EBS (External Blob Storage) in SharePoint 2007

Question

(Urgent) A few Questions about EBS in SP2007:

• Link or document on how to configure EBS step-by-step?
• Are there any reusable libraries or providers already available?(for external storage)
• What are the disadvantages/limitations of EBS?
• what version of SQL server is it reuquired?
• will the Sharepoint SQL db still hold the document in parallel when EBS is used?(do we really gain space in the sharepoint DB)?
• Can we migrate to EBS if there is already a running farm with plenty of documents? is it irreversible?

Thanks a lot in advance for your answers.

Answer 1

Link or document on how to configure EBS step-by-step?

• http://blogs.technet.com/vedant/archive/2009/06/17/external-blob-storage-in-sharepoint-2007.aspx
• This Link will give you all links needet to get an intro

Are there any reusable libraries or providers already available?(for external storage)

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.06.insidesharepoint.aspx
• Kind of sample...

What are the disadvantages/limitations of EBS?

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb862135(office.12).aspx
• Important to note:
• Farmwide: So any application will use this
• Not integrated in backup of databases. Complicated trnsport from production to test, etc

what version of SQL server is it reuquired?

• nothing special because sharepoint is handling this

will the Sharepoint SQL db still hold the document in parallel when EBS is used?(do we really gain space in the sharepoint DB)?

• no thats the only reason to consider using ebs, but it doen't mean it is a good idea

Can we migrate to EBS if there is already a running farm with plenty of documents? is it irreversible?

• there is OOB migration from and to ebs

As many sharepoint people i would not recommend using this feature... there may be some special scenarios where it could fit, but you didn't give us enough information to jugde :-)

Bye Marco

Answer 2

Check out StoragePoint. Haven't tried it, but it is a commercial product that is supposed to allow SharePoint content to be stored externally.

Metalogix does a similar product as well.

Answer 3

I can highly recomend DocAve Extender. It is a free component in the DocAve suite. Any version of SQL can use this. The content DB will maintain a link to the file only so your db cost is significantly less. You can migrate any document library to use this component.

Answer 4

ESB is a SharePoint 2010 feature that requires SQL Server 2008, where you can have external providers that take care of storing large files. OOTB there is a file storage provider.

SharePoint 2007 only have Remote Blob Storage, that leaves alot to be desired and also still is quite buggy (corrupting files across WFE).

Even in SP2010 it should be carefully considered if you want to setup EBS. Both backup and recovery scenarios could quickly become complicated when introducing external providers. The OOTB file storage provider hooks in to backup of sites, but external providers are responsible for implementing this.

I dont know anything about the external product Jeroen (Muhimbi) mentions.