How to Architect & Deploy a

Multi-Tier SharePoint 2013 Farm in AWS

Presented by Jason Miller & Wayne Saxe

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Agenda • Introductions

• SharePoint 2013 challenges and

CloudFormation

• Microsoft workloads on AWS

• Typical SharePoint 2013 architectures

• SharePoint 2013 in AWS

• Migration approaches

• High availability considerations

• Questions

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Wayne Saxe - Ecosystem Solutions

Architect

• 10+ years of technology

industry experience

• Focus on empowering the

enterprise with the AWS Cloud

• Developing reference

architectures to showcase the

Microsoft platform within AWS

Jason Miller - Senior Consultant

• MCSE, MCSA + Messaging, MCP, MCITP,

MCTS

• 18+ years of technology industry experience

• 2 years at Summit 7 Systems

• Prior: Chief Engineer for NASA Exchange

consolidation project

• Originally a theater major

• Loves all aspects of tech

• Hates vanity slides

• @s7JasonM

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Enterprise IT Challenges

Meeting business growth

Data center limitations

Inflexible architecture

Disaster recovery & high

availability

Finding/retaining talent

Benefits of the AWS Cloud

• No up-front investment

• Low ongoing cost

• Flexible capacity

• Speed and agility

• Apps not ops

• Global reach

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AWS Cloud Layers

AWS Global Infrastructure

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9 Regions

25 Availability zones

Continuous

expansion

Key AWS Services

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AWS “Virtual Private Cloud”

• Launch AWS resources in a virtual network you define

• Environment closely resembles traditional network

• Control over IP address ranges, subnets, routes, gateways and

security settings

• Create encrypted VPN connections

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Extending Your Data Center

Microsoft Platform on AWS

• Microsoft “License Mobility through Software

Assurance” gives Microsoft Volume Licensing

customers the flexibility to deploy Windows

Server applications with active Software

Assurance (SA) on Amazon Web Services

• Partnership to support running Windows

Server-based workloads on AWS

• Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) with

Windows Server and SQL Server today that

were jointly developed by Microsoft and AWS

• SharePoint Server and other Microsoft server

products can be licensed to run on AWS

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General info on AWS and License Mobility for a variety of MS server

products:

http://aws.amazon.com/windows/mslicensemobility/

Detail on AWS and License Mobility with SQL Server:

http://aws.amazon.com/windows/mslicensemobility/sql/

SharePoint 2013 Challenges: On-Premises

• High availability is expensive

• Licensing can be expensive

• Hardware and support agreements

• Skilled personnel to develop and operate

• Office client harmony

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SharePoint 2013 Challenges:

Cloud • Licensing (maybe!)

• Some third party solutions may be difficult to implement

• Data privacy and security

• Network throughput

• Office client harmony

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SharePoint Common Workloads

• Enterprise collaboration, content management and team/project sites

• Web applications:

• ASP.NET++ documents/team, SharePoint services, social computer

workflow, backend connectivity, web-part personalization, etc.

• Search services - SharePoint Search Server

• MS Office services: Excel, Word, etc.

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SharePoint Scenarios

• Enterprise internal deployment of SharePoint

• All or partial deployment of corporate SharePoint infrastructure on AWS

• Intranet-only: user experience identical to running on-premise SharePoint

• Public-accessible Web Application/Website

• Web-based application built on SharePoint server

• For instance: customer service portal

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Intranet SharePoint on AWS • Enterprise (Intranet) SharePoint farm:

• Completely or partial (hybrid) hosted in AWS

• Extension of enterprise infrastructure into AWS

• Key points:

• Typically for corporate group collaboration, content sharing, team sites

• Internal only: access only from within corporate

• Active Directory on-premises: authenticate using corporate credentials

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Typical SharePoint 2013 Architectures: Intranet

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Typical SharePoint 2013 Architectures: Public

Website

• Public Website

• Hosted public website/application on AWS

• Leverage SharePoint Server capabilities for web- based application

(content, workflow)

• Key points:

• Complete solution deployed within AWS – Accessible via public internet

• DMZ for threat management

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Typical SharePoint 2013 Architectures: Public

Website

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Considerations for Multi-Functional Farms

• Search farms

• Lots of content? Consider a separate search farm

• Workflow Manager

• High availability requires minimum of three servers

• Office Web Apps

• OWA are independent of SharePoint 2013 farms

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SharePoint 2013 in AWS Sequential approach similar to a setup on-premises:

1. Create foundational infrastructure:

• Network, Routing, Security

• 2nd Datacenter for High Availability (2nd AWS Availability Zone)

2. Setup AD, Sites, Subnets, Site links

3. Set up MS SQL Server – primary, secondary, (witness)

4. Set up Application Servers

5. Set up Web Front End (WFE) servers

6. Network load balancing

7. SSL/DNS, etc. 22

SharePoint 2013 in AWS

• Consider VPC and public IP’s carefully

• RDS is not supported because it is SQL authentication only

• Automate deployment with CloudFormation templates

• Consider use of availability zones

• Understand AWS high availability features very thoroughly!

