1 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun Systems for Microsoft

Hyper-V R2
SharePoint Server 2007
Server Farm Use Case
Version 1.0
Randal Sagrillo
October 2009
2 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Table of Contents
SharePoint Server 2007 Use Case Overview.............................................................................3
SharePoint Server Farm Hardware Configuration......................................................................4
Physical Server Hardware Configuration - Sun Fire X4170...................................................4
Expansion Storage Hardware Configuration - Sun Storage J4200........................................5
SharePoint Server Farm Virtual Machine Layout.......................................................................6
Virtual Machine Resource Allocation......................................................................................7
Solution Validation.......................................................................................................................9
Acceptable User Response Times.........................................................................................9
Test Configuration...................................................................................................................9
50 User Baseline Test Results Summary.............................................................................10
350 User Test Results Summary..........................................................................................12
Conclusions...............................................................................................................................13
Appendix A: Configuration Details............................................................................................14
Disk Configuration Details.........................................................................................................14
VM and Network Configuration Details.....................................................................................17
3 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

SharePoint Server 2007 Use Case Overview

This paper describes technical implementation and testing results of a SharePoint Server
2007 server farm implemented using the Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2 solution.

The four key objectives for this use case were:

● Design this server farm such that it meets or exceeds MS performance guidelines(i.e.
sub-second response times for all operations).

● Implement the entire SharePoint server farm in the smallest possible 'footprint:' Ideally
one rack unit total for all compute elements.

● Use minimum disk resources (spindles) for this transactionally (I/O) oriented workload
(under the assumption that adding disk capacity (spindles) will further increase
transactional performance via increased disk IOPS in customer deployments).

● Validate use case performance using the guidelines available from the MSDN.

The SharePoint Server 2007 server farm described in this paper was designed, implemented
and tested by Sun engineers at the Sun/Microsoft Interoperability Center in Redmond,
Washington. Validation and testing were completed in July 2009. All test results were against
build 7233 (pre-RTM) of Windows Server 2008 R2.

Readers of this paper are assumed to have some technical and implementation familiarity
with Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft SharePoint 2007
Server and its support components (including Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, Active
Directory, and other Microsoft applications) It is also recommended that readers refer to the
following resources for specifics of Sun Systems for Hyper-V R2.

● Sun Systems for Hyper-V R2 Hardware Requirements Guide for Midsize Companies
● Sun Blueprint: Configuring Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V on Sun Fire x64
Servers
4 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

SharePoint Server Farm Hardware Configuration

The Sun Systems for Hyper-V 2008 R2 solution specifies the Sun Fire X4270 server and Sun
Storage J4400 Expansion arrays. As the target size was 1000 SharePoint users, the solution
is based on the Medium Configuration, but customized using a smaller chassis and next
higher clock rate CPU's.

Physical Server Hardware Configuration - Sun Fire X4170

The Sun Fire X4170 enabled a 50% reduction in footprint. The Sun Fire X4170 delivers
nearly identical functionality, performance and behavior to the Sun Fire x4270 in half the size
(1 RU vs. 2 RU), except for featuring three instead of six PCIe Gen2 expansion slots; eight
instead of sixteen internal hard disk drives and and smaller fans and smaller power supplies.
The X4170 is configured as follows:

● Two Quad-Core Xeon 5570 2.93 GHz processors (“Nehalem”) with two hardware
strands (threads) per core for 16 high performance hardware strands per server.
● 72GB of DDR3 RAM.
● Four 10/100/1000 Mbps physical Ethernet NICs minimum per server (plus ILOM NIC.)
● Dual Redundant Hot swappable power supplies.
● Redundant Hot Swappable Cooling Fans.
● Three PCIe Gen2 I/O slots.
● Eight internal 146GB 10KRPM SAS Hot Pluggable Hard Disk Drives.
● Sun StorageTek Internal SAS RAID HBA to build hardware RAID arrays using the
internal hard disk drives above (PCIe Slot 0.)

