2

I started to learn SharePoint a month ago. Until now, I used it on poor hardware with practically every element below minimum system requirements, which explained why SharePoint was painfully slow.

A few days ago I created a virtual machine with Windows Server 2012 R2, SharePoint 2013 (standalone, so SQL Server Express) and Visual Studio 2015 CTP. The VM has the following spec:

  • 8 virtual cores of a 12-cores Intel Xeon E5-2620V2 2.1 GHz.

  • 20 GB of memory of 72 GB DDR3 1333 MHz PC3-10600 registered ECC.

  • 100 GB (underlying software RAID 1 with two 2 TB HDDs: Seagate Surveillance and Seagate Barracuda, both at 7200 RPM).

The VM is hosted on Ubuntu server using virtio bus and qcow2 format. The machine also hosts a few dozens of Linux-based VMs, but those VMs don't use much resources (neither CPU, nor disk).

SharePoint still feels slow. It takes minutes to create a site or do any operation which is a bit complex. This makes it very painful to experiment with the product.

I thought that the HDD setup is the culprit, since it doesn't correspond to the recommendations. This being said, according to Resource monitor, the disk is not used that much: during complex operations, it reports on average 50% usage.

Previous answers to similar questions don't apply to my case. For instance:

  • you dont have enough hardware resources(CPU , RAM)
    8 cores and 20 GB of memory should be largely enough.
  • You have heavy customization
    I just installed SharePoint. There is no customization whatsoever until now.
  • Have Antivirus on the servers
    There is no antivirus.
  • Network causing the slowness
    I'm on 1 Gbps network with +100 Mbps internet connection. In all cases, the website is accessed locally.
  • custom queris to database
    There are no custom queries and no custom development yet.
  • large List or libraries
    There are no lists or libraries yet.

I'm imagining two causes:

  • Maybe I'm using wrong settings or missed something during the installation. Note that Windows Server and SharePoint are installed using default settings. All available Windows updates were made before installing SharePoint.

    Is there some configuration element I need to change or some service I need to start?

  • Or there is something specific with the virtual machine setup.

    Is it? Does it matter that SharePoint's VM is hosted on a Linux server?

Community
  • 1
Arseni Mourzenko
  • 585
  • 2
  • 4
  • 19
  • 2
    SharePoint IS slow. Get used to it. OK, eat me alive now ;) – MdMazzotti Apr 13 '15 at 10:31
  • So by throwing more hardware (like an SSD, for instance), it still won't help, right? – Arseni Mourzenko Apr 13 '15 at 10:40
  • 1
    Speed/slowness, to some degree, is a subjective matter. Adding more performing hardware would obviously be of help, but, to me, SP would still be slow. As a comparison, take SharePoint online. Do you consider the service slow or fast? – MdMazzotti Apr 13 '15 at 10:47
  • OK. Can you promote your two comments to an answer? As for SharePoint online, I haven't used it yet, so no idea how fast it feels. – Arseni Mourzenko Apr 13 '15 at 10:49
  • 2
    Is it any better if you use Powershell for creating site collections? – Manu Apr 13 '15 at 11:50
  • I don't think my comments deserve the status of answer, as they are entirely based on my personal opinions and supported only by empirical evidences – MdMazzotti Apr 13 '15 at 11:55
  • 1
    @Manu: the good thing about PowerShell is automation: if you have to create a site, then a site collection and then deploy a solution, with PowerShell, you run the script unattended (and maybe even let it inform you when the work is ready). Without PowerShell, you have to wait in front of your browser for SharePoint to finish each operation in order to launch the following one. An unattended deployment which takes 40 minutes will feel much faster than an operation which takes 40 minutes and requires for you to stay and wait. – Arseni Mourzenko Apr 13 '15 at 11:55
  • Yes, do you feel any performance improvement in getting things done like site creation or web application creation if you use Powershell? – Manu Apr 13 '15 at 11:57
  • As I said, it's not the actual duration which matters, but the unattended aspect. As for the duration, I haven't tested by expect PowerShell approach to be slightly faster, but not by too much. – Arseni Mourzenko Apr 13 '15 at 12:10

2 Answers2

1

Complex tasks such as creating Web Applications, Site Collections and Sites (SPWeb) can sometimes be slow. A lot of things happen under the hood, which makes the current browser window unresponsive at times. But this is natural in SharePoint.

To verify performance you should use SharePoint. Navigate between different objects, open documents, edit properties and even do a quick edit in a list and see that execution time doesn’t exceed 1 second. If it does, look at the developer tool (F 12) network tab, and see if you find anything there not doing a good job.

enter image description here

Benny Skogberg
  • 25,542
  • 12
  • 68
  • 163
1

On proper hardware infrastructure, an OOTB SharePoint system cannot be slow. Based on your VM spec this is more than an enough to run a SharePoint farm on. In your case I would recommend you to review your virtualization host environment as you don't typically run SharePoint VMs on Ubuntu, I am not saying it cannot be done and I am sure people run their VMs on such hosts but in your case I would try to test it with VMware or Hyer-V host.

Once you get there check Hardware and software requirements for SharePoint Server 2016 and 2019, some of the SharePoint best practices for your SharePoint farm infrastructure. Double check your databases and servers best practices. You can also check our free tool SysKit Insights that can help you track various server and database performance counters, intra-farm latency and ULS log issues.

Toni Frankola
  • 4,319
  • 28
  • 38