About Neverfail for SharePoint Plug-in

Neverfail for SharePoint proactively monitors and protects your SharePoint environment. The Neverfail for SharePoint Plug-in protects all SharePoint related services and configuration information, and monitors all aspects of the application and its environment that could affect availability.

Supported Versions of Microsoft Windows

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 SP1 Enterprise, Standard and Foundation Edition on

• Windows Server 2012 R2 x64 (Standard and Datacenter)
• Windows Server 2012 x64 (Standard and DataCenter)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 up to SP1 (Standard and Enterprise)

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Enterprise, Standard and Foundation Edition on

• Windows Server 2012 x64 (Standard and DataCenter)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 up to SP1 (Standard and Enterprise)

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 up to SP2 and including August 2014 CU Enterprise, Standard and Foundation Edition on

• Windows Server 2012 R2 x64 (Standard and Datacenter)
• Windows Server 2012 x64 (Standard and DataCenter)
• Windows Server 2008 x64 SP2 (Standard and Enterprise)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard and Enterprise)

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Sp1, Sp2 Enterprise and Standard, and

Microsoft SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1, SP2

• Windows Server 2008 x64 SP1, SP2 (Standard and Enterprise)
• Windows Server 2003 x86 and x64 SP1, SP2 (Standard and Enterprise)

Microsoft FASTSearch for SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Edition

• Windows Server 2008 x64 SP2 (Standard and Enterprise)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard and Enterprise)

The Neverfail for SharePoint is delivered as a plug-in that offers protection for the SharePoint components; it does have several dependencies on other plug-ins.  Please refer to the section 'Plug-in Installation Dependencies and Warnings'.

Plug-in Installation Dependencies and Warnings

The SharePoint plug-in will present the following warnings during install:

The plug-in: <drive>:\path\sharepoint\SharePointNFPlugin.dll passed its pre-install checks but issued the following warnings: SharePoint: Full protection of SharePoint requires Neverfail for IIS to be installed to protect the IIS components. Please ignore this warning if you have already selected Neverfail for IIS for installation.

SharePoint: SharePoint is configured to use a local SQL Server database. Please install Neverfail for SQL Server as well. Please ignore this warning if you have already selected Neverfail for SQL Server for installation.

The pre-install check produced some warnings. However, the installation will be allowed to continue.

Install/Uninstall the Neverfail for SharePoint Plug-in Via the Neverfail Heartbeat Management Client

The Neverfail for SharePoint Plug-in should be initially installed via the Neverfail Setup process. Subsequent installations/reinstallations can be installed using Application: Plug-ins in the Neverfail Heartbeat Management Client using the procedure below.

To reinstall the Neverfail for SharePoint Plug-in, follow the steps below:

1. Unzip the Neverfail for SharePoint Plug-in to the desired location.
2. Launch the Neverfail Heartbeat Management Client.
3. Navigate to Application: Plugins .
4. Click on the Install button.
5. Click the Browse button and navigate to the location of the 'SharePointNFPlugin.dll' file.
6. Click OK to complete the installation.

To remove/uninstall the Neverfail for SharePoint Plug-in, follow the steps below:

1. Launch the Neverfail Heartbeat Management Client.
2. Navigate to Application: Plugins .
3. Select the desired plug-in to be removed/uninstalled.
4. Click on the Uninstall button in the 'Plug-ins' pane.
5. When the plug-in is uninstalled, the files are not removed.  This is by design for future functionality and therefore the following workaround is provided:
   1. Copy the contents of the r2\plugins\<sponsor>\<version> folder to a different location (e.g. C:\temp).
   2. Delete the contents of the r2\plugins\<sponsor>\<version> folder.
   3. To reinstall the plug-in, when prompted for the location of the plug-in files, navigate to the new folder location (e.g. C:\temp).

Note: As an alternative, reinstallation can be accomplished by using the download files from the original download location after removing the plug-in.

Monitoring

The Details below include the specific service and data protection for the SharePoint Portal Server.

Monitoring the environment can be broadly categorized as:

• Active Server and Service Availability Monitoring
• Application and Performance Monitoring

Active Server and Service Availability Monitoring

Neverfail monitors the availability of a server by sending continuous heartbeat signals via the Neverfail Channel to the other server in the pair. The “Yes I am alive” response ensures that not only is the other server powered-up, but also that it is available if needed. The heartbeat signal interval is configurable from the Neverfail Management Client.

Application and Performance Monitoring

Neverfail for SharePoint relies on the 'System' plug-in for monitoring general system performance. The Neverfail System Plug-in performs this operation by checking select WMI counters at predetermined intervals to ensure that results of the check are within defined parameters. Neverfail System Plug-in uses 'Rules' to take action should a check reveal results outside of the defined parameters.