This gives a total SharePoint Server 2007 server farm footprint of 1 RU (Rack Unit) or 1.75” of
rack height for a very dense physical package.
5 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Expansion Storage Hardware Configuration - Sun Storage J4200

Likewise, to reduce the storage rack footprint by half, Sun engineers deployed the Sun
Storage J4200 which delivers nearly identical functionality, performance and behavior to the
Sun Storage J4400 in half the footprint (2 RU vs. 4 RU) except for featuring twelve instead of
twenty-four internal hard disk drives (HDDs) and associated smaller fans and smaller power
supplies. Additionally, testing included one Sun StorageTek External SAS RAID HBA in PCIe
Slot 1 for the X4170 to build hardware RAID arrays using the HDDs in the J4200 expansion
chassis. The J4200 is configured as follows:

● Twelve 146GB 15KRPM SAS Hot Pluggable Hard Disk Drives.

● Single IOM (only one SAS cable connection allowed per SAS RAID HBA.)
● Dual Redundant Hot swappable power supplies (also provide cooling.)
6 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

SharePoint Server Farm Virtual Machine Layout

Hyper-V 2008 R2 supports up to eight guest virtual machines (VMs.) To implement the
SharePoint server farm, there are six key roles that need to be isolated into separate
machines (VMs in this case) based on best practice. The roles are:

● Two Web Front Ends (IIS) for load sharing and resiliency
● SharePoint Indexing Server
● SharePoint Excel Services
● Exchange Server
● SQL Server

Also, a domain controller was required. For this testing, the domain controller was placed in a
separate virtual machine within the solution. Many deployments may already contain an
external domain controller which can simply connect the servers to the active domain.

Finally, for ease of maintenance, a master VM was used for testing updates to speed
execution and agility.

In addition to the Virtual Machines, two Virtual Network Switches were created. One to
connect all servers together: the VM Network. The other a Virtual Network Load Balancer
Switch used to connect the two Web Front Ends to the network clients. Each of these virtual
networks is associated with a separate physical gigabit ethernet port, leaving two spare
gigabit ethernet ports for future expansion.
7 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Virtual Machine Resource Allocation

Each virtual machine is assigned the following resources:

● a virtual NIC to the VM network

● a .vhd for it's C: drive.

Virtual CPUs and memory were allocated per the table below.

VM Resource Allocation Table

Virtual Machine Role VM Name # of Virtual Memory
CPUs (GB)
Active Directory Domain Controller DC 1 2
SharePoint Excel Services EXCELSVCS 4 8
Exchange Server EXCH2K7-R2 2 8
Administrative Master/Parent Master 1 1
SharePoint Indexing Server Sharepoint2k7 4 8
SQL Server SQL1 2 8
Web Front End 1 WFE1 4 8
Web Front End 2 WFE2 4 8

In addition, the Exchange and SQL servers have data and log pass through disks for higher
performance.

Screenshot of the system drives (LUNS) is shown below.

8 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Finally, as previously indicated, each of the Web Front Ends also has a Network Load
Balancing NIC provisioned and attached to the virtual NLB switch. Configuration details for
the solution can be found in Appendix A.
9 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Solution Validation
The model for solution validation was based on methods described in 'Plan for software
boundaries (Microsoft SharePoint Services)' which is available at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287790.aspx#section3
The key acceptance criteria being user response times. The following excerpt from the Plan
above:

Acceptable User Response Times

The following table provides guidelines for acceptable user response times for four types of
user operations. Note that your business requirements may allow longer or shorter response
times than suggested.
The testing goal was to provide sub-second response time for all end-user operations.
However, this is not possible in all cases, so the guidelines in the following table were used.
Type of operation Examples Acceptable user response time

Common operation Browsing to the home page <3 seconds

 Browsing to a document
library
Uncommon  Creating a subsite Creating <5 seconds
operation
a list
 Uploading a document to a
document library
Rare operation  Backing up a site <7 seconds
 Creating a site collection

Long-running  Indexing a site Varies with operation and system configuration. All long running
operation operations will have either an information or status page.

