Bruce Tuncertan is a SharePoint solution architect with over 20 years of experience in IT and working with SharePoint since 2006. The document discusses strategies for storing and managing SharePoint content, including remote blob storage (RBS), FILESTREAM, and shredded storage. RBS was introduced in SharePoint 2010 and allows storing unstructured content like files externally while keeping metadata in SQL Server. FILESTREAM stores blobs directly in the file system but is still part of the database. Shredded storage, new in SharePoint 2013, stores file changes rather than whole new versions to reduce SQL usage and improve performance.

1. November 23rd, 2013
Storing and Managing
SharePoint Content
RBS, FILESTREAM, SHREDDED STORAGE
Bruce Tuncertan
SharePoint Solution Architect
tuncertan@hotmail.com

2. Introduction
Bruce Tuncertan
Solution Architect - SharePoint
• Bruce Tuncertan is a Solution Architect specialized in Microsoft
technologies especially SharePoint.
• Bruce possesses over 20 year experience in the Information
Technology and working with SharePoint since 2006.
• He has architected many technical solutions for public and
private clients sized from SMEs to large enterprises.
• Bruce carries MCITP, MCTS certifications for SharePoint 2003,
2007 and 2010 as well as MCITP certification for Microsoft
Dynamics CRM.
tuncertan@hotmail.com
/in/tuncertan
sharepointtidbits.blogspot.com
@tuncertan

3. Thank you to all of our Sponsors!!

4. Agenda
 Data
(Structured and Unstructured)
 SharePoint
 BLOBs
storage in brief
(Binary Large OBjects)
 Challenges
of storing unstructured data in SQL
Server.
 RBS
(Remote Blob Storage)
 FILESTREAM
 Benefits
and disadvantages of RBS
 Shredded
Storage
4

5. Data

Structured:



Organized in entities
Tied to a relationship with
attributes
Associated with a defined
schema

Unstructured:



Does not adhere to specific
format or sequence
It is not tied to rules and
unpredictable
Examples:



Pictures, Images


Defined format
Predefined length

Video

Audio

Text

Word, PowerPoint, etc.
Usually Small
Example:

Contact Lists

Calendar

Task Lists

Most often large in size
On average, in the enterprise 20% of the data is structured and 80% is
unstructured

6. SharePoint Storage in Brief
•
By default SharePoint stores its data in
Microsoft SQL Server
•
Both structured and unstructured data is stored
in SQL tables
•
SharePoint data storage is built around the file

Document Libraries

Record Centers

7. SharePoint Storage History
•
•
SharePoint Portal
Server (SPS)
SharePoint Team
Services (STS)
•
•
•
•
Office SharePoint 2007 &
Windows SharePoint Services
100GB / 1TB
Backup Tools
External BLOB Storage (EBS)
•
•
•
•
SharePoint Server 2013 &
SharePoint Foundation 2013
200GB / 4TB
Remote BLOB Storage (RBS)
Shredded Storage
2001
2003
2007
2010
2013
• File and
Database
Storage
• All SQL
Storage
• SQL
Storage
• EBS
• SQL
Storage
• RBS
• SQL
Storage
• Shredded
Storage
•
•
SharePoint Portal Server 2003
Windows SharePoint Services
•
•
•
•
SharePoint Server 2010 &
SharePoint Foundation 2010
200GB / 4TB
Remote BLOB Storage (RBS)
Backup Tools
7

8. BLOB?

Microsoft TechNet:


In SharePoint, a binary large object (BLOB) is a large
block of data stored in a database that is known by
its size and location instead of by its structure – for
example a Office document or a video file
By default, BLOBs are:

unstructured data

stored directly in the SP content db along with the
structured data
8

9. BLOBs in SharePoint

BLOB is the data stream associated with a file



BLOBs do not participate in query operations
They consume about 80% of the total content
SharePoint stores BLOBs and associated metadata in the content
database

10. Storage Challenges
•
Cost
 SQL
•
storage is usually more expensive
Performance
 SQL
BLOBs bubble-up at the web front end.
 Introduces
a burden to SQL server performance due to its large
size
•
Compliance and Policy Requirements
 Expunge
 BLOB
Immutability

11. Externalizing BLOBs

EBS – External BLOB Storage


FARM Level

Supported in SharePoint 2007 and 2010 but
deprecated in 2010


Developed by SharePoint Team
Not supported in SharePoint 2013
RBS – Remote BLOB Storage

Developed by SQL team

Content db Level

Introduced in SharePoint 2010

Supported in SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013
11

12. RBS (Remote Blob Storage) Overview
•
RBS is designed to outline unstructured (BLOB) as
well as structured (metadata) data
•
RBS provides flexibility to organizations to deploy
more efficient data storage
 RBS
does not resolve the capacity challenges – The corpus size is
the sum of both structured and unstructured data regardless of
their location
•
RBS offers an upgrade path for organizations

13. RBS Overview

14. RBS Overview

15. Unstructured Data Storage Options
•
SQL BLOB

•
Traditional method, storing BLOBs in SQL db
RBS-Remote

SQL Server add-on

Dedicated remote file store services (RBS Providers)


Metalogix

NetApp

•
Avepoint
Quest
RBS-FILESTREAM

Another RBS provider

SQL Server Feature

Integrated File + Database

Ideal for files > 1MB

16. Data Storage Options/Pros and Cons

17. RBS-FILESTREAM
•
Moves blobs from the SQL Database into the file system.
•
It is still a unit of the database
•
Unstructured data stored directly in the NTFS file system
•
Dual programming model with Data consistency
•
They do not participate in the query operations
•
It can help improve SQL Server performance
•
Size limit is the file system volume size

18. FILESTREAM Performance
Throughput

19. Accessing FILESTREAM BLOB Data
T-SQL Access
to Insert, Update and Delete
FILESTREAM data.
T-SQL
is ideal for inserting short
amount of data
Updating
a FILESTREAM field
modifies the underlying BLOB data
Deleting
a row with FILESTREAM
data, deletes the underlying BLOB
data
Win32
Streaming Access
to work within the context of SQL
Server Transaction (T-SQL) to
provide access.