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SharePoint 2013 in AWS:

Intranet

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SharePoint 2013 in AWS: Public

Site

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Bonus: SharePoint 2013 Hybrid

• Many hybrid implementation considerations

• Intranet/AWS: Use AWS VPC and Direct Connect to get two farms

running

• Publish/consume farm services where required

• Leverage the flexibility of cloud and security of data simultaneously

• Hybrid farms:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj838715.aspx

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Active Directory in AWS

• Active Directory setup in VPC to provide user authentication for

SharePoint farm on AWS

• For the intranet scenario, AWS AD contents are replicated from

the AD on-premises via VPN (periodic refresh)

• For website scenario, users are created and maintained in AWS

AD

• If on-premises alternate directory exists (LDAP etc), then ADFS

should be considered to federate those with SharePoint

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Active Directory in AWS: Intranet

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Active Directory in AWS: Public Site

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Search in AWS

• Used to be FAST Search for SharePoint 2010

• SharePoint 2013 Search can be integrated into an existing farm or

broken out into a separate service

• For larger deployments, Microsoft recommends building a separate

search farm

• Publish the search service, consume on the user farms

• Read many different content sources on farms or federated

search

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SharePoint 2013 Workflow Services

• SharePoint 2013 introduces a new Workflow Manager service (for

2013 workflows)

• Separate install from SharePoint 2013 - not installed automatically

• Entire separate farm for SharePoint 2013 Workflow Manager can be

used that is not on the user-facing servers

• Or hook up to Windows Azure for processing workflows

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SharePoint 2013 Workflow Services

• Workflow Manager focus areas:

• High Density & Multi-tenancy

• Elastic Scale

• Activity / Workflow Artifact Management

• Tracking and Monitoring

• Instance Management

• Fully Declarative Authoring

• REST and Service Bus Messaging

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Server Setup

• Map Microsoft guidance for on-premises and virtualized SharePoint Server setups to EC2

• For each distinct server type/role:

• Select (or create/derive) AMI for the role – Windows, MS SQL, etc.

• Select EC2 Instance Type – pivot around CPU, RAM, storage, and networking performance

• Serves as an initial starting point for sizing/testing

• Test/tweak against your metrics and usage patterns, e.g. number of concurrent users, type and amounts of content, etc

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SharePoint Server Scaling

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Tier/Role Scenario Processor RAM Hard disk

Web/App Tier All 64-bit, 4 core 12 GB 80 GB

Database Small deployment 64-bit, 4-core 8 GB 80 GB

Database Medium deployment 64-bit, 8 core 16 GB 80 GB

Domain Controller All 64-bit, 4 core 8 GB 80 GB

Tier EC2 Instance and Range AMI to Use

Web Front End Extra large: m1.xlarge Windows 2012 or 2008 R2

App Server Extra large: High Memory Quad Extra Large (m2.xl–

m2.4xl) Windows 2012 or 2008 R2

Database Server High Memory Quadruple Extra Large

(m2.4xl) Win2012 + SQL 2012

Domain Controller Extra large: m1.xlarge Windows 2012 or 2008 R2

High Availability in AWS

• Core Concepts of AWS High Availability

• Multiple Regions

• Availability Zones

• Elastic Load Balancers (ELB)

• Rapid Provisioning and De-provisioning of Servers

• CloudWatch and Auto Scaling 35

High Availability in AWS

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High Availability for SharePoint

• Before you Design, Plan!

• Characteristics of High Availability for SharePoint

• Reduce Single Points of Failure

• Failover Events should have minimal Effects

• Farm Continues to Function

• Build Redundancy into each component of the Farm

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High Availability for SharePoint

Stretched Farms

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• Use Two or More Availability

Zones

• Use Private Subnets for Each

Tier

• Control Ingress and Eagress

with Security Groups

• Database Mirroring for SQL

• Synchronous vs.

Asynchronous

High Availability for SharePoint

SQL 2012 Always on Availability Groups

• HA solution provides alternative

to Database Mirroring

• Provides Automatic Failover

almost Instantaneously

• Builds on SQL Availability

Groups

• Doesn't Require Shared Disk

Storage

• Very Similar to Deploying in an

on-premise environment

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Deployment Tools • AWS CloudFormation

• Specify creation and configuration of AWS resources in a JSON- based template

• Deploy template using AWS CloudFormation to create a ‘stack’ of running resources

• Integrates with other deployment scripts/tools

• Private AMI Creation

• Windows PowerShell

• Execute on instance at provisioning time via instance Metadata

• Use PowerShell to orchestrate CloudFormation template launches

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Migration Strategies • Existing SharePoint 2013 on-premises deployment project

• Set content databases to read-only

• Detach and copy to AWS

• Attach content database

• Third party utilities to hot-migrate data

• Dell Migration Manager

• AvePoint DocAve

• Metalogix

• Migration project whitepaper:

https://software.dell.com/whitepaper/best-practices-for-migrating-to-sharepoint-online-in-office-365825430/

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Advanced Implementation

• Available in pdf format:

https://aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/sharepoint-implementation-guide

• Comprehensive guide detailing all of the components of the AWS

CloudFormation templates, AMI and instance configuration, parameters

that can be varied, etc

• Walks through ALL of the AWS CloudFormation details, PowerShell scripts,

cfn-init details, etc

• Targeted to customers and systems integrators that want to understand all

the details, to customize, extend, etc

More Reading Web Pages Microsoft on AWS http://aws.amazon.com/microsoft/

SharePoint on AWS http://aws.amazon.com/sharepoint/ Windows on AWS http://aws.amazon.com/windows/ (includes pricing) Amazon EC2 Windows Guide http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide/ Microsoft AMIs for Windows and SQL Server https://aws.amazon.com/amis?ami_provider_id=1&platform=Windows &selection=ami_provider_id%2Bplatform Microsoft License Mobility http://aws.amazon.com/windows/mslicensemobility/

Whitepapers

Microsoft SharePoint Server on AWS: Reference

Architecture

Secure Microsoft Applications on AWS

Implementing Microsoft Windows Server Failover

Clustering (WSFC) and SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn

Availability Groups in the AWS Cloud

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 in the AWS Cloud:

Planning & Implementation Guide

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Contact us!

Microsoft (general) https://aws.amazon.com/microsoft/contact-us/

SharePoint https://aws.amazon.com/sharepoint/contact-us/

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