Radi Atanassov & Ognyan Guglev

OneBit Software

Practical management of development & QA

environments for SharePoint 2013

For Developers

About Us

• SharePoint

2010 MCM

• SharePoint

Server MVP

• OneBit

Software

• Web

Platform

User Group

Radi Atanassow Ognyan Guglev

• SharePoint

2010 Administrator

• 2008 Server

Enterprise

Administrator

• 2010 Enterprise

Exchange

Administrator

• OneBit

Software

Agenda

The needs of Dev and QA teams

Challenges from the perspective of IT

Deployment options

Cloning vs Provisioning

Licensing

PowerShell automation

SCVMM

Performance& Hardware

Tips, Tricks & Recommendations

DEFINE THE BUSINESS NEEDS

AND IT CHALLENGES

SP Developers and QA Teams

They need servers:

SharePoint Server

Office Web Apps Server

Workflow Manager Server

Server management requires knowledge

and time…

QA needs a little bit more:

Different environments

Automated deployment & tests

Defining the strategy

1 per project vs 1 for

many projects

1 for each version of

SharePoint

Developers?

Team Leaders?

QA Team?

IT?

How many servers? Who creates servers?

Single VM

Multiple VM’s

Retention & IT Governance

Too many VM’s could become a key concern

When should you delete/archive the virtual

machines?

Who should delete/archive virtual machines?

Responsibilities of IT

Be responsible for the “high-availability” of the

development & QA teams

Provide overall management of these needs

Creation, retention, networking, storage,

performance, automation

Manage the hardware

Environment Goals

Save developer time!

Provision development environments in under 3 hours

Automating repetitive tasks (installation, configuration, tools, code repositories, shortcuts)

Make the developer experience the same

Avoid data loss (thin VM’s)

Avoid restoring broken environments

The best developer performance

Remote work

Managing Environments

INFRASTRUCTURE

CONSIDERATIONS

Infrastructure Considerations

Windows Server

Active Directory Domain Services

Microsoft SQL Server

SharePoint

Visual Studio & Source Control

Workflow Manager?

Office Web Apps Server?

Client test machine (Office, browsers)

Deployment Options - Desktops

Deployment Options - Centralised

Deployment Options - Mixed

Deployment Options - Shared

Workflow Manager 2013

Office Web Apps Server 2013

Active Directory

Deployment Options - Shared

Workflow Manager 2013

Office Web Apps Server 2013

Active Directory

SQL Server?

Deployment Options - Cloud

Comparisons

IT manages the

server infrastructure

Saves developer/QA

time

Group Policy

1 IT can service

many teams

Server performance

Workstations for

more power

Dev can manage

their VM’s

(performance,

retention, network)

Better for snapshot

if services are not

shared

Centralised Decentralised

Comparisons

Requires lots of

resources

Easier to use, self-

contained

Easier to move

Can snapshot

No central

management

Better performing

dev machines

Harder to move &

has dependencies

Must snapshot the

entire team

Centralised

management

Complete VM (AD, SQL…) Shared Services

In detail – Shared AD

No need to create domain

every time you install a new

SharePoint machine

No need to create accounts

and policies for every

machine

Can access servers by FQDN

Centralized management of

servers

Ease of setting policies, file

shares, software installation,

software updates

Cannot move the server outside the

domain

Not recommended to "play around"

with the domain setting and make

changes

Not recommended to change

passwords to user accounts - it can

impact many machines

Cannot create/revert snapshots as

this will impact the time

synchronization between machines

Developers need to request or add

entries in the DNS server

Cannot clone VMs (required sysprep

& rejoin then fix SP)

PROs CONs

Can move the machine

anywhere as it holds all the roles

Can make development against

the domain and make some

changes without impacting the

other machines

Unique control on accounts and

passwords

Can snapshot and revert

No need to create hosts file

entries to develop against a

demo website with fixed host

header (use DNS!)

Hard to implement FQDN resolution

Hard to implement and deploy policies on all machines

No centralisedmanagement of all servers (out-of-the-box)

Hard to automate software, file shares and other updates

Always have to consider the netbios name when provisioning new domain/forest

PROs CONs

In detail – AD in a complete VM

Workflow Manager

Must be part of the

same Forest

Better VM

performance

IT manages

certificates

Extremely difficult to

install correctly

(dev’s usually don’t

know)

Needs its own VM

Centralised Decentralised

Office Web Apps

Must be part of the

same Forest

Better VM

performance

Requires it’s own VM! Cannot be installed on SharePoint

Cannot be installed on a Domain Controller

Difficult to install correctly (dev’s usually don’t know)

Slows down environment

Centralised Decentralised

Single Workstation

Option 1

VM 1 – AD, SQL, SP

VM 2 – OWA, WFM

Option 2

VM 1 – AD, SP

VM 2 – SQL, OWA, WFM

Key Decisions

DNS, DHCP and other network considerations

Cross-service Integration

Performance

Managing VMs& Policies

Remote access

File shares for Dev Tools

Script & Component Library

Windows & SharePoint Updates

Visual Studio Updates

Do you clone your VM’s or

create many copies from

scratch?

