Author: directorcia

Too much SQL

On my SBS 7 (a.k.a. Windows 2011 Standard), I’ve been testing some SharePoint functionality of late as you can see from recent posts. I do so on a virtualized server to allow me to easily and quickly roll backwards and forwards. As such I try and run these machines a lean as possible because there is only limited RAM.

 

One of the most common memory hogs is SQL which, by default, has no memory cap. This means that it consumes as much as it can. Using the SQL Management Studio you can go in and set a limit to keep it under control. On SBS 7 (a.k.a. SBS 2011 Standard) I did this for the sharepoint and sbsmonitoring instances which both run on SQL Server 2008 Express R2 (settings it to 256MB). Problem was, when I started getting sluggish performance I found that I had 3 SQL instances running and one was exceeding the memory limit I had set. What the hell?

 

As you can see from the following screen shot, on the right is task manager displaying the three sqlservr.exe instances (sqlservr.exe), with two at the top of my memory consumption values. Now I know one is sharepoint and the other is sbsmonitoring but what is the third one? And why is running at a value above what I limited it to (at 341,828K)?

 

image_2_1FB9E63B

 

To find out what’s going on I add the PID column to task manager so I can see the culprit is process 3188. Then at the command prompt I run tasklist /svc (which is displayed on the left) and discover that task 3188 belongs to mssql$microsoft##ssee! This is the embedded edition of SQL Server 2005. What ….would….that…be…running…. Of course, WSUS!

 

Much to my amazement Windows Server Update Services on SBS 7 (a.k.a. Windows 2011 Standard) is still using SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition. That means another version of SQL installed on the server. That means another program that needs to be updated in the future. That means, as you can see, another SQL application which you’ll have to limit memory on.

 

I can understand perhaps why SQL 2005 Embedded Edition remains, it has unlimited database sizes unlike the SQL 2008 Express R2 version which is also on the machine and limited to 10GB databases. However, even though WSUS in theory could get >10GB does that really warrant not running WSUS on SQL Express R2 and doing away with the Embedded Edition? Surely some sort of warning mechanism could be created is the WSUS databases approach 10GB in some rare circumstance.

 

This indicates to me that SBS 7 (a.k.a. SBS 2011 Standard) is simply a progressive upgrade to SBS 2008 (i.e. more like SBS 2008 R2). Out of the box it is going to try and consume as much memory as it can for the three SQL instances installed by default (sharepoint, sbsmonitoring and WSUS). Unless these are trimmed they are going to affect performance. Again, after all this time I still can’t understand why there is no wizard to allow you to limited the memory of the SQL instances (maybe I just haven’t found it?).

 

To me this adds more complexity to the next release of on site SBS. It increases its maintenance due to the different versions of SQL installed (i.e. more patches). It increases its complexity and makes it harder for the average person to optimize. It also means that out of the box it is potentially going to be a memory hog and therefore have its performance degraded and potentially turn people away from it as solution. This has always been one of the downsides of SBS, running so much on one box. In this case, I honestly believe that one application (SQL 2005 Embedded Edition) could have been removed.

Search Server Story Sequel

In a recent post I detailed how on SBS 7 I needed to know the SharePoint farm passphrase to allow the completion of the SharePoint Configuration Wizard that the following dialog warns you about just prior to uninstalling Search Server Express:

 

image_2_6B0A083E

 

A few people let me know that there is in fact a way to set the password using PowerShell. One such example is:

 

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/raresm/archive/2010/05/26/easy-farm-passphrase-recovery.aspx

 

which says all you need to do at the powershell script console is run:

 

$passphrase = ConvertTo-SecureString -asPlainText -Force
Set-SPPassPhrase -PassPhrase $passphrase –Confirm

 

Yep, great but in this case, after Search Server Express has been removed you get:

 

image_4_6B0A083E

 

Thus, the ability to set the SharePoint passphrase only works if SharePoint is properly configured, which after the removal of Search Server Express it isn’t!

 

So the advice seems to be, at least with what I’ve seen on SBS 7, is that once you have SBS 7 all running go in and use the above powershell script and set the SharePoint passphrase to something you know to avoid the situation I detailed in the previous blog where you need configure SharePoint Foundation 2010. Because unless you know the passphrase you won’t be able to re-configure the farm, all you can do is rebuild it and migrate the data and that is messy by any standards.

 

I have successfully confirmed that by setting the SharePoint passphrase prior to removing Search Server Express and running the SharePoint Configuration Wizard does allow you to complete the wizard and get companyweb back. You still need to do a little more configuration on SharePoint Search after that, but in my testing you can get SharePoint fully operational again, that is PROVIDED you know the passphrase ahead of time!

