluster. This has the effect of

improving overall performance and increasing the amount of capacity almost

immediately.

Additionally, the Isilon storage architecture simplifies the hardware-refresh cycle by

allowing the easy addition and retirement of nodes from the cluster while keeping the

cluster itself online, and the data available, throughout the refresh process.

Simplicity

Isilon scale-out storage solutions are designed for enterprises that want to manage

their data, not their storage. Our storage systems are powerful yet simple to install,

manage and scale, at virtually any size. And, unlike traditional enterprise storage,

Isilon solutions stay simple no matter how much storage capacity is added, how much

performance is required or how business needs change in the future.

Automatic balancing for performance and efficiency

When an additional node is added to an Isilon cluster, the Isilon OneFS AutoBalanceTM

feature immediately begins migrating data from the existing storage nodes to the

newly added node, quickly re-balancing all of the data across all available nodes in

the cluster.

This automatic rebalancing ensures the new storage node will not become a

bottleneck for new data, and that existing data will gain the benefits of the increased

resources now available to the storage system. AutoBalance is completely transparent

to both end user and storage clients, and can be adjusted to run at off-peak times to

limit its impact on high-performance workloads. This is all done automatically and

requires no management time from the administrator.

Data protection

Isilon storage solutions are highly resilient and provide the highest levels of reliability,

availability, and serviceability in the industry. An Isilon cluster is designed to tolerate

one or more simultaneous component failures without any interruption of service or


loss of data. Data protection is applied at the file level, rather than relying on either a

single global setting or specific RAID groups as found in other storage platforms. In

the event of a component failure, the file system is able to focus on recovering only

the impacted data rather than having to repair and rebuild the entire data set.

Because all data, metadata, and parity information is distributed across all nodes in

the cluster, dedicated parity nodes or disks are not needed. A properly configured

EMC Isilon cluster eliminates any single points of failure, since all nodes share equally

in the workload and function as peers in a complete symmetrical storage

environment.

Also, unlike other storage platforms, changes in data-protection settings for files and

directories can be modified at any time without the need to take either the cluster or

the impacted files offline. Service outages, which are often required in traditional

storage environments when re-balancing workloads, are also eliminated with Isilon

scale-out NAS.

EMC Isilon's globally coherent cache, and SmartConnectTM client load-balancing and

failover features, provide high performance with industry-leading levels of data

protection, high availability and system resiliency.

Reduced costs through greater utilization

EMC Isilon storage systems provide highly efficient data storage at scale. For clusters

larger than five nodes, storage utilization rates of over 80% are typical.

You can gain further additional efficiencies with EMC Isilon SmartPools™ software for

automated storage tiering that continually optimizes your Isilon NAS for performance

and economy. With SmartPools, you can set policies to automatically move inactive

data to more cost-effective storage, streamlining workflows for your most current

data while remaining completely transparent to users and applications.

In addition, because Isilon is so easy to manage, many complex, labor-intensive

storage management tasks required for traditional storage systems—including

troubleshooting disk or network bottlenecks or migrating VMs between datastores to

rebalance capacity—are eliminated with EMC Isilon storage.

Metalogix StoragePoint

Metalogix StoragePoint software is used for BLOB-storage offload to SharePoint.

StoragePoint improves SharePoint performance and scalability by offloading content

and the associated processing overhead from the underlying Microsoft SQL Server

database to alternate tiers of storage. StoragePoint installs quickly and easily into

SharePoint Central Administration and enables you to manage SharePoint BLOBs

transparently from a single SharePoint interface. StoragePoint does not require any

additional hardware or software to be implemented.

File Share Librarian

StoragePoint’s File Share Librarian enables you to delegate control of the file-share

content to SharePoint. The file shares are used like any other storage endpoint. The

file-share metadata, associated folder hierarchy, and supporting information are

catalogued, replicated, and placed under the control of SharePoint, which enables


users to search, manage, and access file-share content just like any other document

within SharePoint.

Architecture

This section provides details on the hardware and software components used in the

tested solutions.

The solution was configured as follows:

All servers were virtualized using a VMware vSphere 5.0 host cluster.

A 10-node EMC Isilon storage array, consisting of five Isilon X200 and five

Isilon 72NL nodes, was used as the underlying storage platform for virtual

machine and file-share data in this solution.

