Deploying Microsoft

SharePoint Server
2016
Technical Preview

Multi-tier Farm
Deployment
Scenario v.1.0

Manoj Karunarathne
MCT MCTS
 Page |1

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 2
1.1 Overview........................................................................................................................................ 2
2. Architecture of This Scenario ................................................................................................................. 3
3. System Requirements ............................................................................................................................ 4
4. Deployment Scenarios ........................................................................................................................... 4
5. Operating System Requirements............................................................................................................ 5
6. SharePoint Designer Support ................................................................................................................. 5
7. Farm Deployment .................................................................................................................................. 6
7.1 Installing Prerequisites and preparing the Farm ............................................................................. 6
7.1.1 Automatic Installation ............................................................................................................ 6
7.2 Configuring Farm on Application Server ....................................................................................... 10
8. Explore the New Farm.......................................................................................................................... 30
9. Known Issues in Technical Preview ...................................................................................................... 32
10. About Me ......................................................................................................................................... 34
 Page |2

1. Introduction
1.1 Overview

SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview Provides a first look of overall Product Improvements and Features with
its latest release. This Version is not fully armed with the complete set of features and capabilities. As always
the final product will be announced with RTM (Released to Manufacture) Version.

This Book will guide you to Install and Configure Microsoft SharePoint Server 2016 in a Multi-Server Farm
mode for testing and Developmental Purposes.

Microsoft has Released SharePoint Server 2016 Technical Preview which is specifically targeting the
technical audience to allow this latest version to be tested prior to its next major releases. Microsoft
Marking another Milestone with their one of the largest product family SharePoint Server with this
release.

Some of the Key benefits of 2016 are:

Improved Provisioning capabilities

Mobile and Touch support
App Launcher
New and improved Controls
SharePoint Insights
Simple and Natural Sharing
Large File Support
Compliance Tools
Cloud Hybrid Search
Hybrid Scenarios Coverage

For Detailed information about latest SharePoint 2016, refer Office Team Blog here. Office team Blog is the
place to keep watching for next versions of SharePoint.

And Bill Baer has already announced the Hardware and Software Requirements in his Whats new in
SharePoint 2016 post in his blog here. This article is very rich in specification and overall technical
perspectives. so its recommended for you to go through it before start the Installation.

This Guide will not cover the SQL Server Installation part. You have to refer to an SQL Server Installation Guide
for SharePoint Deployments in order to Install SQL First.

This book will be updated time to time with latest releases of SharePoint Server 2016 and will be improved
with various deployment Scenarios whenever it needs you the most.
 Page |3

2. Architecture of This Scenario

A Three-Tier farm is used for this scenario together with a Separate Active Directory Server in order to
demonstrate the three layers as below figure.

All above servers are Virtual machines hosted using Microsoft Hyper-V on top of Windows Server 2012 R2.
Production Deployments are to be considered for more Servers with scaled out farm which depends on the
Services its targeted to run.
 Page |4

3. System Requirements

Scenario Deployment type and scale Processor RAM Hard disk

Development or evaluation 80 GB for system drive
Database server
installation with the 64-bit, 4
running a single SQL 12-16 GB
minimum recommended cores 100 GB for second drive
instance
services
80 GB for system drive
Database server Pilot, user acceptance test
64-bit, 4
running a single SQL running all available 16-24 GB 100 GB for second drive
cores
instance services and additional drives
Development or evaluation 80 GB for system drive
Web server or
installation with the 64-bit, 4
application server 8-12 GB
minimum number of cores 80 GB for second drive
in a three-tier farm
services
80 GB for system drive
Web server or Pilot, user acceptance test
64-bit, 4
application server running all available 12-16 GB 80 GB for second drive
cores
in a three-tier farm services and additional drives

NOTE: Disk space and number of drives depends on the amount of content and the method chosen to distribute data
for a SharePoint environment.