Search Server Story

So I’ve been playing with the beta of SBS 7 specifically looking at SharePoint 2010 Foundation. At the moment I’m concentrating on search and I have an interesting story to tell you.

 

Out of the box SBS 7 (Beta) comes with SharePoint Foundation 2010. If you upload a document to a document library (in this case a Word document) and wait for it to be indexed you can search on information inside that document.

 

clip_image001_2_40B7EA53

 

Ss you can from the above I’ve uploaded my Word document to SharePoint, if I now use the default SharePoint Foundation 2010 search (after waiting enough time for the document to be indexed) and search for something I know appears in the document like the word ‘understand’ say, this is what I expect to see.

 

clip_image0015_6EA53D0B

 

Ok, all fine and dandy. As expected my document appears. Take special note of what the search results screen looks like because things are about to change.

 

One of the unsung products from Microsoft is Search Server Express 2010 which is a free download and allows you to index not only SharePoint but also Exchange Public Folders, network shares and other web sites. I honestly can’t understand why it hasn’t been already added to SBS but alas it hasn’t. However, if I do download and install it on my SBS 7 server, configure it appropriately and run exactly the same search I see:

 

clip_image0017_6EA53D0B

 

Same result but differ display. This is the result of Search Server Express being installed. Now some people claim that to allow indexing of PDF you MUST install Search Server Express 2010. As I demonstrated in a previous post, with out further configuration this just isn’t true.

 

Let’s now say that you installed Search Server Express 2010 in this mistaken belief it will index PDFs. You find that it doesn’t so you decided to uninstall it. You go into Control Panel, Add/Remove programs, Search Server Express 2010, click, click, click… until it is all gone. You now try and view your companyweb site and you see:

 

image_2_6EA53D0B

 

Oh dear. Not good. Now no SharePoint! You however remember as you were madly clicking to uninstall Search Server Express 2010 that a message popped up saying that you might have to run the SharePoint Configuration Wizard after Search Server had been removed. You run the wizard and you reach a point where it asks you:

 

image_4_6EA53D0B

 

You know that your SharePoint data is already there (somewhere) so it is probably not a good idea to create a new server farm so you go with the first option to Connect to an existing server farm.

 

You now see:

 

image_6_6EA53D0B

 

You know that the SQL instance that runs SharePoint on SBS 7 is called server_name\sharepoint (well now you do!). You enter that in for your server and press the button to Retrieve Database Names and amazingly the SharePoint config database automatically appears. Feeling good you continue and are greeted with:

 

image_8_1C928FC4

 

As the window says – ‘This passphrase is used to secure farm configuration data and REQUIRED for each server that joins the farm.’

 

So what’s the passphrase? You’d know that if YOU installed SharePoint wouldn’t you but you didn’t install it did you? It was already preinstalled on SBS 7. So who did that? Microsoft. So does Microsoft know the password? Good question. Is it documented somewhere? Even better question. Not that I can find.

 

Unfortunately, this story doesn’t seem to have a happy ending now does it?

I said that too!

Here’s an article about the move to Cloud computing and the challenges it presents to resellers from SMB Nation Fall 2010 (which I presented at).

 

http://rcpmag.com/articles/2010/12/01/bracing-for-a-cloudy-future.aspx

 

I suppose that I’m one of the several (un-named presenters) that concluded:

 

“Many such companies currently earn much of their income deploying and maintaining hardware. Thanks to the cloud, however, that’s a doomed business model, according to several conference presenters.”

 

My friend Karl Palachuck lays it out even more plainly:

 

“Ninety percent of your clients have bought their last server, and they’re moving to the cloud with you or without you,” he warned his audience.

 

and I totally agree with him, especially in light of the imminent release of Office365. A great example is that when Office365 is released it will give all businesses access to the enterprise version of SharePoint for a few dollars a month. That is a huge amount of power and functionality for no upfront cost and a small ongoing monthly amount per user.

 

When you combine Office365 with Windows InTune it allows the deployment of the latest version of Windows and Office to a customers desktop for a single monthly cost. It also means that as new versions become available subscribers are eligible for updates automatically. This is effectively giving even the smallest business access to the benefits of volume licensing.

 

You can access my presentation from SMB Nation here:

 

http://www.ciaops.com/storage/docs/gs103.pdf (6.3MB)

 

but honestly if you are not looking to the benefits the cloud can provide then I suggest you take a look at this video which demonstrates how even 10 year olds understand the benefits:

Bored with Kinect?

The latest ‘gadget’ on the market is the Kinect add on for the Microsoft Xbox. It is actually pretty cool technology as this video shows:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7nRKU0nFxA

It is actually thousands of little beams of light that record your every location and then translate that back to the XBox. So you can jump around the room and interact directly with the game.

