Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

Better Together
Bill Baer, Technical Product Manager, SharePoint Product Group

August 2010

Summary: This white paper describes the benefits of deploying Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 on the Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise operating system and scenarios in which the features of Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise can be applied.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and SharePoint Server 2010Better Together

August 2010

This document is provided as-is. Information and views expressed in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site references, may change without notice. You bear the risk of using it. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product. You may copy and use this document for your internal, reference purposes. You may modify this document for your internal, reference purposes. 2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. To comment on this paper or request more documentation on these features, contact SharePoint IT Docs (itspdocs@microsoft.com).

Page 2

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and SharePoint Server 2010Better Together

August 2010

Contents
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................4 Scale to Meet the Most Demanding Workloads .......................................................................................................4 Processor Scale ...........................................................................................................................................4 Memory Scale ..............................................................................................................................................4 Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.5...........................................................................................................5 Enable Effective Business Continuity Management ..................................................................................................5 Failover Clustering .......................................................................................................................................5 Fault-Tolerant Memory Synchronization ..........................................................................................................5 Reduce Cost with Virtualization ............................................................................................................................5 Live Migration ..............................................................................................................................................6 Enable Remote User Productivity ..........................................................................................................................6 DirectAccess ................................................................................................................................................6 BranchCache ...............................................................................................................................................6 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................................................6 Additional Resources ..........................................................................................................................................7 About the Author................................................................................................................................................7

2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. To comment on this paper or request more documentation on these features, contact SharePoint IT Docs (itspdocs@microsoft.com).

Page 3

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and SharePoint Server 2010Better Together

August 2010

Introduction
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is the business collaboration platform for the enterprise and the Internet. SharePoint Server 2010 has become a business-critical application and an integral part of business processes. To help IT infrastructures to remain flexible and scalable to help support, manage, and secure expanded functionality, an influx of additional users and locations, and increasingly robust applications such as SharePoint Server 2010, we recommend that you choose the Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise operating system during initial deployment. Choosing an edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 is an important step when planning your SharePoint Server 2010 deployment, from understanding which features are important to your deployment needs, to enhancing security, or designing topologies that enable seamless scale. To understand which features are right for your deployment, you should first understand and prioritize your organization's underlying business requirements. For example, you may need to support a rich Internet sites solution or a robust intranet solution that requires you to deploy a high level of scalability and high availability. In either scenario, Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise offers dimensions of scale and a rich feature set to support a variety of workloads. Note: Some of the features discussed in this paper span Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 editions. These features are annotated where appropriate.

Scale to Meet the Most Demanding Workloads

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise provides the scalability necessary to meet the most demanding SharePoint Server 2010 deployments. As SharePoint Server 2010 adoption increases or pilot environments are shifted toward production, Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise provides the headroom to meet spikes in demand for business-critical applications.

Processor Scale
Whether you have deployed a high volume enterprise content management environment or an acquisition has increased demand, Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise provides the capability to scale through support for up to eight x64 sockets. The flexibility to scale Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise servers is important to assuring a seamlessly scalable SharePoint Server 2010 deployment.

Memory Scale
Designing a deployment for scale can be a challenging task, because as resource utilization increases, servers need to be able to respond rapidly to the demand. Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise enables memory scale up to two terabytes to support resource-intensive applications. It also enhances scalability through Hot Add Memory, enabling banks of memory to be added to a computer and made instantly available to the operating system and applications as part of the normal memory pool without rebooting. For more information about Hot Add Memory and infrastructure design processes, see the Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides for Windows Server 2008 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=198493).

2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. To comment on this paper or request more documentation on these features, contact SharePoint IT Docs (itspdocs@microsoft.com).

Page 4

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and SharePoint Server 2010Better Together

August 2010

Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.5

IIS 7.5 provides tools and features to enable rapid deployment, simplified management, and more effective governance. Features such as configuration logging enable you to better manage and surface changes to your Web servers, best practice analyzers report best practice violations, and administration can be simplified by scripting common management tasks with the new Windows PowerShell command-line interface. For more information about IIS 7.5 in Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, see Windows Server 2008 R2: Internet Information Services (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=198494).

Enable Effective Business Continuity Management

SharePoint Server 2010 deployments benefit from well-planned business continuity strategies that enable the infrastructure as a whole to continue when equipment fails.

