SharePoint Database Sizing – a request for information

When planning a deployment, one of the fundamental issues that needs to be addressed is providing sufficient capacity to accommodate the anticipated growth of the SharePoint environment. Microsoft provides some detail on best practices for capacity planning and management for SharePoint, mostly focussed on content or search database sizing and the effect upon performance.

Information on the size of SharePoint configuration databases is however decidedly thin on the ground. The second of the TechNet articles linked above lists the configuration database as being around 1.5 GB in size and states that the “configuration database will generally not grow past this size” although this is “not a hard limit”.

So this begs the question: just how large can the configuration database get? And how about the other supporting databases such as the Central Admininstration (SharePoint_AdminContent) and SSP database (SharedServices1_DB)?

And for the answer to this I’m turning to you good readers. Please vote to indicate the size of your configuration and other supporting databases so that we can all benefit from being better able to plan for the growth of SharePoint. If you have some interesting findings you’d like to share, please leave a comment.

Renaming a single-server MOSS Virtual PC

Background

Virtual PCs are commonly used for SharePoint development, an organisation might create a virtual server environment and allow developers to each have a copy.   In this scenario, SharePoint will typically have been installed and essential services such as Central Administration and Shared Services configured.

 

Each virtal environment will initially have the same computer name which must be changed to prevent problems with resolving the correct server if the virtual servers are added to the network.

 

Unfortunately renaming a SharePoint server is fraught with difficulty.   

 

Renaming a single-server MOSS virtual server

What is presented below is a step-by-step guide to renaming a single-server MOSS farm, with SQL Server on the same computer, which is typical of a developer virtual environment. 

 

Note: before starting this process, ensure that the virtual machine being renamed is not connected to the network, this will prevent inadvertently accessing the wrong Central Administration site.

 

The key is to rename SharePoint before renaming the server: 

• Start the virtual machine and login
• Open the Central Administration site for the server
• On the Operations page, click on the Alternative Access Mappings link and update the link for the Central Administration site to use the new server name
• Rename the SharePoint server using STSADM.  Open a command window and type:
  • stsadm -o renameserver -newservername <new name> –oldservername <old name>
• Rename the computer to match.  Right-click on My Computer and select Properties.  Click on the Computer Name tab and then click the Change… button.  Type in the new server name.
• Reboot when prompted
• Update the farm administrator credentials.  Open a command window and type:
  • stsadm –o updatefarmcredentials –userlogin <new name>\<farm admin account> –password <password>
• Reset IIS using the command window by typing:
  • iisreset /noforce
• Open the Central Administration site:
  • Click on the server name in the Farm Topology
  • Click on the Office SharePoint Server Search link and update the accounts to use new server name
  • Click on the Windows SharePoint Services Help Service and update the accounts to use the new server name
• Still within Central Administration:
  • Click on the Operation link in the left-hand navigation
  • Click on the Service Accounts link
  • Update the Service Accounts for both of the Shared Services and My Site Windows SharePoint Service Web Applications to use the <new name> in place of <old name>
• Open the Shared Services Administration site:
  • Click on the Personalization Services permissions link
  • Update the accounts listed to use the <new name> in place of <old name>
• Check the services on the farm by typing in the following URL: http://<central admin site>/_admin/checkfarmservices.aspx?source=/default.aspx
  • If the Search Service cannot be started, click on the link within the report and ensure that the accounts use the new server name
• Reset IIS using the Command Window by typing:
  • iisreset /noforce
• Open the SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the database called <new server>:
  • Expand the server tree to display the contents of the Security > Logins folder
  • Open the properties window for the service account used for the SharePoint Timer Service
  • On the User Mapping tab, ensure that the Map checkbox is ticked for each SQL Server database to which the account requires access (especially the Shared Services databases)
  • Rename each of the service accounts to use the <new name> in place of <old name>; just right-click on the account and select rename 

At this point the virtual machine should be ready for connection to the network.

 

Alternative

An alternative to doing this configuration on a per-machine basis is to create a clonable environment, Paul Horsfall describes just such an approach on his site.