Test Configuration
A workload generator running on a Sun Ultra 40 workstation (server name U40-LEFT) was
connected via gigabit Ethernet to the virtualized SharePoint server farm running on the Sun
Fire X4170.
10 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

50 User Baseline Test Results Summary

To validate operation of the server farm, a simple 50 user baseline ran for ~30 minutes as
shown below.

50 User Baseline Load Test Summary

Test Run Information

Load test name LoadTest2
Description
Start time 7/6/2009 10:27:22 AM
End time 7/6/2009 10:56:33 AM
Warm-up duration 00:00:00
Duration 00:29:10
Controller EXCH2K7-R2
Number of agents 5
Run settings used Run Settings1
Overall Results
Max User Load 50
Requests/Sec 1,264
Requests Failed 0
Requests Cached Percentage 0
Avg. Response Time (sec) 0.068
11 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Avg. Content Length (bytes) 8,676

Tests/Sec 61.3
Tests Failed 0
Avg. Test Time (sec) 0.84
Avg. Transaction Time (sec) 0
Avg. Page Time (sec) 0.83
Key Statistic: Top 5 Slowest Pages
URL (Link to More Details) Avg. Page Time (sec)
http://spweb/sites/sitedirectory/Pages/c... 0.90
http://spweb/sites/SiteDirectory/Pages/c... 0.82
http://spweb/sites/BigHierarchyPublishin... 0.79
Key Statistic: Top 5 Slowest Tests
Name Avg. Test Time (sec)
sitesdirectory 0.90
sitesdirectorysitesincategory 0.83
sitemanager 0.79
 Test Results
Name Scenario Total Tests Failed Tests (% of total) Avg. Test Time (sec)
sitesdirectory Scenario1 32,698 0 (0) 0.90
sitesdirectorysitesincategory Scenario1 33,674 0 (0) 0.83
sitemanager Scenario1 40,913 0 (0) 0.79
 Page Results
Avg.
Page
URL (Link to More Details) Scenario Test Count
Time
(sec)
http://spweb/sites/sitedirectory/Pages/category.aspx Scenario1 sitesdirectory 0.90 32,698
http://spweb/sites/SiteDirectory/Pages/categoryresults.aspx Scenario1 sitesdirectorysitesincategory 0.82 33,674
http://spweb/sites/BigHierarchyPublishingWeb/pages/default.aspx Scenario1 sitemanager 0.79 40,913
 Transaction Results
Name Scenario Test Response Time (sec) Elapsed Time (sec) Count
 System Under Test Resources
Machine Name % Processor Time Available Memory at Test Completion (Mb)
WFE1 77.3 6,824
WFE2 64.2 6,910
 Controller and Agents Resources
Machine Name % Processor Time Available Memory at Test Completion (Mb)
EXCELSVCS 27.0 7,316
U40-LEFT 33.6 5,645
SQL1 37.5 2,800
SHAREPOINT2K7 0.89 6,685
EXCH2K7-R2 77.6 6,965
12 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

