Lets Build A SharePoint Environment in Windows Azure

Let’s Build a SharePoint
Environment in Windows
Azure
Matthew J. Bailey, MCTS #SPSRED

I consider myself a “SharePoint All-Rounder”. My job tasks vary including
Administration, Development, Training, Analysis, UAT and Project Management.
My job changes daily based on the crazy life of an IT fellow in corporate America,
but it keeps things interesting!
I am have worked with SharePoint for almost six years. I do not consider myself
an expert but have a fair amount of knowledge with the technology and currently
use it daily in my career.
If I don’t know an answer to one of your questions, I will try to find it out or point
you in the right direction!
SharePoint Business Analyst &
Technical Project Manager
JDSU
Matthew J. Bailey, MCTS
Me, me, me…

You, you, you!
Azure, SharePoint & all
the peeps in the audience
• Who has heard never heard of Azure and is not familiar with what it is?
• Who has heard of Azure, kind of knows what it is but has not used it?
• Who has/is currently using/used Azure already?
• Who uses Azure almost daily as a part of their environment,
production, test or otherwise?
• Who does not fall into any of these categories ? Are you just trying to
be difficult and need to feel special? I do!

To Get Things Going…
To kick things off since we have time limits, I am
going to amaze and delight you by typing a word
and clicking the “enter” button…

What is Azure?
Windows Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform that enables you to
quickly build, deploy and manage applications across a global network of
Microsoft-managed datacenters. It provides cloud based servers, networks,
storage, services and much more. In today’s demo we will be using Azure as
an IaaS (Infrastructure as a service).
Photo Credit: Yung Chou http://blogs.technet.com/b/yungchou

How Do I Describe Azure?
Well…pretend you are a chef. You want to make some recipes. Perhaps you
want to make a small little cake, or perhaps you want to bake a Thanksgiving
dinner. In either case, you need some professional cooking tools such as
ovens, broilers, pans, mixers and what not so you can cook up your ideas.
Think of Azure as your professional kitchen you will be working in.
When you mix the power of a great kitchen with different recipes (that can be
microwaved for fast cooking) or baked slowly by hand, you now have the
power to become a “Master Chef” producing such delicacies such as apps,
big data with Hadoop/HDInsight, Linux Ubuntu/SUSE servers, Node.js mobile
services, web sites, CDNs (content delivery networks), streaming video,
storage networks and much more.
On today’s menu: Using Azure as an IaaS to bake create a SharePoint farm.

Typical Scenarios
Dev/test (All
installed on a
single VM)
Small
farm
(1 AD, 1
SQL, 1 SP)
High
Availability
(2 AD, 2SQL,
1 Quorum, 2
SP APP, 2 SP
WFE)
Hybrid
(Azure / On-
Premise /
Office 365)
Migrating
VHDs up
to Azure
Any
configuration
you want
(well mostly)
What kinds of SharePoint goodies are people
cooking in Azure?

Cooking Equipment Needed
• Azure account (free trial is ok)
• Use this link it is the best free trial I have seen for Azure so far,
$200 credit for one month http://aka.ms/200
• Credit card (It will NOT be charged unless you remove the spending
limit) – we will cover pricing later in our session
• Azure PowerShell, profile http://www.windowsazure.com/en-
us/manage/install-and-configure-windows-powershell/
• Modern browser
• RDP access

2 Ways to Bake in Azure
Either way, we’re still baking (a cake/SharePoint
farm). The question now is how? Slow cooker or
microwave?
Microwave (PowerShell) Slow Cooker (Manually Clicking)
3 Layer Cake (3 VM) 1 layer cake (1VM)
9 layer Cake (9 VM) 3 layer cake (3VM)
Any type of cake you want (within
Azure IaaS limits)
9 layer cake (9VM)
Any type of cake you want (within
Azure IaaS limits)

PowerShell (Microwave
Version)
1. Download Windows Azure PowerShell:
https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-tools/releases
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/downloads/
2. How to Install and Configure Windows Azure PowerShell:
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/install-and-configure-
windows-powershell/
3. Ensure ExecutionPolicy and Admin Privileges
• Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
4. Choose your PowerShell script (the recipe you downloaded from the
web or one you have written yourself)
5. Run the script from your Azure PowerShell window

