HP Sizer For SharePoint 2010

In this article we can explore HP Sizer, a Capacity Planning tool for SharePoint 2010 deployments. This tool helps in building optimized configurations for SharePoint deployment.

Who is the owner of the Tool?

HP Alliances and Performance Lab is the owner of the tool. It is a collaboration between HP and Microsoft.

What is the purpose of the Tool?

The tool addresses the Capacity Planning & Performance Requirements for SharePoint 2010 server. The tool helps in finding optimized configurations based on the Usage Parameters.

Download

You can download the tool from the following location:

http://tinyurl.com/sp2010-hpsizer

After installation, start the tool from Start Menu > Programs > Hewlett-Packard > HP Sizer for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 as shown below:

On executing the tool you will get the following application:

For finding an optimized configuration click on the Build a Solution button as highlighted above. You will get the following wizard. The wizard pages are self-explanatory to give assistance to the user.

Click the Next button to continue. In the page that appears enter a name for the solution.

In the next page choose the Business Profile. Depending on the selection the next pages will load the most appropriate parameters. For the time being choose SMB (Small Business) and click the Next button.

You will get the following Usage Data page.

The page is automatically populated with the following parameters:

Number of Users: If there are 50 users in the organization, you can enter the value here.
Number of Users Concurrent on a Day: On a typical day if 90% of the users are present then enter 90 here.
Maximum Number of User Requests per hour: The number of user requests per hour.

These parameters are important to build an efficient configuration involving multiple servers in the farm. You should have already captured this information from the User during the requirements gathering phase.

Click the Next button to continue and you will get the following page:

Here you can specify Percentages of User Activity types. The total should be equal to 100%. For example in a typical scenario, the user will work with Site / My Site (library / list) for most of the time say 50%. The rest of the time the user will be involved in search operations, and then you can enter 50% for Search.

The last row asks about the amount of database modifications. If the system involves reading of data most of the time, then you can choose the Low option. But if there are create / update / delete operations frequently, then you can choose the High option. For the time being leave the defaults.

Click the Next button to continue and you will be in the Application Services page.

The Application Services page allows you to foresee the usage of Application Services. As you know there are various Services like:

Excel Services
Performance Point Services
Indexing Services
Office Client Services

If you anticipate that a particular service gives substantial load to the server, then you can choose the Yes option.

You can click the Finish button to view the Sier recommendations.

From the result we will see that there are 3 servers recommended; they are:

Web Front End
Search Index Server
Database Servers

In the next pages you can select the solution & storage architectures. Leaving the defaults, click the Next button to continue. You can click on the Calculate Full Solution button from the bottom area. The tool will then come up with the Pricing and Hardware Configuration information too.

Really it helps. Huh?

So this concludes our overview the HP Sizer Tool. I hope you enjoyed it.

Among the following types of persons involved in SharePoint:

SharePoint Administrator
SharePoint Developer
SharePoint Architect

This tool fits well in the SharePoint Architect's Pocket.

References

http://tinyurl.com/sp2010-hpsizer

Summary

In this article we have explored the HP Sizer Tool for SharePoint 2010. In real-world planning scenarios this tool should give a quicker overview of the configuration needed ahead.
The tool also contains other paid components too.