For more Technical details Refer here

4. Deployment Scenarios

Scenario SharePoint Server 2013 SharePoint Server 2016

Workgroup Unsupported Unsupported
Domain Controller Developer Installation Developer Installation
Client OS Unsupported Unsupported
Dynamic Memory Unsupported Unsupported
Windows Web Server Unsupported Unsupported
 Page |5

5. Operating System Requirements

SharePoint Server 2016 is supported on Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server Technical Preview.
Evaluation copies of both operating systems can be downloaded from the TechNet Evaluation Center:

Windows Server 2012 R2

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2012-r2

Windows Server Technical Preview

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-technical-preview

6. SharePoint Designer Support

Microsoft has announced that SharePoint 2016 has no new version of SharePoint Designer. SharePoint
Designer 2013 will be capable of dealing with SharePoint 2016.
 Page |6

7. Farm Deployment
7.1 Installing Prerequisites and preparing the Farm

7.1.1 Automatic Installation

To Install Prerequisites, the best way is to use the SharePoint Product Installation wizard. If you have
Internet connection on your SharePoint Server, just go ahead and Install it from the Product Installation
Tool.

Prerequisites Installer can be found within the Installation ISO or Setup.exe of SharePoint 2016
 Page |7

7.1.2 Manual Installation

Log in to the Target SharePoint Application Server and Right clicking on Windows PowerShell will allow you
run as "administrator".

Then paste the below script there and execute it by pressing Enter. This Script will install the Windows
Server Roles and features for SharePoint Server 2016. It might need a restart of the server during the
installation. Make Sure You Have Inserted the Windows Server media and provide that path end of this
Script for the SXS Folder.

Import-Module ServerManager

Add-WindowsFeature Net-Framework-Features,Web-Server,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Static-
Content,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Dir-Browsing,Web-Http-Errors,Web-App-Dev,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Net-Ext,Web-
ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Health,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Log-Libraries,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Http-
Tracing,Web-Security,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Filtering,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Performance,Web-
Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-Mgmt-Compat,Web-
Metabase,Application-Server,AS-Web-Support,AS-TCP-Port-Sharing,AS-WAS-Support, AS-HTTP-Activation,AS-TCP-
Activation,AS-Named-Pipes,AS-Net-Framework,WAS,WAS-Process-Model,WAS-NET-Environment,WAS-Config-
APIs,Web-Lgcy-Scripting,Windows-Identity-Foundation,Server-Media-Foundation,Xps-Viewer Source
D:\sources\sxs

Pressing enter will execute the Installation of Features and give it a moment.

Once the Green Status disappeared, press enter once and if all went well you will see the Yellow message
as below. If there's any red marked errors, it must be due to invalid SXS folder location or the setup could
not access it due to permissions.
 Page |8

Type Shutdown -r -t 1 and Press Enter which will restart Your Server via command line

Do not attempt to do anything while it works on features and roles installation during the Restart

With this, The Windows Features and Components installation is completing. Next is to Install the other
prerequisites which we have downloaded.

If you dont have Internet on your SharePoint server for a technical reason maybe, you can manually
download each of these files from Microsoft or here is a script from Mohit to automate the download
process which you can run on PowerShell.

Download the Script here - https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/PreRequisites-for-

7f719ff3/file/143369/1/Download-SP2016ITPreviewPreReqFiles.ps1

Open Windows PowerShell ISE as administrator on a Computer has Internet Connection.

Right Click the download script and go to edit mode. Copy the content and paste it on PowerShell ISE
 Page |9

Go ahead and Execute by Pressing "Green Start" button and you will have prompted to provide the
Download Path. Define a Local path there and Enter

Depends on your Internet Connection, it might take 5-10 Minutes

Once Downloading completed, go ahead and copy the files to Target SharePoint 2016 Server and Install
once by one manually and installing all of them completing our Prerequisites Installation.
 P a g e | 10

7.2 Configuring Farm on Application Server

Product Installation on Application and Frontend Servers. This can be done in Parallel.

Insert the Product Key here. You may use the Public Trial Key for testing Purpose
 P a g e | 11

Choose the Program File Location. Define it to be a separate Volume for Production Deployments.

Depends on the Resources you have; Installation might take up to 3-8 Minutes

End of the Product Installation Wizard, there will be an option to select whether you want to perform the
farm creation in Wizard. Select the Check box which will automatically prompt the Wizard for you.
 P a g e | 12

Provisioning the Application Server

 P a g e | 13

This stage is to Specify the Configuration Database settings. Where the Farm Databases are installed. This
scenario is hosted in a Single node SQL Server.

Database Server: Specify the Server Name/Instance here. If you have an always on or Clustered SQL, you
may specify the listener Name/Cluster Name at the Name Field for Database Server here.

Database Name: Nothing Much. Just simple as how you want to have a label for your Farm Configuration
Database. This is the Database holds entire SharePoint Farm configuration and Settings.