Failover Clustering
SharePoint Server 2010 provides native support for database mirroring. However, in some organizations database mirroring does not provide the scale or flexibility required to support the deployment. In these instances, you may want to consider using failover clustering, or a combination of failover clustering and database mirroring. Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise provides robust failover clustering and simplifies setup and management while providing dynamic failover for both planned and unplanned server downtime. Failover clustering in Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise enables an organization to not only add nodes as needs increase, but also supports geographically dispersed (multi-site) clustering for even more disaster-tolerant clusters. For more information about using multi-site failover clustering with SharePoint Server 2010, see KB Article 971160: Description of Microsoft support for a SharePoint configuration that is hosted in a geographically dispersed SQL Server cluster (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=199046). For more information about failover clustering in Windows Server 2008 R2, see Windows Server 2008 R2: Failover Clustering (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=198495).

Fault-Tolerant Memory Synchronization

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise enables an administrator to extend benefits similar to RAID to the operating system layer through fault-tolerant memory synchronization. Fault-tolerant memory synchronization allows systems to request that the operating system copy a current instance of Windows to another system resulting in identical memory images for complete hardware fault tolerance.

Reduce Cost with Virtualization

Large-scale SharePoint Server 2010 deployments and global audiences require increased management and operations, flexible maintenance schedules, and the ability to cope with increases and decreases in demand. Virtualization can address these challenges, enabling administrators to support flexible maintenance
2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. To comment on this paper or request more documentation on these features, contact SharePoint IT Docs (itspdocs@microsoft.com). Page 5

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and SharePoint Server 2010Better Together

August 2010

schedules and reduce power consumption by dynamically increasing consolidation ratios and powering off unused physical hosts during lower demand times. Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise provides a rich set of features to support these scenarios.

Live Migration
Live migration is a technology in Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Hyper-V that allows you to move a virtual machine workload from one physical server to another without a disruption of service or downtime. Live migration enables an organization with multiple Hyper-V physical hosts to service systems seamlessly and respond to a global business climate with no defined maintenance windows by scheduling maintenance during regular business hours. For more information about live migration in Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, see the Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Live Migration Whitepaper (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=198496).

Enable Remote User Productivity

Todays enterprise employs a global workforce, whether within continental boundaries or half way around the world. Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise has the capabilities to provide a robust experience for remote users securely and seamlessly.

DirectAccess
DirectAccess is a new feature in the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems that gives users the experience of being seamlessly connected to their corporate network any time they have Internet access. With DirectAccess, users are able to access SharePoint Server 2010 sites and other corporate resources anytime they have an Internet connection without the complexity of establishing a VPN connection. For more information about DirectAccess in Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, see Windows Server 2008 R2: DirectAccess: Getting Started (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=198497).

BranchCache
BranchCache is a new technology in the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems that can help increase the network responsiveness of centralized applications accessed by remote users. Using BranchCache provides remote users the experience of working on a local area network, and reduces WAN utilization. For more information about BranchCache in Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, see Windows Server 2008 R2: BranchCache (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=198498).

Conclusion
In planning your deployment, you should carefully evaluate your SharePoint Server 2010 deployment needs and the features available in Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise for the following scenarios:

2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. To comment on this paper or request more documentation on these features, contact SharePoint IT Docs (itspdocs@microsoft.com).

Page 6

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and SharePoint Server 2010Better Together

August 2010

Enterprise deployments with a geographically dispersed user base Deployments with a large number of mobile and remote users Regulated environments that require a high level of data security and compliance Mission-critical scenarios where high availability, disaster recovery, and minimal downtime are required

Additional Resources
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Overview (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=198499) Windows Server 2008 R2: Edition Comparison by Technical Specification (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=198500) Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Overview (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=198501)

About the Author

Bill Baer is a Technical Product Manager in the SharePoint product group in Redmond, Washington and Microsoft Certified Master for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. He was previously a Hewlett-Packard Technology Solutions Group MVP with a background in infrastructure engineering and enterprise deployments of SharePoint Products and Technologies. He is active in the SharePoint community through evangelism, his blog, fellowship engagements, and events such as TechEd, TechReady, and SharePoint and Office developer conferences.

2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. To comment on this paper or request more documentation on these features, contact SharePoint IT Docs (itspdocs@microsoft.com).

Page 7