Externalizing BLOB Storage in SharePoint 2010 (part 2) - Installing and Configuring RBS & Migrating and Moving BLOBs Between BLOB Stores

Installing and Configuring RBS

Administrators can use the following procedure to install and configure the BLOB externalization in SharePoint 2010 using RBS and the RBS FILESTREAM provider. Each step in the following procedure is explained in detail:

1.	Enable FILESTREAM on SQL Server.
2.	Prepare the database, and create a BLOB store.
3.	Install the RBS client.
4.	Enable RBS using Windows PowerShell.

Enable FILESTREAM on SQL Server

Administrators must enable and configure FILESTREAM on the computer running SQL Server 2008 (RTM/R2) that hosts the SharePoint Server 2010 databases:

1.	Click Start, All Programs, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, Configuration Tools, SQL Server Configuration Manager.
2.	In the left panel of SQL Server Configuration Manger, click SQL Server Services, which will list all the SQL Server 2008-related services on the right-side panel.
3.	Locate the instance of SQL Server on which you want to enable FILESTREAM, right-click the instance, and then click Properties.
4.	In the SQL Server Properties dialog box, click the FILESTREAM tab and select the Enable FILESTREAM for Transact-SQL Access check box, which will enable the rest of the options.
5.	Select all the check boxes, and then click Apply.
6.	Click Start, All Programs, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server Management Studio.
7.	Connect to the desired SQL Server database engine instance.
8.	In SQL Server Management Studio, click New Query to display the Query Editor.
9.	In Query Editor, enter the following Transact-SQL code: EXEC sp_configure filestream_access_level, 2; RECONFIGURE
10.	Click Execute.

Prepare the Database and Create a BLOB Store

The following steps show how to prepare the database and create a BLOB store:

Click Start, All Programs, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server Management Studio.

Connect to the desired SQL Server database engine instance and expand that instance.

Expand the databases, select the content database for which a BLOB store will be created, click New Query, and then execute the following commands:

use [ContentDatabaseName]
if not exists (select * from sys.symmetric_keys where name = N'##MS_DatabaseMasterKey##')create master key encryption by password = N'Admin Key Password !2#4'

use [ContentDatabaseName]
if not exists (select groupname from sysfilegroups where groupname=N'RBSFilestreamProvider')alter database [ContentDatabaseName] add filegroup RBSFilestreamProvider contains filestream

use [ContentDatabaseName]
alter database [ContentDatabaseName] add file (name = RBSFilestreamFile, filename = 'c:\RemoteBlobStore') to filegroup RBSFilestreamProvider

Install RBS

The following steps show how to install RBS:

1.	Download RBS 2008 R2 with the FILESTREAM provider (RBS_X64.msi) from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=165839&clcid=0x409 on the database server, all the web frontends, and all the application servers.
2.	On the database server, run the following commands from the location of the RBS_X64.msi file using the command prompt: msiexec /qn /lvx* rbs_install_log.txt /i RBS_X64.msi TRUSTSERVERCERTIFICATE=true FILEGROUP=PRIMARY DBNAME="ContentDatabaseName" DBINSTANCE="DatabaseInstanceName" FILESTREAMFILEGROUP=RBSFilestreamProvider FILESTREAMSTORENAME=FilestreamProvider_1 msiexec /qn /lvx* rbs_install_log.txt /i RBS_X64.msi DBNAME=" ContentDatabaseName " DBINSTANCE=" DatabaseInstanceName " ADDLOCAL="Client,Docs,Maintainer,ServerScript,FilestreamClient, FilestreamServer" This should be run against each content database that should support RBS.
3.	On all the web frontends and all the application servers, run the following command from the location of the RBS_X64.msi file using the command prompt: msiexec /qn /lvx* rbs_install_log.txt /i RBS_X64.msi DBNAME=" ContentDatabaseName " DBINSTANCE=" DatabaseInstanceName " ADDLOCAL="Client,Docs,Maintainer,ServerScript,FilestreamClient, FilestreamServer" These commands kick off an msiexec service that run in a silent mode, not providing any feedback about their success or failure. Administrators can monitor the service in the Task Manager to ensure that they are finished.
4.	Administrators can confirm the RBS installation by looking for the text Product: SQL Remote Blob Storage—Configuration Completed Successfully in the RBS log file. The previous installation commands create a log file named rbs_install_log.txt in the same location as the RBS_X64.msi file. The installation also creates several tables in the specified content database with names that are preceded by mssqlrbs. Administrators can also look for these tables to confirm the installation.

