Designing and Deploying a Scalable EPM Solution Ken Toole Platform Test Manager MS Project Microsoft

Agenda Top 5 reasons a deployment doesn’t scale Understanding the EPM Design process Build the implementation team Logical Design of Project Server Key architecture factors for Scalability

Top 5 Scalability Killers 1.Inadequate network infrastructure 2.Inadequate database hardware 3.No Pilot 4.Undefined project management practices 5.Unrestricted access to data

EPM Initiative Development Develop vision for EPM Stake-holder identification and buy-in Collect Business Requirements EPM strategy development THEN … EPM solution design

EPM Design and Planning

Implementation Team Large scale Project Server deployments are complex and require varied expertise System Administrator Server Install, Clustering, Network Configuration, Shared Storage, Active Directory, Domain Name Resolution, Security Database Administrator DBMS installation, Drive Configuration, Tuning, Backup and Recovery, Security

Implementation Team Network Engineer Router and LAN configuration, load- balancing hardware, Firewall configuration, security Project Server Deployment Specialist? New training and certification exam

Logical Architecture Project Server IIS, ASP Pages Project Data Service XML Web Service View Processing Svc NT Service Session Mgmt Svc NT Service Scheduled Action Svc NT Service Trace Service NT Service Sharepoint “Front-End” IIS WSS DBPS Core DBPS Views DB PS Projects DB

Logical Architecture Project Server IIS, ASP Pages Project Data Service XML Web Service Sharepoint “Front-End” IIS WSS DBPS Core DBPS Views DB PS Projects DB

Capacity Planning Metrics Scalability Factors Configuration Options

Scalability Metrics Users per hour Max number of times a specified set of user operations (workflow) can be completed per hour. Focus on peak times like weekly time reporting. Size and complexity of data will effect this metric. Not a generalized or generic metric Cube Build Time Views Publishing throughput

Key Scalability Factors Network performance Database server performance Project Server security usage Project Server data usage

Network Performance Most frequent bottleneck for most installations Indicated by poor performance or throughput with low cpu utilization on all tiers of the application Primarily the result of latency rather than bandwidth, and the overhead associated with each network “round- trip”

Network Performance corrective actions Network infrastructure 100mb minimum between servers 1Gb Ethernet or fiber between server components option. Network Interface Card settings Avoid ‘hardware default’ On some systems consider 100mb/full setting instead of ‘auto-detect’ Test and consult your hardware vendor Hardware Options ‘NIC Teaming’ configurations Unisys style ‘virtual machine’ configuration (only suitable on very large hardware platforms)

DB Server Performance Typical DB server performance analysis and tuning. Often will present as a bottleneck after resolving any network issues Solutions are simple but can be costly in terms of hardware.

DB Server Performance corrective actions Data file configuration Separate transaction log and data files on separate logical drives Use db optimization scripts to separate Project Server data and indexes into multiple file groups Place index and views file groups on separate logical drives than other Project Server file groups Disk I/O hardware Use a larger number of physical disks per logical drive to ensure disk read/write activity is not bottlenecked on few physical drives Use hardware RAID controllers instead of Software RAID controllers Consult you hardware vendor

DB Server Performance corrective actions Server hardware Carefully test hyper-threading configurations and SQL Server settings related to threading and fibers Consider faster processors and increased number of processors Partition Project Server data onto multiple DB Servers

Project Server Security What data a given user has access to impacts the amount of data retrieved and transported throughout the system Use of restrictive permissions to limit the amount of data available to Project Professional users is recommended. RBS based security is optimal

Project Server Data Usage Project Management process and standards impact the way data is grouped in the system. Find a balance between the number and size of projects. When project sizes exceed ~ 2000 tasks consider phasing these into separate projects. Use ‘View in MS Project Professional’ feature from Project Center and enterprise outline codes to work with ‘partitioned’ projects efficiently. Avoid PM Practices that require a large number of project baseline saves. Consolidate non-project or Administrative tasks into a small number of projects

Front-End Configuration

Clustering Options Project Server WSS No Cluster Project Server WSS WSS Single Cluster WSS Project Server Dual Clusters WSS Project Server WSS PS

Clustering Factors WSS and Project usage balance Availability requirements Future Growth

Front-End Hardware RAM and Network 1 GB of RAM recommended 2 GB if using Portfolio Modeling features 2 to 4 processor commodity web servers Hyper-threading is ok HW accelerator cards can help in SSL implementations

Middle-Tier Configuration

View Processing Options Project Server Views Processor All on One Project Server Views Processor Dedicated Project Server DB Server Views Processor DB-Based

View Processing Factors Size of typical projects Number of Project Managers Frequency of Publish Frequency of OLAP Cube Build

View Processing Hardware CPU and Network Fast single processor speed Disable Hyper-threading High-speed link to DB server

Session Manager Options Project Server Session Mgr All on One Project Server Session Mgr Dedicated Project Server Session Mgr Multiple

Session Manager Factors Number of concurrent users Front-end clustering Availability

Session Manager Hardware RAM 1 GB + recommended Minor impact on processor utilization

Database Configuration

Database Options (Split) PS Database All on One PS Core Database PS Views Database Two-Way Split PS Web Database PS Views Database Three-Way Split PS Projects Database

Database - Factors Size of typical project Number of project managers Frequency of publish and cube build LOB or Custom Integration

Database Hardware Typical SQL Server behavior CPU, RAM, Disk I/O speed 1 GB RAM per CPU for rule of thumb Hyper-threading is ok Memory configuration Maximize memory available to SQL Avoid large amount of memory configured for fail-over

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