An SMB-based shared folder was created in the Isilon 72NL disk pool. This

share was populated with documents. Document sizes in the file set ranged

from 200K to 12MB.

All virtual machine VMDKs were stored on a shared NFS mounted data store

from the Isilon X200 disk pool.

All content, search, temp and configuration, and the Metalogix StoragePoint

database, and their associated log files were placed on VMDKs housed within

the NFS data store and presented to the SQL Server virtual machine.

Each Content DB had a corresponding BLOB store created on the EMC Isilon

cluster and shared using SMB. Content externalized from the Content DB was

moved to these locations. Existing file share content was also placed on the

Isilon cluster presented in a separate SMB share.

Hardware and software resources

Table II lists the hardware used to validate this solution.

Table II: Solution hardware

Equipment Used for Quantity Configuration

ESXi Servers VMware

SharePoint

2

Management Server VMware vCenter Server 1 8GB of RAM

4-Core

Mixed Isilon X200 / 72NL

10 node cluster

VMware virtual machines

SharePoint content

Databases and logs

SMB Shares containing

BLOBs

1

Active Directory Server Domain Controller 1 8GB of RAM

4-Core


Windows

2008R2

Table III lists the software used in this solution.

Table III: Solution software

Software Version

Microsoft Windows Server 2008R2 SP1 Enterprise Edition

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 SP1 Enterprise Edition

Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2 SP1 Enterprise Edition

Metalogix StoragePoint 3.4

VMware vCenter 5.0

VMware ESXi Server 5.0

Table IV lists the allocation of virtual hardware resources used in this solution.

Table IV: Allocation of virtual resources

Virtual machine role Quantity Configuration

Web front end (WFE) 2 8 CPU 4GB RAM

Application 1 8 CPU 8GB RAM

Crawl Server 1 4 CPU 8GB RAM

Microsoft SQL 1 8 CPU 32GB RAM

Domain Controller 1 2 CPU 8GB RAM

Environment profile

This solution was validated with the environment profile listed in Table 5.

Table V: Environment profiles

Requirements Quantity/Type/Size

SharePoint – Total User

count

10,000 with two WFEs

SharePoint – Content DB

sizes

150GB and 250GB

SharePoint – Number of

Content DBs

2


Physical deployment

This section describes the test scenario and test progression of a generic small -

medium sized SharePoint farm. Tests scenarios include, cataloging an existing file

share, and externalizing an existing SQL Content DB using Metalogix StoragePoint as

the RBS provider.

The SharePoint farm was designed as a small – medium farm with 2 WFEs, 1 crawl

server, 1 SQL Server and 1 application server.

The entire farm, including boot volumes for the virtual machines and content

databases, was stored in an NFS connected datastore on the Isilon X200. The farm

consists of two content DBs (150GB and 250GB). A separate SMB share containing

file based data was also used for purposes of cataloging data into SharePoint.

Figure 2 below shows the physical architecture of the tested solution:

Figure 2: Physical architecture

Storage configuration

In a completely virtualized solution, virtual machine disks (VMDKs) and the external

file share and associated BLOB data are stored within the EMC Isilon file system. Data

was logically separated by placing virtual machine data in separate disk pools. Virtual

machine data was placed in the Isilon x200 disk pool. File share data and shared

folders containing externalized BLOBs were placed in the Isilon 72NL disk pool. These

directories were shared via SMB and added to StoragePoint as storage endpoints.


Disk pool configuration

Disk pools were used to control data placement between the different node types.

Each Disk Pool is a homogenous group of nodes with an Isilon storage cluster. For

example, Isilon S-Series nodes with 300 GB SAS drives and one 200 GB SSD per

node would be in one pool, whereas Isilon NL-Series nodes with 3 TB SATA Drives

would be in another.

A single Isilon storage cluster may consist of multiple disk pools, since OneFS enables

the grouping of multiple node types into a single file system. Each node type is

optimized for a different capacity-to-performance ratio, so it is common for

organizations to leverage all these architectures into one cluster in order to ensure an

optimum match between their different data sets and the storage nodes that they

reside on.

Disk pools define resources in the pool such as the node type and disk type, SSD use

and associated data protection settings.