Note

SQL Server 2008 released RBS 2008, which was the first version of RBS API. This version is not supported with SharePoint 2010. The version referred to here as RBS 2008 R2 was enhanced to work with SharePoint 2010, ships with the FILESTREAM provider, and can be installed on both SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2.

Enable RBS Using Windows PowerShell

The following steps show how to enable RBS using Windows PowerShell:

1.	Click Start, All Programs, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
2.	At the Windows PowerShell command prompt (PS C:\>), type each of the following commands and press Enter after each one: Code View: Scroll / Show All $cdb = Get-SPContentDatabase ContentDatabaseName $blobstoragesettings = $cdb.RemoteBlobStorageSettings $blobstoragesettings.Enable() $blobstoragesettings.SetActiveProviderName($blobstoragesettings.GetProviderNames()[0]) The Enable commandlet enables the usage of RSB for a certain content database. When RBS is enabled, BLOBs get stored in the active BLOB store. When the active BLOB store is disabled through the Disable commandlet, the BLOBs get stored back in the content database. The GetProviderNames commandlet can be used to list all the registered providers in the farm, and the names are retrieved from the configuration database. The SetActiveProviderName commandlet is used to activate a certain provider for a certain content database. A farm can have multiple RBS providers, but only one of them can be active at a time for a given content database. Another useful commandlet that was not used previously is the MinimumBlobStorageSize commandlet. This commandlet can be used to set a size threshold. For example, an administrator can decide to store files smaller than 1MB in the content database and larger ones in the BLOB store.
3.	Now, all the uploaded documents should go to the BLOB store (c:\RemoteBlobStore) rather than being saved in the specified content database. Figure 3 illustrates the upload operation workflow in SharePoint 2010 after enabling RBS. Figure 3. The upload operation workflow in SharePoint 2010 and RBS.

Migrating and Moving BLOBs Between BLOB Stores

SharePoint 2010 ships with a powerful PowerShell commandlet named Migrate that can be used by administrators to move BLOBs from their current locations to the current active RBS provider store. This implies that administrators can use the commandlet to move data from SQL Server to another remote BLOB store, and vice versa. Moving BLOBs from a content database is a typical requirement after installing and configuring RBS on already running SharePoint systems.

It is also worth mentioning that the Migrate commandlet performs a deep copy of the BLOBs one BLOB at a time, and there is no downtime required for moving all the BLOBs. The migration process also can be paused and resumed at any time, which means that at a point, part of the BLOBs can be in SQL Server, and the other part can reside in another BLOB store.

This commandlet can even be used to move BLOBs from one BLOB store to another one by moving them back to SQL Server and then migrating them to another store.

Migrating BLOBs from a Content Database to the Current Active Provider Store

The following steps show how to migrate BLOBs from a content database to the current active provider store:

1.	Click Start, All Programs, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
2.	At the Windows PowerShell command prompt (PS C:\>), type each of the following commands and press Enter after each one: $cdb = Get-SPContentDatabase ContentDatabaseName $blobstoragesettings = $cdb.RemoteBlobStorageSettings $blobstoragesettings.Migrate()

Migrating BLOBs from the Current Active Provider Store Back to the Content Database

The following steps show how to migrate the current active provider store back to a content database:

1.	Click Start, All Programs, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
2.	At the Windows PowerShell command prompt (PS C:\>), type each of the following commands and press Enter after each one: $cdb = Get-SPContentDatabase ContentDatabaseName $blobstoragesettings = $cdb.RemoteBlobStorageSettings $blobstoragesettings.Disable() $blobstoragesettings.Migrate()