 

But what happens, inevitably, a few days after Christmas when you’ve become a bit bored with it? Well if you are a geek then you hack the Kinect and make it do something like this:

 

Kinect Titty Tracker from Dan Wilcox on Vimeo.

 

(if the embedded video doesn’t show click this link – http://vimeo.com/17095170 and don’t worry it is ‘work friendly’).

 

Who says the Kinect was only for games?

December update of SharePoint Guide


Subscribers to my Windows SharePoint Guide can now access the latest updates from the subscription site (now running under SharePoint 2010). This month some of the additions include:

– Follow through of Microsoft install method on SBS 2008
– Installation and configuration of Microsoft Online SharePoint (BPOS)
– SBS 2008 SharePoint Exchange server configuration

Also, all subscribers get automatic free access to my recently released eBook:

Windows SharePoint Masterclass: Optimizing Search

I am now working on the next title in the Windows SharePoint Masterclass series which will focus on databases operations. That is, it will provide you with a wealth of information about installing, maintaining, configuring and troubleshooting the Microsoft SQL Server versions used by Windows SharePoint. I expect to have it out very early in the New Year, so stay tuned.

Need to Know podcast – Episode 10


I’ll first let you know is that thanks to Applied Marketing Technologies (www.amt.com.au) the Need to Know podcast distribution mechanism has undergone a complete revamp. You can now find all the episodes at http://ciaops.podbean.com along with numerous ways to subscribe via automatic updates, downloads to iTunes and even playing in a browser. They are still in the old location (www.ciaops.com/n2k) but the new medium is so much better.

Firstly let me tell what’s in Episode 10. It features George Sierchio from the Consultants Coach speaking about the important of running a business like you are going to sell it. Putting it another way, asking yourself what exit plan you have from your business? Even though you may never actually need to implement such a plan, circumstances may transpire that are outside of your control that could force you to exit your business. How are you going to ensure you receive maximum value for all the hard earned time and effort you have invested over the years? George covers off what you need to consider and how to go about putting these plan into place. This a hugely valuable episode for anyone running a business.

The new podcast site allows listeners to rate each show and provide comments and feedback which I hope everyone will do. The site also provides a way for listeners who like what I’ve done to provide direct assistance via a donation. It doesn’t matter how small a donation, it all goes into improving what is being offered. If you are interested in some commercial sponsorship like Applied Marketing Technology (www.amt.com.au) then I’d encourage you to get in contact with me directly.

As always I’m constantly on the look out for guests so if you’d like to come on the show or you would like to hear someone on the show please let me know (director@ciaops.com). With this revamp listening to the show on a regular basis should now be much easier and I hope the podcast will continue to grow.

Me and virtualization

I have been an avid user of virtualization for many years. Initially I started out with Virtual PC on the desktop to accommodate all the operating systems I had to support. These days I use Hyper-V to run both production and test machines. In this post I want to mention a very specific use I have and how I recently benefited from the machine being virtual.

Apart from all the technology I run a business day to day. This means I have to do my accounts and pay tax. I have done this via electronic submission for many years. As soon as I was given the opportunity by the Tax Department to use electronic submission I did and over the years I have had very little problem. The one major problem came about when I had to shift the software to a new machine. The issue had more to do with obtaining new digital certificates than it did changing hardware. However, none the less it was painful.

After that experience I decided to virtualize the machine. Why? Firstly, it meant that I could fairly easily transport the machine between host hardware systems without needing to reinstall. It meant that I could minimize what software I had on the machine (effectively just the electronic submission software). It meant that I could run it up as needed, make my submission to the tax office, update the machine, take a snapshot, back up the machine and then have it ready for next time. If I ever had issues during a submission I could easily rollback to the last snapshot and start afresh.

Now times move on and once again I was faced with an update to the electronic submission software. I installed it but was having issues updating it via the Internet. Because the machine was virtualized I could test just about every aspect of the machine without fear of ‘losing’ anything. After exhausting my meagre brain I contacted the nice people at the tax office technical support area for assistance. They got me to do all sorts of things to no avail. Again, because I had a virtual machine I could try any request they threw at me and return the machine to the original clean state. Another very handy aspect of virtual technology is that I could ‘freeze’ the machine in any state. This means when they called I could quickly have the machine running without the need to physically boot it up in exactly the same state I left it in.

After finally getting to level 3 support I was given a solution that works just fine. So now I have updated my virtual machine, taken a snapshot and shut it down ready for when I have to actually do my submission.

The take-aways? If you haven’t played with virtualization then you really should, on the desktop and the server. Rather than piling everything on a single desktop PC have a think about creating a ‘clean’ virtual machine that you use for specific tasks (maybe internet banking?). I think virtualization is great solution to some of life’s little ‘incompatibilities’!