For more information on planning and implementing SmartPools file-pool policies,

consult the “Next Generation Storage Tiering with EMC Isilon SmartPools” white

paper, a link to which is provided in the References section of this Guide.

In order to ensure that the shared folder used for the external BLOB data is stored on

the Isilon 72NL nodes, the folder’s disk pool setting was adjusted in the OneFS WebUI

file system explorer, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Disk-pool assignment for BLOB folder

Best Practice: When virtualizing SharePoint environments and remote BLOB

locations on EMC Isilon clusters containing multiple node types, it is a best practice to

separate remote BLOB data and virtual machine data into separate disk pools.

SmartConnect

EMC Isilon SmartConnect software was used in order to load balance ESXI host

connections as well as server connections to the storage.


Isilon SmartConnect software optimizes network-throughput performance and

availability by enabling intelligent client-connection load-balancing and failover

capabilities.

Through a single host name, SmartConnect enables client-connection load balancing,

as well as dynamic NFS failover and failback of client connections across storage

nodes to provide optimal utilization of the cluster’s available network connections. By

leveraging an organization’s existing DNS infrastructure, SmartConnect provides

universal compatibility with all client types, eliminating the need for complicated

connection management on the client side. With SmartConnect, in the event of a

node or path failure, file-system stability and availability are maintained for NFS

clients that support automatic path failover.

To a client system, the cluster appears as a single network element. SmartConnect

automatically balances incoming client connections across all available interfaces on

the Isilon storage cluster, improving performance on the cluster by distributing the

workload evenly across multiple network paths and multiple nodes.

Best Practice: EMC recommends using SmartConnect in virtualized SharePoint

environments in order to balance network throughput. For additional information on

SmartConnect options and configuration, refer to the SmartConnect Best Practice

Guide.

Baseline performance results

Prior to testing the BLOB externalization with StoragePoint a set of baseline

performance tests were run to determine the number of users with acceptable

response times.

Baseline test results determined that the SharePoint farm consisting of two WFEs can

support 12,000 users.

Table VI shows summarizes test results for the baseline tests.

Table VI: Baseline test performance results

Test Name Scenario Avg. Test Time (sec)

Upload Mixed 1.23

Modify Mixed 1

Search Mixed 0.3

Download Mixed 0.3

Browse Mixed 0.2

Acceptable response times for a heavy SharePoint user profile is under 3 seconds for

each of the tests.

The limiting factor during the test was the web front end CPUs which averaged 60%

on two web front end servers.

http://simple.isilon.com/doc-viewer/1806/smartconnect-optimize-scale-out-storage-performance-and-availability.pdf?utm_campaign=www&utm_medium=link-txt&utm_source=library



Test Scenario 1: adding files to SharePoint using StoragePoint File Share Librarian

In this test, the Metalogix StoragePoint File Share Librarian was used to catalog file-

share data from an existing file share in to a SharePoint Content DB. The file share

in this test consisted of approximately 100GB of file-based data. Data types include

Microsoft Office documents, PDF files, and media files. Individual file sizes range from

100KB to 12MB. This scenario would be used for a customer wanting to add file share

content to SharePoint without physically moving the files. The File Share Librarian

catalogs the file share metadata without moving the actual files. This option allows

for users to connect using the existing file share or to restrict users to only connect

through SharePoint.

Best Practice: Before cataloging file shares it is strongly recommended that a full

backup be taken and kept for historical purposes.

Best Practice: After data has been cataloged, it is recommended that access from

the file share be disabled for security and to ensure that users cannot modify contents

without accessing the data through SharePoint.

Configuration

The Metalogix File Share librarian was set to catalog the file share and present it as a

new Content Database within SharePoint.

The FileShare Librarian adds the links in the Content DB to the file share data based

on where the data resides in SharePoint. For purposes of this test a site within an

existing site collection was chosen.

Once the File Share Librarian has cataloged a file share, if new content is added,

shared system cache must be enabled.

The basic process of cataloging file share data into SharePoint is as follows:

1. Enter a name of the File Share Librarian job.

2. For Access Mode:

a. If the file share will no longer be available to users after the content is

catalogued, select SharePoint Only.

b. If users will continue to access and modify files directly from the file share,

select SharePoint and File Share.

3. Enter the UNC path of the file share to be cataloged in the File Share to Catalog

and click validate.