Popular Recipes (Azure
Scripts)
People share recipes all over the internet. Here are a few recipes (PowerShell
scripts written by others to create and configure everything) to bake make
your SharePoint environment on Azure:
1. 9 Layer cake with frosting (provisions VMs and configures SharePoint from AIS –
High Avail Farm) https://github.com/AppliedIS/SharePointFarm-File
2. 3 Layer Cake, no frosting (creates VMs, but no provisioning – Basic Farm)
http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2013/04/16/ten-key-scenarios-
extend-your-datacenter-today-with-windows-azure-infrastructure-
services.aspx#.UeWc-vmOTBN
3. Flexi-cake: 3 or 9 Layer, with or without frosting (You can choose either a small
or large farm, provisioned or not) https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-
tools-samples -
*NOTE: Since Azure changes quite frequently and each of our computers is
different, you may need to tweek these scripts a bit to make them to work.
Of course, using Windows Azure PowerShell, you can create your own recipe
and bake any type of SharePoint environment you want (well almost).

Demo Time – Before & After

Manual Click (Slow Cook
Version)
Video demo of manual process of creating a 3 VM
SharePoint farm (1 AD, 1 SQL, 1 SP) in Azure

Cloud Service Planning
I guess you could say this is more like preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. This
is more so applies to creating a full featured, production use cloud
environment. If you are only looking for a TV dinner, microwavable dev/test
environment this planning might not be needed.
Processes of planning your Azure network
1. Region – Affinity group
2. Storage – storage account (geo rep)
3. Network – Virtual Network (DNS consider)
4. Deploy App architecture - VMs
5. Availability – Availability Set
6. Load Balance – Load balance/end point (cloud service? Doesn’t an AvailSet
auto load balance?)
Information provided from Yung Chou @ MSFT

Affinity Groups
This is a logical construct associated with a geo-region and defined at the
subscription level. Allow you to group your Windows Azure services for
optimized performance and latency by placing items in the same specified
data center close to each other.

Storage Account
A storage account provides the access to Windows Azure storage within a
geographic region. By default, geographically redundant storage (GRS) is
optional and enabled at a storage account creation time. GRS replicates data
to a data center in a secondary location of the same geo-region. When
turning off geo-replication, a storage account then becomes locally
redundant storage (LRS) which stores data in a single data center location.
There are three types of storage in Windows Azure:
• Blob
• Queue,
• Table in Windows Azure.
For Windows Azure IaaS, a VM must be stored in Page Blob, max size of 1
TB.
Windows Azure creates two 512-bit management keys at a storage account
creation time. An application will use one of the two keys to access the
storage account.
The monitoring and logging is not enabled by default. Charts on the
dashboard and monitor page will present usage when enabled .

Cloud Services
This is a logical container presented as a single URL to include application code and
configurations, while together form a cloud service or simply a service. For Windows
Azure IaaS, each VM is deployed to a service, however a service can contain multiple
VMs. Placing multiple VMs into a service makes these VMs connected and visible to
one another. Considering a multi-tier application, a cloud service can therefore be
employed to host multiple tiers of VMs which form the application architecture or
architectural component, while manage all VMs which are connected as one entity.
This concept is revisited when examining VM deployment later in this post.

Virtual Network
Windows Azure employs a configuration file, NetworkConfig.xml, to define
the settings of a virtual network. A Windows Azure virtual network is
essentially a customized set of network configurations implemented on
demand at a data center of a geo-region explicitly specified or implied by an
Affinity group. A virtual network is as the name suggested virtual and this
network virtualization is isolated at a subscription level.
Windows Azure Virtual Network is a powerful feature and a crucial skill to have. For
training, prototyping, or short-term networking needs, Windows Azure virtual
networking offers tremendous capability and flexibility. For businesses of all sizes,
branch office, and business units, Windows Azure IaaS and site-to-site or point-to-
site connectivity introduces many new scenarios and exciting opportunities to
extend, integrate, and transform an on-premises deployment into a hybrid cloud
scenario. There is much information readily available in Windows Azure IaaS
documentation and is not repeated here. IT professionals however must recognize
that there is no other way to master Windows Azure IaaS without practicing,
practicing, and practicing more on creating a virtual network, deploy VMs, and build
an application architecture.

