Configure Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) with the FILESTREAM provider (SharePoint 2010)

In This article I am describing about how to install and configure Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) with the FILESTREAM provider on a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 database server that supports a Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 system. RBS is typically recommended in the case where the content databases are 4 gigabytes (GB) or larger.

SharePoint stores the files (or the blobs) in content database. The advantage of that approach is it simplifies the backup and restores process. We can backup a site collection related data in one file. The disadvantage is the database size can be enormous if Site contains large number of files. It may a critical problem if you use SQL Server Express Edition which has a limitation in database file size. RBS is a library API set that is incorporated as an add-on feature pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express. RBS is designed to move the storage of binary large objects (BLOBs) from database servers to commodity storage solutions. RBS ships with the RBS FILESTREAM provider, which uses the RBS APIs to store BLOBs.

We can configure SharePoint to stores the blob in the file system, instead of in database by possible by leveraging FILESTREAM feature of SQL Server 2008 and Remote BLOB Storage (RBS). With SharePoint 2010, the Remote Blob Storage (RBS) functionality allows putting documents into the database file system instead of the database itself. Each content database is located in a specific section of the file system where all the documents are stored.

Enable File Stream in SQL Server

1. Connect to SQL Server
   Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft SQL Server 2008 -> Configuration Tools -> SQL Server Configurations Manager
2. In the Services list, click "SQL Server Services"
3. Choose your SQL instance (For me "SQL Server (SHAREPOINT)") and right click Properties.
4. Switch to the FILESTREAM tab and check all the available checkboxes
5. Click Apply -> OK
   
   
    
6. Now start SQL Server Management Studio
7. Open a query windows and execute the below SQL Statement mater database is fine
   
   EXEC sp_configure filestream_access_level, 2
   RECONFIGURE
    
8. Next we should have a web application and a content database created for the same .If you didn't created create a content data base for your web application.I have created a content data base with the name SP2010_Blob
9. You can use Power shell to create a new content DB with the following command
   
   New-SPContentDatabase -name SP2010_Blob -WebApplication url
    
10. Now we have to enable our new content DB to be prepared to use FILE STREAM
11. Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 ->SQL Server Management Studio
12. Right click on SP2010_Blob and select a query window and execute the below statement. Replace "C:\BlobFiles " by your storage-path
    
    use [SP2010_Blob]
    
    if not exists (select * from sys.symmetric_keys where name = N'##MS_DatabaseMasterKey##')create master key encryption by password = N'Admin Key Password !2#4'
    
    use [SP2010_Blob]
    if not exists (select groupname from sysfilegroups where groupname=N'RBSFilestreamProvider')alter database [SP2010_Blob] add filegroup RBSFilestreamProvider contains filestream
    
    use [SP2010_Blob]
    alter database [SP2010_Blob] add file (name = RBSFilestreamFile, filename = 'c:\ BlobFiles) to filegroup RBSFilestreamProvider
    
    Install RBS on Web Server
     
13. You must install RBS on the database server and on all Web servers and application servers in the SharePoint farm. You must configure RBS separately for each associated content database.
14. On any Web server, go to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=177388 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=177388) to download the RBS.msi file.
15. Click Start and then type cmd in the text box. In the list of results, right-click cmd, and then click Run as administrator. Click OK.
16. Copy and paste the following command at the command prompt:
17. Make sure you are running this command in the downloaded RBS.msi folder
    msiexec /qn /lvx* rbs_install_log.txt /i RBS_X64.msi TRUSTSERVERCERTIFICATE=true FILEGROUP=PRIMARY DBNAME="<ContentDbName>" DBINSTANCE="<DBInstanceName>" FILESTREAMFILEGROUP=RBSFilestreamProvider FILESTREAMSTORENAME=FilestreamProvider_1
     
18. Where:
    
    1. <ContentDbName> is the database name in my case SP2010_Blob.
    2. <DBInstanceName> is the SQL Server instance name in my case DB SERVERNAME\SHAREPOINT.Please note you should give full name like I given
    
    To install RBS on all additional Web and application servers
     
19. Click Start and then type cmd in the text box. In the list of results, right-click cmd, and then click Run as administrator. Click OK.
20. Copy and paste the following command at the command prompt:
    
    msiexec /qn /lvx* rbs_install_log.txt /i RBS_X64.msi DBNAME="ContentDbName" DBINSTANCE="DBInstanceName" ADDLOCAL="Client,Docs,Maintainer,ServerScript,FilestreamClient,FilestreamServer"
     
21. You should repeat this procedure on all Web servers and application servers. If you do not install RBS on every Web and application server, users will encounter errors when they try to write to the content databases.
22. The rbs_install_log.txt log file is created in the same location as the RBS.msi file. Open the rbs_install_log.txt log file with a text editor and scroll toward the bottom of the file. Within the last 20 lines of the end of the file, an entry should read as follows: "Product: SQL Remote Blob Storage - Installation completed successfully".
23. The script has created a some tables in the database, the following query help us to check that
    
    
    
    use SP2010_Blob
    select * from dbo.sysobjects
    where name like 'rbs%'
    
    To enable RBS
     
24. On the Start menu, click Programs, click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, and then click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
25. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type each of the following commands.
    
    $cdb = Get-SPContentDatabase -WebApplication Your URL
    $rbss = $cdb.RemoteBlobStorageSettings
    $rbss.Installed()
    $rbss.Enable()
    $rbss.SetActiveProviderName($rbss.GetProviderNames()[0])
    $rbss
     
26. We almost did with the configuration. Create a site collection and should use the content database "SP2010_Blob".
27. Connect to WFE
28. Go to SharePoint 2010 Central Administration
29. Under Application Management - Manage Content Databases Choose the applicable Web Application from the drop down above
30. Configure the Content Database to put the next site collection to "SP2010_Blob"
31. Go back to the main site of Central Administration
32. Application Management - Create Site Collection
33. Make sure by going to content database that the site collection we created will be in the content database that we configured
    To test the RBS data store
34. Connect to a document library on any Web server.
35. Upload a file that is at least 100 kilobytes (KB) to the document library.
36. Documents below 100 kB will not be put to the file system but will be stored in the database.
37. On the computer that contains the RBS data store, click Start, and then click Computer.
38. Browse to the RBS data store directory.
39. Browse to the file list and open the folder that has the most recent modified date (other than $FSLOG). In that folder, open the file that has the most recent modified date. Verify that this file has the same size and contents as the file that you uploaded