4. Select the Promote folder permissions to SharePoint containers checkbox.

5. Click Change to the Select the SharePoint Destination Container.

6. Enter the settings to schedule the job.

7. Click Save to save the settings or click Catalog File Share Now.

For complete process details, see pages 112-113 of the Metalogix StoragePoint

Installation and Administration Guide.


Results

For this test one server in the SharePoint farm was used for cataloging, with a thread

count of 10. The test cataloged 100GB of data in 6 minutes. The existing file share

remained accessible while the SharePoint content was updating.

Performance impact during catalog process was minimal. CPU on the server used for

the catalog process was impacted the most.

Scenario 2: externalizing BLOBs with StoragePoint

This test scenario simulates an existing 150 GB SharePoint Content DB being

externalized with RBS to an SMB File share on EMC Isilon storage. Practical

application of this scenario would be an existing SharePoint environment wanting to

externalize BLOBs from the SQL databases onto an alternative tier of storage. The

process of externalization uses Metalogix StoragePoint.

Configuration

The process for externalizing BLOBs with SharePoint is as follows:

1. Install Metalogix StoragePoint

2. Create storage end points for your BLOB stores

3. Create storage profiles that dictate how BLOBs are externalized.

4. Create storage profile timer jobs.

5. Click Analyze and Estimate to display an estimate of the space savings that will

result from running the externalize job.

6. Click Save to save the configured job schedule or choose to run the job

immediately.

For complete setup and process instructions please refer to page 76 of the Metalogix

StoragePoint Installation and Administration Guide.

Results

Externalization of the 150GB content database took 1.5 hours.

The time required to externalize the Content database is dependent on the size of the

content database and the size of the files being externalized.

Scenario 3: performance during externalization

After running the basic externalization test scenario, the following test scenario was

executed to show the effects of BLOB externalization on existing user load.

Metalogix StoragePoint provides the ability to control the number of servers used

during externalization. Any number of servers in the SharePoint farm can be used to

start the externalization process. Externalization jobs from any server in the

SharePoint farm can be disabled without interrupting the running job. The number of

servers used for externalization and the size of the content database, will affect the

time taken to for the job to complete.

Best Practice: While not strictly necessary, EMC Isilon strongly recommends that

externalization jobs be performed during periods when users and other bulk


processes are not heavily utilizing the system resources used in the externalization

job. Doing so will minimize impact to user performance.

Results

During the externalization test, CPU on the web front end servers and SQL server

were impacted the most. CPU utilization on the web front end servers increased

approximately 20%. While SQL server CPU and disk latency metrics remained within

acceptable limits there was an increase in SQL server transactions per second.

Altering the amount of threads for each server in the StoragePoint externalization job

can will decrease the effect on CPU utilization but increase the overall time taken for

the externalization job to run. For recommendations on job settings refer to the

Metalogix StoragePoint Installation and Administration Guide.

Validation and testing

The results in this section show testing from the baseline to a fully externalized

SharePoint farm with a migrated file share on an alternate tier of storage. Testing of

this solution validates the functionality of EMC Isilon as the alternate tier of BLOB

storage and StoragePoint’s File Share Librarian.

Test methodology

During performance tests Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) was used to simulate

load on the SharePoint farm.

During the tests 12,000 users were simulated according to the Microsoft heavy-user

profile, which specifies 60 requests per hour. A think time of 0% was applied to all

tests. Zero percent think time is the elimination of typical user decision making time

when browsing, searching, or modifying data using SharePoint. Every user request is

completed without pause, generating a continuous workload on the system.

Baseline response times for each test type are detailed in Table VII below.

Table VII: Response times

Test Type Action Percentage Recommended

Response time

Browse User browse 60 Less than 3 seconds

Search Unique value search 10 Less than 3 seconds

Modify Metadata modify and upload 10 Less than 3 seconds

Download Download a document 20 Less than 3 seconds

Full performance tests were run with two WFEs. Performance tests were run to obtain

performance metrics under the following conditions:

12,000 users accessing a normally operating SharePoint environment

User load while cataloging external file share data

User load while externalizing existing content database


Notes on performance test results

Performance test results are highly dependent on workload, specific application

requirements, and system design and implementation. System performance will vary

as a result of these and other factors. Performance results from this test should not

be used as a substitute for specific customer application benchmark and proper

application specific to the customer environment

All performance data contained in this report was obtained in a rigorously controlled

environment. Results obtained in other operating environments may vary

significantly.