Rules - This release of the plug-in does not provide any rules; this section will be updated in the future releases when rules are included.

Tasks - The only configurable parameter for 'Tasks' associated with this plug-in is the frequency in which to run.

Custom User defined 'Tasks' can be defined by following the steps below.

To configure a new 'Task', follow the steps below:

1. Using the Management Client, click on Application -> Tasks .
2. Click on the Add button at the top of the 'Tasks'  pane.
3. Enter the appropriate information completing all fields in the dialog.
4. Click OK to save the changes.

Note: This dialog is also used to Enable/Disable the selected 'Task'.

Protected Services

This is a list of all services protected by this plug-in. Please note that where a plug-in supports multiple vendor versions, some services may not be present in a particular version.

SharePoint Services 2.0 (Plug-in 201.5.2)

• Task Scheduler (Schedule)
• SharePoint Portal Administration (spsadmin)
• SharePoint Portal Alert (spsalert)
• SharePoint Timer Service (sptimer)
• Microsoft Search (mssearch)

SharePoint Services 3.0 (Plug-in 201.5.2, 201.5.3)

• Windows SharePoint Services Timer (SPTimerV3)
• Windows SharePoint Services Administration (SPAdmin)
• Windows SharePoint Services Search (SPSearch)
• Windows SharePoint Services Tracing (SPTrace)
• Windows SharePoint Services VSS Writer (SPWriter)

Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (Plug-in 201.5.2)

• Microsoft SharePointPS Search (sharepointpssearch)
• Microsoft Single Sign-on Service (ssosrv)

SharePoint 2007 services (Plug-in 201.5.2, 201.5.3, 201.5.4)

• Office Document Conversions Launcher Service (DCLauncher)
• Office Document Conversions Load Balancer Server (DCLoadBalancer)
• Office SharePoint Server Search (OSearch)
• Microsoft Single Sign-on Service (Ssosrv)

Windows SharePoint Services 4.0 (Plug-in 201.5.3, 201.5.4)

• Windows SharePoint Services Timer V4 (SPTimerV4)
• Windows SharePoint Services Administration V4 (SPAdminV4)
• SharePoint Foundation Search V4 (SPSerach4)
• Windows SharePoint Services Tracing V4 (SPTraceV4)
• Windows SharePoint Services VSS Writer V4 (SPWriterV4)
• Windows SharePoint Services User Code Host V4 (SPUserCodeV4)

Office SharePoint Server 2010 (Plug-in 201.5.3, 201.5.4)

• Document Conversions Launcher for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 (DCLauncher14)
• Document Conversions Load Balancer for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 (DCLoadBalancer14)
• SharePoint Server Search 14 (OSearch14)

Windows SharePoint Server 2013 (Plug-in 201.5.5)

• Document Conversions Launcher for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 (DCLauncher15)
• Document Conversions Load Balancer for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 (DCLoadBalancer15)
• SharePoint Server Search 15 (OSearch15)
• SharePoint Search Host Contoller (SPSearchHostController)
• ForeFront Identity Manager Service (FIMService)
• ForeFront Identity Manager Synchronization Service (FIMSynchronizationService)

When the plug-in is installed, all protected services will be set to manual unless otherwise stated.

Protected Data

This is a description of the protected data set determined when the plug-in was installed. Please note that exact filters will be based on the configuration of the application of the plug-in during install.

Note: With Neverfail Heartbeat v6.6.0 and later, SQL Server 2008 file streams used for remote BLOB storage are supported.

• Web Server Extensions for SharePoint
  • Office Professional Plus 2010 (Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010)
  • Microsoft Office Web Apps Server 2013
  • Microsoft Search Server Express 2010
  • Microsoft Project Server 2010
• Data Path
• Template Path
• Site Definitions
• Code Access Security Policies
• SharePoint Search Data Directory
• SharePoint Default Application Path

Automatic Filter Discovery

This plug-in provides a filter discovery component for the following components:

• New templates
• New web server extensions
• Log files
• Configuration settings

The Automatic Filter Discovery component is configurable and runs every 2 minutes by default.

Unsupported Components or Features

This plug-in does not protect the following application features or components:

Neverfail is unable to replicate the following components to the passive server because they install into the Windows .Net cache, parts of which are in use on the Secondary server.

• Web Parts
• Assemblies
• DoD 5015.2 Add-On Pack

Note: SharePoint will need to have these components installed on both the Primary and Secondary servers.

Solution Packages (WSP) deploy web parts, template files, assemblies, code access security policies and site definitions.

Applies To

All Versions

Related Information

None

KBID-1330