User Name and Password: Provide the Credentials for your SQL Server.

Farm Passphrase is nothing differ from it was in earlier versions. You need this whenever you join a new
Server to the farm and sometimes when restoring Web Applications etc provide a meaningful passphrase
which you can mark down.

This step is important. Previously in SharePoint 2013 it was just with 2 options and here we see a very
straight forward way with multiple options. If you need a Single server with All Services running for testing
 P a g e | 14

purposes, the option is Single-Server farm, Else for production environments it is highly recommended to
have multiple Servers which are aligning with Multi-Tier architecture (WEB | APP |DB). Formerly in 2013
and 2010 Versions it was all up to you to start relevant services and Application on each servers and tiers,
such as for Search Server Just Provision the Search Application on that particular Server.

This is a handy improvement which allows you to simply select how you want to let this server contribute
in this farm with Services.

At this case, first thing to Install Primary Application Server. Our scenario here Aligns with three tier. Going
ahead with Application server first and then add others in to the farm.
 P a g e | 15

Central Administration Portal is nothing different than 2013 or 2010. Specifying Port number will allow you
to access Central Admin Portal via that port you define. Use a none-standard port here and it would be
recommendable to use a port 30000 upwards as there's not much well-known ports beyond that line.
 P a g e | 16

A Quick summary for your review is here. Go through and click "Back" if you want to change anything which
was not you had in your mind earlier when you defined them because the next step will provision the
Central Administration Portal and basically thats the base platform for your farm.

The Central Admin Portal is normally hosted in the very first server you deploy in a Farm which can be the
Application Server. Even in this case its the same. This is our primary Application server and it will host the
CA. we can later add more Servers for Application tier and duplicate Central admin portal across multiple
Application Servers in our farm. Web Frontend Servers are generally not recommendable to host Central
Administration as those are supposed to be for Frontend Query purpose.

Hitting Next performs the Base Platform Creation (Central Administration etc..) behind the scene it will
create two Databases if the defined Database server and IIS Web Applications | Application pools for
Central Admin Portal and other core services. Depends on your Server's performance and Network in
between them, this might approximately take up to 10-15 minutes.

If all went well without any issues, green light will appear as below. Configuration successfully completes
at this scenario.
 P a g e | 17

Hitting "Finish" button will launch the Central Admin Portal for further continuation of next steps of our
farm creation. Basically at this point you realize that our farm preparation going pretty well. It has created
CA Web Application and Pools, also the Farm Configuration Database.

Insert the Farm Account Details to login and lets go ahead. As this is the very first launch of CA portal, it
might take a moment.
 P a g e | 18

Now This option is up to you. Nothing related to the Farm or Services but Microsoft Expect some inputs
from you. Just Be fair

Next is Important step. Start the Wizard to create Services and Applications one go or you may do this later
using Central Administration.
P a g e | 19
 P a g e | 20

And the new comer to this section is services. Unlike in SharePoint 2013, at this stage we get a chance to
enable services we need to run on this server. Grayed out services are core services and they are mandatory
to be in the very first Application server in the farm. All other services we can ignore at this level unless we
really need them as we can start them anytime later.

Next Prompt is to create the First site collection as usual. It's already familiar to you if you are a SharePointer
already. Nothing much Different here other than the Category Icon on the Admin Ribbon which is mostly
looks like office 365 top panel. Pretty handy and makes our switching easier indeed.
 P a g e | 21

Provide a Title to the Site and URL is leaving to be Top Level and Template is Team Site as always. There are
lot more templates which are not much differ from 2013 for now.

And then the wizard completes with the Green Message. You will see the services configured in this farm
as a summary.
 P a g e | 22

And at the same page, here is the handy Hybrid Feature Enabling option for Office 365 and OneDrive. We
can configure these straight from here or ignore to be later. At this scenario Hybrid feature configuration
will be postponed. Hitting "Finish" Completes our first Site Collection creation.