For additional information on sizing SharePoint environments refer to the following

documentation.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff758647.aspx#fundamentals

When sizing Isilon storage always work with your sales representative for specific

sizing guidance.

Results summary

The following shows the movement of data by showing the amount of space used for

each scenario. After externalization, the Content DB space is still used by Microsoft

SQL Server until the storage reclaim job is run and the database is shrunk.

Cataloging and migrating the file share-based data increases the size of the Content

DB used for that share.

Table VIII below shows the reduction in size of the SQL content databases after

externalizing BLOB data.

Table VIII: Content database size

Size Before Shrink Size After Shrink Reduction %

105GB 1.7GB 98%

220GB 2.5GB 88%

Storage performance results

After externalization completed, storage metrics were collected during performance

runs to determine impact of running externalized BLOBs on the EMC Isilon storage.

The following performance metrics were collected to gauge performance impact from

the virtual SharePoint servers as well as SMB related traffic due to SharePoint access

of externalized BLOBs.

Disk impact from the virtual machines is measured by analyzing NFS throughput and

total disk I/O metrics against the relevant disk pools on the EMC Isilon cluster.

System utilization across the cluster was also measured to CPU headroom while under

load.

Figure 4 shows total disk throughput with respect to the NFS datastore.



Figure 4: VNF throughput (VM activity) during load testing

To measure the performance impact placed on the storage by SharePoint users

accessing documents, the total SMB throughput against the external BLOB store was

analyzed. During load testing the average total SMB throughput was 18.64MB/s.

Figure 5 shows the total SMB throughput during SharePoint performance testing.

Figure 5: SMB throughput (BLOB activity) during load testing

Figure 6 shows the total disk I/O load placed on the cluster from SharePoint virtual

servers and external BLOB stores.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

NFS MB/s

NFS MB/s

0

5

10

15

20

25

SMB MB/s

SMB MB/s


Figure 6: Disk I/O activity during load testing

Conclusion

Metalogix StoragePoint can be used with EMC Isilon Scale-out NAS to externalize

SharePoint BLOBs from existing databases and migrate legacy file share data into

SharePoint.

The solution testing outlined in this paper demonstrates that StoragePoint integration

is a highly efficient way to move SharePoint data to BLOB Storage, freeing space that

would normally be contained in a Microsoft SQL Server database. Externalization

provides reliable performance while reducing the need for higher cost storage tiers

offering the ability to scale capacity while providing an easy-to-manage storage

solution. At the same time, Isilon scale-out NAS provides a highly scalable, resilient

and efficient storage platform for the externalized SharePoint data

References

Product Documentation

For additional information, see the documents listed below.

Isilon OneFS Configuration Guide

SmartConnect Best Practices

SmartPools

Metalogix StoragePoint Installation and Administration Guide

Capacity planning and sizing overview for SharePoint 2010 and 2013

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50

100

150

200

250

Total Disk Throughput

Total Disk Throughput


http://simple.isilon.com/doc-viewer/1747/next-generation-storage-tiering-with-emc-isilon-smartpools.pdf?utm_campaign=www&utm_medium=link-txt&utm_source=library



About EMC Isilon

EMC Isilon is the global leader in scale-out NAS. We provide powerful yet simple

solutions for enterprises that want to manage their data, not their storage. Isilon

products are simple to install, manage and scale, at any size and, unlike traditional

enterprise storage, Isilon stays simple no matter how much storage is added, how

much performance is required, or how business needs change in the future. We’re

challenging enterprises to think differently about their storage, because when they

do, they’ll recognize there’s a better, simpler way. Learn what we mean at

www.emc.com/isilon.

U.S. Patent Numbers 7,146,524; 7,346,720; 7,386,675. Other patents pending.

Contact EMC Isilon

www.emc.com/isilon

505 1st Avenue South, Seattle, WA 98104

Toll-free: 877-2-ISILON | Phone: +1-206-315-7602

Fax: +1-206-315-7501 | Email: [email protected]

http://www.emc.com/isilon

http://www.emc.com/isilon

mailto:[email protected]

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