How Many Application Pools and SharePoint Web Applications should we create?

I have came across many times , where seen people randomly creates new web applications using default settings as it easier to create, but have they think how this going to harm their Farm in near future?

Web application in SharePoint controls security, administrative settings and URLs for your SharePoint portal. You can create multiple web applications in a Farm where each web app has its own domain name, authentication mechanism and set of application services.  Web applications contained by an IIS Site with an application pool.  Once you have a web application, you can create one or more site collections and further sites inside it.

How many web applications do you need?  The answer should be three. 

When we review current state SharePoint implementations, we find that some customers have created multiple web applications to segment their SharePoint farm into zones.  However, this can create some significant performance impacts to your farm and to the underlying IIS server.

An intranet scenario mostly goes with Integrated Windows authentication. Partner collaboration goes with either FBA or Claims depending on the security requirements. For public facing sites, mostly it goes with Anonymous access + Windows Auth.

How many Application pool do you need?  The answer should be one. 

There is a nice article published that describes the impact of creating a new web application with its own application pool, a web application added to an existing application pool or a host named site collection. In testing each of these scenarios, they tested the amount of RAM consumed by adding these new resources:

• Adding a new web application with its own application pool: 400 MB of RAM consumed
• Add a new web application to an existing application pool: 59 MB of RAM
• Add a host named site collection to an existing application pool: 2 MB of RAM

Note that these numbers reflect just starting up an empty web application with no content, no users and no load.  Another article describes some more real world conditions of creating multiple web applications and/or application pools:

Click here to read this post

In addition, if you move to Office 365, keep in mind that there is only one web application in your subscription and you have limited administrative control over it.

How to Remove a SharePoint WFE/Application server from an existing farm?

You can find two methods in TechNet or other blogs to remove a SharePoint 2007/2010/2013 server from an existing farm. These methods are through central admin (Remove Server in servers in farm) and through control panel (uninstall SharePoint binaries).

I will suggest, if anybody is ever planning on Uninstalling/Removing a server from a SharePoint Farm, do not go to “Servers in farm” and click “Remove Server” or directly uninstall SharePoint on the server through Control Panel. This will cause failures in timer job status and will cause some problems down the road.

The best approach to uninstall or Remove a server is as follows

1. Log on to the server you want to remove or uninstall from the farm
2. Run the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard
3. Select “Disconnect from Farm” and click on next
4. Click OK to continue the wizard

The wizard will take you through the steps and you should be see the “Successful Message”

Now you can uninstall SharePoint binaries from the server disconnected from the Farm.

How to clone a WFE/ Application server in SharePoint Farm using SYSPREP?

There could be different ways to add a new server in existing environment. Many organization can find cloning is simplest way to replicate all customization in new server. Remember, cloning SharePoint Farm server is not supported by Microsoft.

But you can go by this strategy to save some time you can clone existing WFE by following below steps:

     1.    Put it offline to not interfere with current Farm

     2.    Remove all Application Pools and Sites in IIS

     3.    Remove SharePoint Logs

     4.    Do SYSPREP and then connect it to Farm with different name.

This tool SYSPREP stands for System Preparation tool (more info here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc721940(v=ws.10).aspx ). When launched it does few actions that will prepare the server for duplication like:

•  Removes system-specific data from Windows like the server name, the network settings (IP and MAC addresses)
•  Rearming the license and activation data
•  Remove the SID and domain related data

For SharePoint 2010 & 2013 there are components that will endure a “SYSPREP” than others:

·   SharePoint components that will endure a SYSPREP are:

• Server Roles configure during pre-requisite
• SharePoint binaries
• Language Packs
• Service Packs
• Cumulative Updates
• Hotfixes

·   The SharePoint components that won’t endure a SYSPREP and give an unsupported server are:

• Every tasks related to the configuration wizard, Central Administration and farm settings
• SharePoint server member of a SharePoint farm cannot be used to create a clone or template

While using cloning do not take clone of a standalone server.

I recommend you do fresh install (OS, SP, language packs, Updates), but do not connect to Farm, then do SysPrep and save this image for future use (clonnable).

SharePoint: Unable to Upload Multiple Documents Using Internet Explorer

Various SharePoint versions may show different error message while user trying to upload multiple files. Always try to keep all your system updated with latest patches and fixes released by Microsoft.

Problem 1:

I have been reported many times in last few years that SharePoint users are running into a problem where they couldn't upload multiple files in a document library of SharePoint 2010 or 2013 site using “Upload multiple files” or “Open with windows explorer”. When they clicking on the link “Upload files using Windows Explorer” instead from the “Upload document” or “add document” control, they getting below error message: “Your client does not support opening this list with Windows Explorer”.

Solution

Few SharePoint Controls including ‘Open with windows explorer’ dependent on ‘Webclient’ service of Windows OS.

1.  Follow the appropriate step for your operating system: 

 

·   For Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, click Start, click Run, type services.msc, and then press Enter.

·   For Windows 8, click Start, type services.msc, and then press Enter.

·   For Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2012, click Start, type services.msc, and then press Enter. If the WebClient service isn't present, you must first install the Desktop Experience. For more info about how to install the Desktop Experience, see the following Microsoft website:

Install Desktop Experience

(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754314.aspx)

2.  In the list of services, locate the WebClient service, and then make sure that its status in the Status column is set to Started. If it isn't set to Started, double-click the WebClient service to open the WebClient Properties window, click Start, and then click OK.

Note If the Startup Type for the WebClient service is set to Disabled, the Open with Explorer button won’t function correctly and you'll be unable to start the service. To enable the service, within the WebClient Properties dialog box, click the drop-down dialog for the Startup type: setting and then select either Manual or Automatic. After you complete this step, click Apply, click Start to start the service, and then click OK.

 

Problem 2:

“We're having a problem opening this location in File Explorer. To open with File Explorer, you’ll need to add this site to your Trusted Sites list and select the “Keep me signed in” check box when you sign in to the SharePoint Online site. For more information, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2629108.”

My environment is: - Windows 7 and IE 8 32-bit

Solution

 

Make sure that the SharePoint Online URLs have been added to your Trusted sites zone in Internet Explorer. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Start Internet Explorer
2. Depending on your version of Internet Explorer, take one of the following actions:
• Click the Tools menu, and then click Internet options.
• Click the gear icon, and then click Internet optionsClick the Security tab, click Trusted sites, and then click Sites.
3. Click the Security tab, click Trusted sites, and then click Sites. 
4. In the Add this website to the zone box, type the URL for the SharePoint Online site that you want to add to the Trusted sites zone, and then click Add. For example, type https://contoso.sharepoint.com. (Here, the placeholder contoso represents the domain that you use for your organization.) Repeat this step for any additional sites that you want to add to this zone.

5. After you have added each site to the Websites list, click Close, and then click OK.