Michael is one of the authors of Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Unleashed, and well know for his SharePoint expertise. He did a walkthrough of build process, from best practices perspective, covering small deployments with all SharePoint roles and SQL server on the same server, though SharePoint roles on a a single box, with SQL server on separate box, to a fully redundant set up with multiple query servers and an index server. That set up requires 5 servers, and is the smallest redundant farm configuration.

For larger user populations, SharePoint scales using multiple web role servers, query server, etc… That also provides the opportunity to have a production farm and an independent test/development set up. That can either be achieved with additional dedicated servers, or by making use of server virtualization. Microsoft server licensing allows for up to 4 instances of a virtual host on a server. Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is an excellent option and cost effective, according to a number of conversations during the evening. Third party virtualisation is supported as well - see Knowledge Base Article 897615 – including VMware and Citrix XenServer. Michael’s advice was that not all roles should be virtualised, although the best candidate for virtualisation is the web frontend.

In anything but a smaller set up, the SQL database role requires a large amount of space, especially if versioning is turned on in document libraries (resulting in every version being stored). Likewise, reasonable hard drive space needs to be allocated to the index and query services. Given the continual fall off in hard disk storage costs, and increasing capacities, this shouldn’t present an issue in most deployments.

Michael suggested that the more memory and processor cores that can be given to SharePoint the better, in the following priority: the Database Role, the Index Role and lastly the Web/Query Role.

Something else to bear in mind is that 64 bit computing is now truly upon us, and a server refresh needs to be part of your strategic IT planning if you plan on running the latest Microsoft applications. The next version of SharePoint is x64 bit only. SQL Server 2008 is recommend, especially  if you require transparent encryption of databases for security (although that should only apply to high compliance environments).

There is relatively little complexity to the network-level security for SharePoint. Opening port 1433 on the firewall to let the SQL server talk to SharePoint servers is required, important if you are using the built in Windows firewall capability. Michael gave a number of recommendations for setting up accounts, and they are covered in the slides and the book.

Some analysts weren’t so convinced about SharePoint’s Web content Management capabilities (at least back in 2007), but things have moved on a great deal. There are third party applications to enhance search, provide backup management and also SharePoint-aware anti-virus products. From  the begining of April SharePoint Designer will be free, and there may well be some new tools too.

Something to remember with SharePoint is that it is a tool, and tools can be used badly as well as effectively. It isn’t uncommon to come across SharePoint installations that have turned into hundreds of information pockets, rather than an enterprise-wide collaboration tool. All too often, IT staff end up structuring set ups around organisational groups, rather than functional teams. The two things are very different, and achieve different results.

From my perspective, business should be careful not to use SharePoint to replicate departmental silos. Instead, it should be used to ensure that data and resources are both discoverable and protected.

The evening ended with a very extensive Q&A. If you want to develop your SharePoint skills, you might want to check out the April best practices conference. A number of tools that were discussed during the evening will be demonstrated there. Check out the site for details of the London conference.

SharePoint has certainly caught my interest again with its growing feauture set. There is still a long way to go for it to catch up with some of the more mature wiki systems, but the gap is definitely closing.

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• NetBenefit – UK Hosting
• VMWare or is that VM Where?

NetBenefit are part of the publicly listed Group NBT plc (LSE:NBT) and have a broad customer base. They first came to my attention for their domain registration services, but also offer managed hosting and co-location. They have started to provide virtualization services, based on VMWare technology, and I’m sure we’ll hear more about that later this year.

It is almost impossible to have a conversation about hosting with out ‘the green issue’ coming up these days. Kristel and Mark confirmed that they are frequently asked questions about their policy and how they source power. Their latest data centre uses renewable resources, something that is becoming a theme for many. It seems a reasonable question to ask of a supplier, as environmental policies start to propagate up the supply chain. If you aren’t being asked questions about your energy usage yet, then expect to be soon.

The majority of customers are building services on Apache with mySQL (now part of Sun’s empire), and hybrid set ups are very common – where users have their own data centre, together with some servers in a hosting provider’s facilities. This set up provides the best of both worlds, keeping key applications in-house and on-net, while putting Internet bandwidth-hungry apps off-site. Interestingly, Mark noted that Web 2.0 adaption has resulted in growing bandwidth requirements, due to richer content and more interactivity – something to be aware of as you adopt the technologies.

NetBenefit partner with Panther Express to provide their content delivery network service (See NetBenefit CDN), a solution that has worked to great effect for The National Archives, supporting well over a million downloads over the course of four days. “CDNs aren’t just about cutting costs,” said Mark, “they are about better user experience, performance and moving the content closer to the customer.”

Many hosting providers are challenged to provide CDNs, due to the need for a large number of geographically dispersed hosting locations, so partnering with a CDN player is a smart move. It is a good complement to traditional hosting, and something to think about if you have very high traffic volumes to a global audience.

NetBenefit, like many in their space, see Amazon S3 and Google as a big competitive threat, but are quick to point our their advantages in customer support and pre-sales consultancy. They don’t compete at the lower end of the market (Group NBT has the Easily brand to cover that space). They seek to differentiate themselves by using quality equipment (they use Dell hardware), and pride themselves on their highly experienced staff.

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• Rackspace Heads for the Clouds
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• VMWare or is that VM Where?

VMWare’s recent woes are well documented, a recent article on The Register gives a taster. Executive shuffles and iffy patches certainly haven’t helped the company’s image in recent times. But it isn’t all doom and gloom. The new CEO has been well received in some quarters and they have also announced a collaboration with Cisco to accelerate the virtualization of the data center.

The benefits of server virtualization are fairly widely understood (some of the main points were touched on in the “data center efficiency” post here a while back). Many people are also using VMWare on the desktop too, generally to support multiple operating systems at once. It is a big win for IT staff and programmers who have to cross between different platforms to get their jobs done. Virtualizing the OS means you get to work from one machine, but can quickly switch operating systems as and when you need to.

Things haven’t stood still on the server side though. The latest version of VMWare Fusion lets you go headless, meaning that the virtual machine has no consoles connected to it. Very useful in the data centre.

VMWare is also hooking itself to the Cloud, but not irrevocably so. Whilst they have strong competition, their technology remains strong. They know their space well and have responded to the challenges their users face.

With the introduction of new technologies such as VMotion (nicely explained in the depths of James Urquhart’s post on the VMWare and Cisco initiative) and vStorage, to go with vCloud – you get vNaming idea, right? – they continue to push the virtualization envelope.

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