20. Local and Remote FILESTREAM
Local
FILESTREAM
Remote
FILESTREAM
•
Unstructured data is stored in a
file group and associated with
the content database on the
same SQL Server
•
Unstructured data is stored in a
file group in a separate db or
SQL Server with related
structured data
•
Supports integrated
management, i.e. backup and
restore
•
Does not supports integrated
management
•
Unstructured data managed
separately

21. FILESTREAM Limitations and
Constraints
•
Local FILESTREAM is really local

DAS, NAS, SAN are all considered remote

No support for compression and TDE

Special limitations for mirroring and log shipping
•
3rd party ISV solutions require SQL Server
Enterprise Edition
•
NAS storage devices require 20ms TTFB

22. RBS Benefits
•
Decreases storage costs
•
Optimizes SQL disk I/O via bypassing SQL for BLOB
operations
•
Transparent to end user
•
Increases BLOB transfer speed from/to the SQL Server
and the Client.
•
Moving a site becomes faster and more efficient because
it doesn’t move the site. It moves the reference.

23. RBS Costs
•
Backup & Restore
•
Management of additional infrastructure
•
Additional maintenance
•
Clustered environment still require shared storage
•
Microsoft does not support SQL Mirroring, db
Snapshots and RBS on the same db

24. When to consider RBS?

Document Libraries are the main focus of your SharePoint farm or a site
collection.

Majority of those files (>70%) exceed 1MB

SharePoint content db housing these files is large in size (~200GB)

Your DR tools are either RBS aware or you have process intended to
synchronize backups

You have highly skilled, SQL and Windows Server admins that is trained or
has the capacity to get trained in RBS

Your content must be on-premise

25. Shredded Storage
Newly
Data
introduced at SharePoint 2013
platform improvement
Manages
changes/edits to the large files
Improve
the I/O
Reduces
the compute utilization
Reduces
SQL storage

26. Traditional File Storage
When
versions enabled – for every edit of the file, a
brand new version is created with the metadata in SQL
Server.
1MB
file with 10 versions = 10MB of SQL allocation.
Issues:
Large
SQL database size
Increased
Server
I/O traffic due to additional roundtrips to SQL

27. Shredded Storage @ SharePoint 2013
It
compares the document before saving.
Only
saves the changed bits in the document.
1MB
file with 10 versions
Files
By
2.5MB of SQL allocation.
are split into parts and saved as individual rows.
default it is turned ON
Can
be used in conjunction with RBS

28. Shredded Storage Pros & Cons

Pros


Size of the content db is reduced under certain
scenarios


SQL I/O is improved
Reduced SQL Server transaction logs
Cons

All content is still stored in the SQL Server

Cannot be disabled – other options?
28

29. Shredded Storage Logistics
Files
are shredded in to 64KB or 1MB blocks
SharePoint
recognizes Office files and splits them into
64KB blocks.
Other
files will be shredded into 1MB blocks.
Whether
Cell
they are versioned or not.
Storage API is utilized for Shredded Storage

30. How Shredded Storage Works?

31. Shredded Storage & RBS Together
Shredded
RBS
Storage splits larger BLOBs into many small BLOBs
works best with larger BLOBs
What
happens when we put them together?
Files
recognized by SharePoint will get shredded regularly
and stored to the RBS depending on your RBS Threshold.
If
SharePoint does not recognize the file it will get
shredded to 1MB blocks and will be stored in the RBS if it is
enabled.

In
RBS Threshold will be ignored.
order to get the best of the both worlds

Set RBS threshold to 1MB

32. Summary

Shredded Storage and RBS are complimentary to
one another

Shredded Storage is beneficial in core
collaborative cases with versioning is enabled

Make sure you consider other factors when
developing a SharePoint storage strategy

RBS provides benefits over and above the
Shredded Storage

Don’t forget Shredded Storage is here to stay
32

33. Question 1
What
is the supported
content database size in
SharePoint 2010?
33

34. Question 2
What
is the
recommended file size
for FILESTREAM?
34

35. Question 3
What
is the block/chunk
size of Office Files when
shredded in SharePoint
2013?
35

36. Question 4
Can
you give examples of
structured and
unstructured data?
36

37. Question 5
In
which version of
SharePoint, RBS is
introduced?
37

38. Resources
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
RBS Best Practices in SharePoint 2010 http://is.gd/0M432w
SharePoint 2010 RBS Benefits/Trade-offs http://bit.ly/nezN93
Introduction to Shredded Storage in SharePoint 2013 http://bit.ly/PQbSBK
SharePoint 2013 Shredded Storage http://bit.ly/1gJwwkV
Shredded Storage vs. RBS http://bit.ly/16q8LY5
Plan for RBS in SharePoint 2013 http://bit.ly/17MkjSU
The Impact of Shredded Storage on SharePoint 2013 http://bit.ly/1buWmEh

39. Q&A

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