content databases

Can connect sites under my top level to point to different content databases
or do I need to create a virtual server?

thanks.

Mike
Tue Jul 06 06:59:11 CDT 2004

Why do you want to have two content databases ?

If all you want is two sites then virtual server is one way to do that.

Mike Walsh, Helsinki, Finland
WSS FAQ at wss.collutions.com
Please post questions to the newsgroup only.


"Ashton" <colin.ashton@nww-tr.wales.nhs.uk> wrote in message
news:eGHQUozYEHA.4092@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> Can connect sites under my top level to point to different content
databases
> or do I need to create a virtual server?
>
> thanks.
>
>

Philip
Tue Jul 06 09:58:09 CDT 2004


"Ashton" <colin.ashton@nww-tr.wales.nhs.uk> wrote in message
news:eGHQUozYEHA.4092@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> Can connect sites under my top level to point to different content
databases
> or do I need to create a virtual server?

You can (and indeed should, under certain circumstances) have multiple
content databases. One of the reasons for having multiple DBs is to reduce
the amount of time required to restore a part of the system if you need to.
In other words, if all of your sites are in one content database, you need
to restore ALL of that in order to recover whatever you are after. On the
other hand, if you've got five content databases, each with 100 sites,
you've got a fifth of the recovery time that you would have had.

If you've got multiple databases, it looks as if SharePoint prefers to use
the latest content database created unless you mark that DB as "offline".
That essentially stops SP from creating any new sites in that DB but doesn't
stop existing sites from working.

Hope that helps.

--Philip

Mike
Wed Jul 07 01:20:48 CDT 2004

> under certain circumstances

I was asking "why many content databases" to try to find if these "certain
crcumstances" applied.

I got the clear impression that he thought many content databases was the
only way to have two sites on the same server.

I think you'll agree that many content databases is only for large set-ups
(you quote 100 sites per content database for instance - he seemed to be
talking about 2 sites and 2 content databases)

Mike Walsh, Helsinki, Finland


"Philip Colmer" <pcolmer@newsgroups.nospam> wrote in message
news:u8xGfm2YEHA.2844@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
>
> "Ashton" <colin.ashton@nww-tr.wales.nhs.uk> wrote in message
> news:eGHQUozYEHA.4092@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> > Can connect sites under my top level to point to different content
> databases
> > or do I need to create a virtual server?
>
> You can (and indeed should, under certain circumstances) have multiple
> content databases. One of the reasons for having multiple DBs is to reduce
> the amount of time required to restore a part of the system if you need
to.
> In other words, if all of your sites are in one content database, you need
> to restore ALL of that in order to recover whatever you are after. On the
> other hand, if you've got five content databases, each with 100 sites,
> you've got a fifth of the recovery time that you would have had.
>
> If you've got multiple databases, it looks as if SharePoint prefers to use
> the latest content database created unless you mark that DB as "offline".
> That essentially stops SP from creating any new sites in that DB but
doesn't
> stop existing sites from working.
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> --Philip
>
>

Philip
Wed Jul 07 04:34:17 CDT 2004


"Mike Walsh" <englantilainen@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:eYH0Pq%23YEHA.3664@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> I think you'll agree that many content databases is only for large set-ups
> (you quote 100 sites per content database for instance - he seemed to be
> talking about 2 sites and 2 content databases)

I guess it does come down to the definition of large :-) 100 sites may sound
like a lot but if you've got 100 employees and they all create a "My Site"
(OK that is portal and we are talking about WSS here, but you get the point)
then that is a DB filled up.

One of the points to be remembered here is that the default setting is
something like warning at 9000 sites and stop at 10000 sites. If you really
get to these sorts of numbers, the content database is going to take a long
time to restore.

My reply was sort of half-on, half-off topic. I was essentially saying that
you can have multiple content databases per server and that actually,
administrators ought to be definitely thinking about having multiple DBs. It
is a best practice thing that doesn't seem to get much visibility. I thought
it was also quite interesting to play around with the settings to see just
how WSS uses the DBs - it was rather frustrating to find that it just uses
the latest one, rather than sharing the load across all available DBs.

--Philip