Virtual Machine
Windows Azure IaaS supports both Microsoft Operating Systems and non-
Microsoft ones. The VM image gallery in Windows Azure Management Portal,
as shown below, includes the latest releases and previews of Windows Server,
SQL Server, SharePoint, BizTalk Server, and many non-Microsoft workload like
openSUSE, SUSE Linux, Ubuntu, OpenLogic, etc.
One interesting observation of a Windows Azure IaaS deployment is that
multiple VMs can be included in the same cloud service. This offers an
opportunity to logically group specific VMs to form an application
architectural component or architecture itself. For instance, a three-tier web
application architecture like frontend, mid-tier, and backend can be all
included in a cloud service such that all VMs are connected via the service to
deliver the application.
Alternatively each tier can be a service such that the frontend VMs are in a
frontend service, mid-tier VMs are placed in a mid-tier service, and the
backend are organized into a backend service while all three services
collectively form the application/service architecture. The following schematic
illustrates this concept.

Availability Set
This is an essential part of a cloud deployment. An Availability Set is a logical
group to signify the need for Windows Azure to prevent a single point of
failure for all VMs included in the set. A single point of failure of hardware is
the so-called Fault Domain. In Windows Azure a Fault Domain is a server rack.
Those VMs instances added into an Availability Set in essence demand
Windows Azure to deploy those instances to at least two or more fault
domains, i.e. two or more server racks. Windows Azure IaaS makes
configuring an Availability Set a very simple interactive mouse-clicking
process while configuring a VM or after a deployment.
An Availability Set is an effective tool to ensure service availability. For
instance, two Domain Controllers, DC1 and DC2, are paired as a backup to
each other. At least one of the two servers should always be available for user
authentications. Placing DC1 and DC2 into an Availability Set will guarantee
there is no single point of failure of hardware between DC1 and DC2.

Load Balancer
Typically a production web application will place a load balancer before the
frontend web servers to distribute the incoming traffic for better server
utilization and more predictable performance. In a traditional deployment,
adding, maintaining, and scaling a load balancer is a significant part of a web
application since it adds additional hardware, software, complexities, security,
maintenance, vendor dependency, etc. besides just costs.
Windows Azure IaaS offers a basic load balancer with a round robin
algorithm. The process to create a load balancer is to first specify/open a
standalone endpoint, i.e. a port and mark the checkbox to also create a load-
balanced set with this endpoint of a VM followed by configuring the load-
balanced set. The above right shows Windows Azure PowerShell cmdlets for
adding a load-balanced set which is part of the operations of adding an
endpoint. While shown below is the user experience to configure a load-
balanced set.

Creating Your Architecture
Multiple VMs can be included in the same cloud service. This offers an
opportunity to logically group specific VMs to form an application
architectural component or architecture itself. For instance, a three-tier web
application architecture like frontend, mid-tier, and backend can be all
included in a cloud service such that all VMs are connected via the service to
deliver the application. Alternatively each tier can be a service such that the
frontend VMs are in a frontend service, mid-tier VMs are placed in a mid-tier
service, and the backend are organized into a backend service while all three
services collectively form the application/service architecture. The following
schematic illustrates this concept.

What is This Cake Gonna
Cost?
Azure Pricing, not quite as simple as paying
the grocery clerk at checkout…
  • Discounts for MSDN
BizSpark members
• Free trials with credits
from $50-$200
• Billing is mostly real
time in your account
• Pricing can be
confusing and the
available calculators
on the Azure site are
not fully capable of
giving you a true quote
• Not being able to turn
on a price limit once it
has been removed
exposes you to
extreme financial risk

Azure Pricing – Quick History
A quick history on pricing. Until a few months ago, Azure billed for any Virtual
Machine (VM) that was in your account, even if it was not running. To much
ballyhoo, legions of Microsoft techies applauded the change to not charge
you for a VM when it is “shut down”. However, make sure what shut down
means:
• SHUT DOWN: Stop the VM from the management portal or stop the VM
through Powershell by calling ShutdowRoleOperation with
'PostShutdownAction' equal to "StoppedDeallocated".
• NOT SHUT DOWN: If you shut down a VM from inside (e.g. using power
options in Windows, like clicking Start  Shut Down) or through
PowerShell by calling ShutdownRoleOperation with 'PostShutdownAction'
equal to "Stopped".
FIND ALL TIPS TO REMIND YOU TO OR AUTOMATICALLY SHUT OFF YOUR
VMS ON WEB

