SharePoint in IaaS
I heard Windows Azure Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) was going GA (general availability) on Tuesday, April 16, 2013. I’ve had customers ask me about SharePoint on IaaS so my first thought was to go out to Azure and install SharePoint. In the interest of getting it done quickly, I vowed to read the smallest amount of documentation possible. My intent was to just make it work.
Goal: Create a 3-server farm using “old school” design:
- (1) Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Domain Controller/DNS
- (1) Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter running SQL 2012 SP 1
- (1) Windows Server 2012 Datacenter running SharePoint Server 2013
- Consume SP from the internet.
Contents
Add CONTOSOSQL to CONTOSOIAAS domain.
Add CONTOSOSP to CONTOSOIAAS domain
Create network
I chose the smallest possible subnet as I was only going to create 3 servers. Note that the Azure Management Portal provides hints for certain user inputs. Click on question marks to see these hints.
An affinity group is required.
I’ve chosen the smallest subnet since I’m only installing 3 servers.
I’ve chosen to use the DNS name resolution provided by Azure. (Actually, it would end up that way but I left it blank at the time.)
Create Domain Controller
SharePoint farms need Windows domains so the first server to spin up is the domain controller. IaaS provides a set of Windows Server images to choose from. I clicked on “From Gallery” to bring up the list of images available.
I chose the Windows Server 2012 Datacenter edition even though I don’t need it.
I work for Microsoft so I chose a super secret user id and password (which is why you can’t see it).
As this is the first VM I’ve created, there was no storage account already created so I asked Azure to automatically create one.
This is purely an exercise in seeing how the process works. Availability groups are used to support high availability so I don’t need one.
This server has an IP address of 10.0.0.4. This is important.
Create SQL Server
I’ve created a DC so now I can add a SQL server. IaaS has two SQL Server 2012 images available. Again, I’m went big and used the Enterprise version.
I’m chose to use a Large VM (4 cores, 7 GB of RAM) for SQL. It’s the heart of SharePoint so I wouldn’t skimp here…or anywhere, for that matter.
This time I’ve got a storage account so I’m going to use it.
No availability set was created in Step 4 (not shown).
Configure AD server
Using my limited infrastructure knowledge, I accepted most of the defaults and created a domain controller.
Domain: CONTOSO.COM
Forest functional level: Windows Server 2008 R2 (to support the Windows Server 2008 R2 server running SQL Server although I don’t think it matters in this case)
Domain functional level: Windows Server 2008 R2
DSRM Password: some password
NetBIOS domain name: CONTOSO
Default locations for Database folder:, Log files folder:, SYSVOL folder:
Successfully ran through the wizard. Created CONTOSO.COM domain.
Confirmed CONTOSO\contosoadmin as a domain admin.
Add CONTOSOSQL to CONTOSOIAAS domain
The DNS entry for the IPv4 protocol on the CONTOSOSQL VM needed to be changed to the IP address (10.0.0.4) of the domain controller. The default DNS settings (the name resolution provided by Azure) didn’t allow the server to find the domain controller.
The machine now comes up as CONTOSOSQL.CONTOSOIAAS.COM.
(There was an interesting warning after credentials were provided to add the machine to the domain. As this didn’t show up on the SharePoint 2013 server, which is running Windows Server 2012, it is attributed to the fact that this server is running Windows Server 2008 R2.)
I’ve got a domain controller and a SQL server, so it’s time to add a SharePoint 2013 server. There’s a SharePoint 2013 Trial edition image already available in IaaS.
Note that the server has the SP 2013 bits installed but it is (obviously) not part of a farm. The first thing I’m going to do when the server is running (and I’ve completed the required steps for installing SharePoint) is to run PSCONFIG.
I’m going to choose a Large VM for this server. (If I was adhering to strict SharePoint guidelines I’d have to choose something just a bit larger.)
No availability set was defined in Step 4 (not shown).
Add CONTOSOSP to CONTOSOIAAS domain
The DNS entry for the IPv4 protocol on the SharePoint VM needed to be changed to the IP address (10.0.0.4) of domain controller. The default DNS settings didn’t allow the server to find the domain controller.
The machine now comes up as CONTOSOSP.CONTOSOIAAS.COM.
Install SharePoint 2013
- Added spsetup and spfarm to Active Directory with a generic password.
- Updated “Max degree of parallelism” to 1 on the SQL instance.
- Added CONTOSOIAAS\spsetup login to SQL with securityadmin and dbcreator server roles.
- Opened port 1433 on the SQL server.
- Added CONTOSOIAAS\spsetup to the administrators group on CONTOSOSP.
Ran PSCONFIG on CONTOSOSO while logged on as CONTOSOIAAS\spsetup.
- Pointed PSCONFIG to CONTOSOSQL.
- Passphrase: passphrase.1
- Clicked “Next” a few times.
Installation completed.
SharePoint 2013 is installed!
The farm configuration wizard was used to automatically create all service applications.
A team site was created at the root (“/”) managed path.
An alternate access mapping which matches the external URL that’s going to be used was added.
Add an Endpoint
Now I’ve got a SharePoint farm with a lonely site collection just waiting for users. I needed to create an endpoint to expose SharePoint to the world.
I clicked on the right-arrow next to the SharePoint VM and saw the following options:
This displayed a list of existing endpoints. Note the default for the Remote Desktop capability.
I clicked on “Add Endpoint” at the bottom of the screen (not shown above but it’s very easy to find). This started a 2 screen wizard. I clicked on the arrow to move to the second screen.
I’ve defined an endpoint which takes requests that come to CONTOSOSP.CLOUDAPP.NET (from the public internet) on port 80 to go to IIS on port 80. These end up going to SharePoint.
A user typing http://contoso.cloudapp.net into their browser will receive the standard prompt for credentials (unless their machine is joined to the CONTOSOIAAS domain and they already have permissions in SharePoint) and upon successfully authentication, will be allowed into SharePoint 2013 (provided they are authorized to do so, of course!)
Parting Shots
This blog post is intended to provide a straight-forward walkthrough of building and configuring a very simple SharePoint 2013 farm in Azure IaaS. I’ve left out some details and I’ve made some decisions that I might not make if this was a full-blown well-architected SharePoint deployment. The intent is to let you see what’s already provided to you “out of the box” in IaaS and to let you see just how easy it is.
Comments are always welcome!