Question

VM – Cloning

Easily copy a VM to

another location with all

the software installed

Fast solution when

another person need to join the project

Hard to manage &

identify copied VMs

which one is the right one

Same hostnames

(SP doesn’t like

renaming)

IP conflicts

Does not work with a centralised domain

PROs CONs

VM – Recreating

You have a clean

machine built from

scratch

No IP conflicts

New domain

New farm

Fresh SQL

Takes more time to

create

You have to install/copy all the tools and updates needed

You have to configure all the services

You have to assign permissions if needed

PROs CONs

Our approach

Automate provisioning & installation

Automate settings

Use templates

Our Recommended Practices

“Thin” workstations – no desktop/my documents Prevents data loss

Improves security

Loopback check

Stop Windows Updates

Add Shortcuts (14, 15 hive)

Windows priority– programs or background services

Limit logs

Minimize components & services

Avoid development& test with the administrator account

Environment PATH variables

Preinstall everything necessary

Stop IntelliTrace & tweak ReSharper

Stop unnecessary services like Antivirus & Defender

Our Recommended Practices

“Design/discuss” the environment together

with the Project Leader

Script Library

Component Library

Common Code

Base Solution Templates

Environment usability

Local administrator access

Ease-out domain policies

Development with the “Administrator” account

should be avoided

PowerShell execution policy

Background Info

Educate about shortcuts, network share, files

Remove unnecessary VMs

“data” inside the VM (desktop files)

Files not committed/checked in

Test/POC/Sample projects

Licensing

Windows Server– 180 days

SharePoint– Unlimited

SQL– Express or 180 days

Visual Studio– 60 days

Others…

Client demo/qa/stg environments

We sometimes host environments for money

Access from the internet

*.contoso.com //if needed

TFS Lab Manager: Automated deployment for

ALM requirements

Hardware recommendations for

VM’s

CPU - Configure a 1-to-1 mapping of virtual processor to logical processors for best performance - Be aware of over commitment

Memory - Ensure enough memory is allocated to each virtual machine - Be aware of NUMA

Disk - Be aware of underlying disk read/write contention between different virtual machines to their virtual hard disks. Use fixed disks, not dynamically expanding. Separate on different disks.

Integration - Ensure that integration components (HV/VM) are installed on the virtual machine

Time Synchronization – Be sure time is synchronized always with Domain Controller

Hardware Costs

CPU– Intel Core I7 4-core 3.4GHz HT

RAM– 16GB DDR3

HDD– 1TB

SSD – 128GB

Monitors

~1500 USD

CPU - E5-2620 6-

core 2.1 GHz HT

RAM – 64GB ECC

HDD – 4x1TB WD

BE RAID10

~2300 USD

Workstation Server

Environment Automation

Define what templates you need based on the projects

Sysprep VM templates

Group Policy Objects – Firewalls, RDP, Local Admins, File Shares, WSUS, Certificates, Homepages etc.

AD Accounts creation

DNS Forwarders

Install and configure SQL

Install and configure SharePoint

Install and configure Visual Studio

Other software and automation tasks

ULS, Fiddler, ILSpy, SP Designer etc.

Automating QA – TFS + Lab Manager

Testing Architecture

VM Template Library SCVMM Environment Standard Environment

VM Template 2VM Template 1

Test Agent Test Agent Test AgentTest AgentVMMAgent

Web Server

VMDatabase

Server

VM

VM Host Web Server Database Server

Test AgentTest Agent

Team Foundation Server

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)

Team Build

Test Controller

TFS Lab Manager

THIS IS HOW WE DO IT

Our choices & solutions

Environment mix:

1 environment per project per person

Team environment with dev VMs for each developer & shared services

Scripted deployment& installation

File share for dev tools, scripts, etc.

Distributed source control

Client demo environments

Separate SCVMM clouds for Dev/Staging and Production Environments

Dev/Staging in an isolated network

NON-DOMAIN MEMBERS

DNS ServerDomain:

onebitsoftware.net

2 way transitive trust with conditional forwarders

Other Production Servers

Domain:onebitsoftware.net Domain:onebitdev.test

Domain A - SharePoint Environment - 1 Tier

Domain B – SharePoint Environment - 3 Tier

\\DevTools

SP – Single ServerAD + SQL + SP + VS

SP-APP SP-WFE

AD+SQL

Workstation 1 Workstation 2 Workstation 3

Reverse Proxy

Http://sp.onebitsoftware.net

RDP or VMPortal

SP – Single ServerAD + SQL + SP + VS

Domain C - SharePoint Environment - 1 Tier

Hyper-V hosts

Other Dev Servers

Forwarders to the ISP DNS ServersGoogle DNS ServersRoot hints

Forwarders to the onebitdev.test DNS

Forwarders to the onebitdev.test DNS

Non-secure and secure dynamic updates

Forwarders to the onebitdev.test DNS

DNS ServerDomain: onebitdev.test

How

we d

o it

• SCVMM – How we use it

• Web Administration– Create ShrarePointDev Environment 1Tier

• VM Templates – Syspreped OSs

• Service Templates

• Review of PowerShell scripts– Variables (User input), Scripts (Functions and help), Email Notifications (show emails)

DEMO: What We Do – SCVMM +

PowerShell

Thank you! Any questions?

radi@sharepoint.bg

o.guglev@onebitsoftware.net

Radi Atanassov

Ognyan Guglev