Everybody refers to SharePoint when they are talking about content management, document management, records management, file storage, business intelligence and even business process automation. All of these mean different things to different people. The storage and management of information have changed, not just how to find available information, but also how that information can be stored in IT systems. Find out how Microsoft SharePoint fits into and works with other parts of the information ecosystem and what are the storage options.

1. BruceTuncertan@SierraSystems.com
STORING AND MANAGING YOUR SHAREPOINT CONTENT
RBS, FILESTREAM, SHREDDED STORAGE

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@tuncertan
Bruce Tuncertan
Principal, Solution Architect – SharePoint at Sierra Systems
INTRODUCTION
BruceTuncertan@SierraSystems.com
sharepointtidbits.blogspot.com
 Solution Architect specialized in Microsoft technologies specifically SharePoint.
 Possesses 25 year experience in the Information Technology and working with SharePoint
since 2006.
 Architected many solutions for public and private clients sized from SMEs to large enterprises.
 Carries MCITP, MCTS certifications for SharePoint 2003, 2007 and 2010 as well as MCITP
certification for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

4. AGENDA
• Data (Structured and Unstructured)
• SharePoint storage in brief
• BLOBs (Binary Large OBjects)
• Challenges of storing unstructured data in SQL Server.
• RBS (Remote Blob Storage)
• FILESTREAM
• Benefits and disadvantages of RBS
• Shredded Storage
• Questions & Prizes 5

5. •Structured:
• Organized in entities
• Tied to a relationship with attributes
• Associated with a defined schema
• Defined format
• Predefined length
• Usually Small
• Example:
• Contact Lists
• Calendar
• Task Lists
DATA

6. Unstructured:
Does not adhere to specific format
or sequence
It is not tied to rules and
unpredictable
Examples:
 Pictures, Images
 Video
 Audio
 Text
 Word, PowerPoint, etc.
Most often large in size
DATA

7. Unstructured:
Does not adhere to specific format
or sequence
It is not tied to rules and
unpredictable
Examples:
 Pictures, Images
 Video
 Audio
 Text
 Word, PowerPoint, etc.
Most often large in size
DATA
On average, in the enterprise
20% of the data is structured and 80% is
unstructured

8. 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

9. SHAREPOINT STORAGE HISTORY
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• SharePoint Portal Server
(SPS)
• SharePoint Team Services
(STS)
• SharePoint Server 2010 &
SharePoint Foundation 2010
• 200GB / 4TB
• Remote BLOB Storage (RBS)
• Backup Tools
• SharePoint Portal Server 2003
• Windows SharePoint Services
• 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
• File and Database Storage
2003
• All SQL Storage
2007
• SQL Storage
• EBS
2010
• SQL Storage
• RBS
2013
• SQL Storage
• Shredded Storage

10. 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 an Office document or a video file
• By default, BLOBs are:
• unstructured data
• stored directly in the SP content db along with the structured data
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11. 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
BLOB
Metadata
SQL Server
Web Server
SP Object Model

12. 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
• Retention
• Obsolescence

13. NO MORE BLOBS
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14. By Externalizing BLOBs
• EBS – External BLOB Storage
• Developed by SharePoint Team
• FARM Level
• Supported in SharePoint 2007 and 2010 but
deprecated in 2010
• 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
HOW ARE WE GOING TO SOLVE IT?
15

15. 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

16. RBS OVERVIEW
BLOB
Metadata
SQL Server
Web Server
SP Object Model

17. RBS OVERVIEW
BLOB
Metadata
SQL Server
Web Server
SP Object Model
BLOB
Provider
BLOB
Storage RBS Maintainer

18. RBS OVERVIEW
BLOB
Metadata
SQL Server
Web Server
SP Object Model
BLOB
Provider
1
BLOB
Provider
2
BLOB
Provider
3
BLOB
Storage
1
BLOB
Storage
2
BLOB
Storage
3
RBS Maintainer

19. 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)
• Avepoint, Metalogix, NetApp, Quest
• RBS-FILESTREAM
• Another RBS provider
• SQL Server Feature
• Integrated File + Database
• Ideal for files > 1MB

20. DATA STORAGE OPTIONS/PROS AND CONS

21. 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
• It can help improve SQL Server performance
• Size limit is the file system volume size

22. FILESTREAM PERFORMANCE

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

24. • 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
FILESTREAM LIMITATIONS AND CONSTRAINTS

25. • 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.
RBS BENEFITS

26. 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

27. 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
 RBS is not supported with Office 365

28. SHREDDED STORAGE
Newly introduced at SharePoint 2013
Data platform improvement
Manages changes/edits to the large files
Improve the I/O
Reduces the compute utilization
Reduces SQL storage

29. SHREDDED STORAGE
Newly introduced at SharePoint 2013
Data platform improvement
Manages changes/edits to the large files
Improve the I/O
Reduces the compute utilization
Reduces SQL storage

30. SHREDDED STORAGE
Newly introduced at SharePoint 2013
Data platform improvement
Manages changes/edits to the large files
Improve the I/O
Reduces the compute utilization
Reduces SQL storage

31. TRADITIONAL SHAREPOINT 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 I/O traffic due to
additional roundtrips to
SQL Server

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

33. •Pros
• SQL I/O is improved
• Size of the content db is reduced under certain scenarios
• Reduced SQL Server transaction logs
•Cons
• All content is still stored in the SQL Server
• Cannot be disabled – other options?
SHREDDED STORAGE PROS & CONS
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34. 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 they are versioned or not.
Cell Storage API is utilized for
Shredded Storage

35. HOW SHREDDED STORAGE WORKS?

36. HOW SHREDDED STORAGE WORKS?

37. HOW SHREDDED STORAGE WORKS?

38. MIGRATION
What happens when we migrate SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013?

39. MIGRATION
What happens when we migrate SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013?
1. Existing files are shredded during the migration and new files will be shredded
afterwards
2. Existing files are not shredded but new files will be shredded automatically after the
migration
3. Existing files are not shredded and shredding will be
turned on manually after the migration

40. MIGRATION
What happens when we migrate SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013?
1. Existing files are shredded during the migration and new files will be shredded
afterwards
2. Existing files are not shredded but new files will be shredded automatically after the
migration
3. Existing files are not shredded and shredding will be
turned on manually after the migration

41. SHREDDED STORAGE&RBS TOGETHER
Shredded Storage splits larger BLOBs into many small BLOBs
RBS 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.
 RBS Threshold will be ignored.
In order to get the best of the both worlds
 Set RBS threshold to 1MB

42. SHREDDED STORAGE&RBS TOGETHER
Shredded Storage splits larger BLOBs into many small BLOBs
RBS 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.
 RBS Threshold will be ignored.
In order to get the best of the both worlds
 Set RBS threshold to 1MB

43. • 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
SUMMARY
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44. QUESTION 1
•What is the supported content
database size in SharePoint 2010?
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45. •What is the recommended file size
for FILESTREAM?
46
QUESTION 2

46. •What is the block/chunk size of Office
Files when shredded in SharePoint
2013?
47
QUESTION 3

47. •Can you give examples of structured
and unstructured data?
48
QUESTION 4

48. •In which version of SharePoint, RBS is
introduced?
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QUESTION 5

49. REFERENCES
• 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

50. Q&A