Opening up the central administration and Directing to Services pages under Settings allows us to see the
Services running on each Servers. For now, we only have this first Application Server and below are the
services running in it. Pretty nice and useful feature comes newly here to restart Services. Formerly we
supposed to use PowerShell to perform restarting of Services and that was pretty much required manual
intervention.
 P a g e | 23

As the new "SharePoint Insights" plays a big role in 2016, let's go ahead and start that in this server. To start
Services, direct to System Settings >> Manage Services in this Farm

This is pretty much different to the earlier versions. Action, Auto Provision and In-compliance Columns are
very useful and looks advanced which makes administrator's lives smarter.
P a g e | 24
 P a g e | 25

7.3 Joining Web Frontend Server to the Farm

The new Web Frontend Server has fully prepared with Prerequisites and SharePoint product Installed.
Launching the product Configuration wizard brings up below for us to join it to the Existing farm we
prepared

Two Options as usual which allows you to either connect to a Farm or Create a New Farm. At this scenario
we will be joining to the existing Farm

Hitting Next brings up the Database Settings Tab. Define the Database Server and hit Retrieve to get the
relevant Database Name. This is the Database name of the SharePoint Farm Configuration. If this not
retrieves, there are several points to check out. Below are few reasons which might cause the issue.

a. Required Firewall Ports are not opened

b. SQL Browser Service not running on SQL Server
c. Network Configurations
d. Windows Firewall on SQL and SharePoint Server

And there can be much more depends on environment. At this scenario it just smoothly retrieves Database
from the Instance defined. Clicking Next

And here's the place to insert the Passphrase

This is one important Reason to keep your passphrase stored safely and make it in a meaningful way in
order to remember. Clicking Next brings to the Server Role section.
 P a g e | 26

This server will be acting as the Web Frontend and It runs only specific set of features and services.

Just a Quick Summary and Clicking Next Will Process this server with farm joining. Unlike in Earlier Versions
we can see the Advanced Settings option is grayed out. We can't Provisioned the Central Administration
Portal on Any Server We want it to be in this Wizard. Yet! This is still the Technical Preview so let's keep
calm and wait for RTM.

Provisioning might take up to 10-12 minutes depends on Network Connectivity and Server Performance.
 P a g e | 27

And here comes the Green Signal. It also shows the Role it hosts. Finishing the Wizard and it will open up
the Central Admin Portal.

Cancel this so it will enable only the necessary features for the server to continue joining this server to the
farm

It will bring up the Same Completion Page as it prompted for Earlier Server. This Step Completes the WFE
Server Joining to the farm.
 P a g e | 28

Servers and Their Services. We can clearly see all the services running on this farm under which server. Also
there is an action button to fix if there are any issues related to the particular service. Thats very useful
and simplified.
 P a g e | 29

The New Role Conversion Feature in CA:

After all, there's another handy dandy brand new feature to simply control the Roles of Servers using
Central Administration. Under the System Setting "Convert server Role" feature allows us to switch the
roles across servers in the Farm. This is pretty smart.

Selecting the Server and Role Allows you to change it easily.

 P a g e | 30

8. Explore the New Farm

For Now, its pretty much similar to the 2013

P a g e | 31
 P a g e | 32

9. Known Issues in Technical Preview

To Enable features we can use Configuration Wizard Section anytime later. Central Administration>>
Configuration Wizards>> Run Farm Configuration Wizard to enable Services.

Dont Be Surprised if Microsoft SharePoint Insights" Service isn't bought up. This is because Microsoft has
not released this feature with the Technical Preview. It will be soon released with the future Versions so do
not select it for now.

Also It will show up in in-Compliance section as "No" due to the same reason. So this is something we need
to wait to see what it's going to bring to us. As per the information, Microsoft SharePoint Insights is the
biggest thing bundled with 2016 version and everybody excited for it. (Reference -
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/3b3db284-26d4-441f-9684-
dca600d44bf5/sharepoint-2016-microsoft-sharepoint-insights-could-not-be-provisioned-
error?forum=sharepointgeneral)
 P a g e | 33

Also When you run the product Configuration Wizard later again after provisioning the farm. There will be
the same error due to the same reason. The SharePoint Insight it a huge dependency for entire farm at this
point so dont waste time with trying to resolve it for now until we get the final versions.
 P a g e | 34

10.About Me

Biography

Manoj Karunarathne is a Passionate IT Professional who has over 6 years of experience in Microsoft
technologies mainly in SharePoint, Windows Server and office 365 and currently working as a Senior
Technology Specialist in TechOne Global Limited. Manoj is also been Passionate about Community and he
has been actively engaged in volunteer Speaking events in Srilanka and Brunei. also the President of Brunei
Cloud User Group which is the very first Microsoft technologies based IT User Group started at Brunei
(http://sharepointbrunei.net)

Blog https://manojviduranga.wordpress.com
E-Mail manojviduranga@hotmail.com