350 User Test Results Summary

Then, assuming 1/3 users would be concurrently active on a 1000 user divisional portal, a
350 user load test run was performed for 2 hours. The results are shown below.
350 User Load Test Summary
Test Run Information
Load test name ReadMix-350-0Wait-old
Description
Start time 7/11/2009 2:57:27 PM
End time 7/11/2009 4:58:53 PM
Warm-up duration 00:00:00
Duration 02:01:26
Controller EXCH2K7-R2
Number of agents 5
Run settings used Run Settings1
Overall Results
Max User Load 350
Requests/Sec 687
Requests Failed 7
Requests Cached Percentage 24.9
Avg. Response Time (sec) 0.56
Avg. Content Length (bytes) 28,270
Tests/Sec 430
Tests Failed 7
Avg. Test Time (sec) 0.80
Avg. Transaction Time (sec) 0
Avg. Page Time (sec) 0.75
Key Statistic: Top 5 Slowest Pages
URL (Link to More Details) Avg. Page Time (sec)
http://spweb/sites/test1/testdoclib_A1/F... 2.55
http://spweb/sites/test1/Lists/testlist1... 0.65
http://spweb/sites/test1/testdoclib_A1/t... 0.65
http://spweb/sites/test1/Default.aspx 0.64
http://spweb/sites/test1/testdoclib_A1/t... 0.62
Key Statistic: Top 5 Slowest Tests
Name Avg. Test Time (sec)
WSSSmallDocLibAllItems 3.21
WSSDispForm 0.65
WSSHomePage 0.64
WSSDocHTTPFetch 0.62
 Test Results
Name Scenario Total Tests Failed Tests (% of total) Avg. Test Time (sec)
WSSSmallDocLibAllItems ReadMix 196,305 4 (0.0020) 3.21
WSSDispForm ReadMix 964,856 1 (0.00010) 0.65
WSSHomePage ReadMix 970,048 1 (0.00010) 0.64
WSSDocHTTPFetch ReadMix 999,036 1 (0.00010) 0.62
 Page Results
13 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Avg. Page Time

URL (Link to More Details) Scenario Test Count
(sec)
http://spweb/sites/test1/testdoclib_A1/Forms/Allitems.aspx ReadMix WSSSmallDocLibAllItems 2.55 196,305
http://spweb/sites/test1/Lists/testlist1/DispForm.aspx ReadMix WSSDispForm 0.65 964,856
http://spweb/sites/test1/testdoclib_A1/test1.txt ReadMix WSSSmallDocLibAllItems 0.65 196,305
http://spweb/sites/test1/Default.aspx ReadMix WSSHomePage 0.64 970,048
http://spweb/sites/test1/testdoclib_A1/test1.txt ReadMix WSSDocHTTPFetch 0.62 999,036
 Transaction Results
Name Scenario Test Response Time (sec) Elapsed Time (sec) Count
 System Under Test Resources
Machine Name % Processor Time Available Memory at Test Completion (Mb)
 Controller and Agents Resources
Machine Name % Processor Time Available Memory at Test Completion (Mb)
EXCELSVCS 42.8 6,999
U40-LEFT 20.7 5,750
SQL1 65.6 1,763
SHAREPOINT2K7 2.27 7,074
EXCH2K7-R2 1.47 6,691
 Errors
C
Type Subtype oun Last Message
t
Exce SocketExc A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of
5
ption eption time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond 10.5.20.247:80
401 -
Http
Unauthoriz 2 401 - Unauthorized
Error
ed

Analysis of the errors recorded above (7 total errors out of 3 Million test runs) determined that
all errors were part of the test rig scripting and not due to resourcing issues as part of the load
testing.

Conclusions
Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2 can deliver cost effective, dense, simple to manage
and high performance solutions for Midsize companies. In this detailed testing, an entire
SharePoint Server 2007 server farm implemented on a single server solution is shown to
deliver sub-second response times for a variety of web office portal queries. For more
information, please refer to: http://www.sun.com/solutions/midsize/hyperv.jsp.
14 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Appendix A: Configuration Details

Disk Configuration Details

Using Sun's Integrated Lights Out Management (ILOM) remote console, the actual array
(LUN) configurations for each of the two arrays controllers is shown.
15 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.
16 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.
17 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

VM and Network Configuration Details

Using RDP, the actual VM and network settings used during testing are shown.
18 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Note that the Network Configs for each of the two NLB NIC's in each of the WFE's will have
MAC address spoofing enabled.
19 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.
20 Sun Systems for Microsoft Hyper-V R2: SharePoint Server 2007 Server Farm Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Again note that the NLB network and VM network are on separate physical Gigabit Ethernet
ports on the x4170.