What is Billed, What Isn’t?
• Billed for outbound traffic
• Storage over free limit (whether on or off)
• VPN (if you are using it) is extra charge
• Hourly Resources of VMs (billing rate changes depending on many things)
I am still compiling this list and doing more research,
check back on my blog soon for more updates…

Azure Cost / Billing – Part
Deux
Azure changes very often. This pricing is only as current as the
day this was written (September 2013) and may not be exact
(however I have tried my best to figure it out)
Difference of hourly billing using the prebaked SQL image vs. a
regular Windows 2012 image and installing SQL yourself (if you have
a license for it)
Small (A1) 1 1.75 GB
$0.09
(~$67/mont
h)
Small
(A1)
1 1.75 GB
$0.135/hr
(~$100/m
onth)
$0.64/hr
(~$476/m
onth)
$2.19/hr
(~$1,629/
month)

Azure Cost / Billing – Part
Trois
There is also the option of putting in a spending limit, however once removed you
cannot turn the spending limit back on. This is high risk. The only solution I know of
at this time is to have to delete the account and start over with a new one to set a
different pricing limit 

I Don’t Want This to Happen 2
U
As much as I don’t want anyone from Microsoft to feel I may be talking
negatively about their product, I have to be at peace with myself by
informing users of how the service may impact them financially.

Recap – Azure Pricing / Billing
• Azure has a lot of great features and services
• I still use and recommend Azure for testing, development &
demos
• I have learned the hard way and recommend to others to make
sure their VMs are turned off on a regular basis (unless needed for
high availability)
• Research the internet for tips on how to set reminders or scripts
that will automatically shut down your VMs
• Take extra caution in removing the spending limit on your account
• Take time to understand which services and features do and don’t
incur cost, even if it is complex and time cosuming

Cloud Turbulents – “Gotchas”
• Hybrid Authentication / Office 365 / Multiple Accounts or Multiple Azure
Accounts (see workaround for multiple Azure accounts at link below)
• Remember the SharePoint image is a trial and will expire (add a key or
replace with another image later)
• Deleting artifacts from your Azure can be very messy (vhd, blob, vm)
• Architectural limitations include:
• 500IOPS per drive
• 20 processor cores per account (unless you contact support for
exception)
• Max size of 1 TB in a VM
http://www.matthewjbailey.com/sharepoint-2013-azure-
installation-problems/

Is Azure Right for Me?
• Fast setup / Rapid deployments
• Variable ability to extend network infrastructure (i.e., need some “boosting” to
network for major press event) or a very fast growing company
• Extending (not replacing) your infrastructure
• Create reusable VMs that are customized for your needs (training, disaster
recovery, etc)
• Need lower start up costs, less time investment on hardware maintenance
• Create dynamic shared work environments that where security would normally
interfere
• Development/Test/Stage or hybrid environments
• Disaster Recovery (an available backup to failover to or storing of backups/VMs)
• Provide server availability in parts of the world where connections are needed
(and coming back to the USA to your current datacenter is too slow)
• Opportunity to access and try out new “pre-release” versions of software
• You can also use Team Foundation Service to do load and performance testing.

Azure Might Not Be for Me If…
• You don’t have a continuous internet connection
• You need extensive, high level architecture assistance in creating virtual
networks (unless you have a resource to assist you in learning/helping)
• You have a very limited budget and are unable to perform the extra tasks
necessary to keep your monthly bill low
• Your needs are truly “mission critical” (although I think Azure will be able to fulfill
this in the near future or be as comparable to AWS at least; I would not
personally suggest trying to run a major airline website on Azure for example,
well not yet)
• You have licensing issues with products/add-ons you purchased that are not
allowed on cloud
• You have hardware situations where multiple hardware NICs are needed and
can’t be replicated (Azure uses virtual IPs)

Other SharePoint & Azure
Resources
• There are so many resources on the internet to get started,
please check the link at the end of my slide and I will update
my website soon with a categorized list to get you going 
http://bit.ly/1eWatqj

Bon Appetite!
@matthewjbailey1
http://www.matthewjbailey.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewjbailey1
sharepointmatthew@gmail.com
Download my slides and get started at:
http://bit.ly/1eWatqj

Lets Build A SharePoint Environment in Windows Azure

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