SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Requirements

April 5, 2022 / Andreas Glaser

How to successfully prepare your SharePoint Server Subscription Edition installation including hardware and software requirememts for SQL Server and Windows Server, domain requirements as well as administrative and service accounts.

1.1 SQL Server Hardware requirements

SQL Server is used to store the configuration database and content databases.

You can use the SQL Server hardware requirements below although they are based on SharePoint 2013 [3].

There's no documentation for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition but they are a good starting point for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition.

This table shows which SQL Server hardware is required to run SharePoint Server Subscription Edition.

Number of Users	CPU	Amount of RAM	Amount of Hard Disk space
Fewer than 1,000 users Small deployments	64-bit, 4 cores	8 GB	80 GB for system drive + additional storage [3]
Between 1,000 to 10,000 users Medium deployments	64-bit, 8 cores	16 GB	80 GB for system drive + additional storage

Please read "Storage and SQL Server capacity planning and configuration (SharePoint Server)" [4] to estimate your own requirements:

• E.g. SQL Server memory is directly related to the size of the content databases.

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1.2 Windows Server Hardware requirements

SharePoint runs on one or more dedicated Windows Servers.

The following SharePoint Server Subscription Edition requirements are minimum hardware requirements and depending on your scenario you need to exceed them:

This table shows which Windows Server hardware is required to run SharePoint Server Subscription Edition in a 3-tier farm.

Number of Users	CPU	Amount of RAM	Amount of Hard Disk space
n-tier farm, Development or Evaluation, Minimum Services enabled	64-bit, 4 cores	12 GB	80 GB for system drive 80 GB for second drive
n-tier farm, Pilot, User Acceptance or Production, All Services enabled	64-bit, 4 cores	16 GB	80 GB for system drive 80 GB for second drive

This table shows which Windows Server hardware is required to run SharePoint Server Subscription Edition on a single server.

Number of Users	CPU	Amount of RAM	Amount of Hard Disk space
Single server, Development or Evaluation, Minimum Services enabled	64-bit, 4 cores	16 GB	80 GB for system drive 100 GB for second drive
Single server, Pilot, User Acceptance or Development All Services enabled	64-bit, 4 cores	24 GB	80 GB for system drive 100 GB for second drive

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2.1 SQL Server Software requirements

SharePoint Server Subscription Edition only supports one of the following versions of SQL Server:

• SQL Server 2019 CU 5
• Future version of SQL Server for Windows that supports database compatibility level 150

SQL Server Edition requirements

The decision which edition of SQL Server to use depends on different requirements like PowerPivot, High availability [6] and other features [7]:

This table shows which version of SQL Server is required for a specific SharePoint 2019 supported feature.

Required Feature	Version of SQL Server	Supported by Standard	Supported by Enterprise
Power Pivot [8]	2019	-	yes
Power View [9]	2019	-	yes
Database mirroring*	2019	yes**	yes
AlwaysOn Failover Cluster	2019	yes***	yes
Always On Availability Groups	2019	-	yes
Backup compression	2019	yes	yes
Transparent data encryption	2019	-	yes

* This feature will be removed in a future version of Microsoft SQL Server [10]
** Availability for the Configuration database requires the full recovery model of the SQL Server Enterprise version [11]
*** Supports only 2 nodes

SQL Server feature requirements

SQL Server has the following minimum feature requirements:

• Database Engine Services

SQL Server Tips

Please also make sure you respect the following SQL Server best practices by Microsoft, e.g.:

• Set the max server memory to be less than the amount of the installed RAM.
  
  
• Keep max degree of parallelism (MAXDOP) to 1 for instances of SQL Server that host SharePoint databases.
  
  
• Do not enable auto-create statistics on SharePoint content databases.
• Do not manually restrict database size in SQL Server.

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2.2 Windows Server Software requirements

In order to install SharePoint Server Subscription Edition you need one of the following versions of Windows Server:

• Windows Server 2019 Standard or Datacenter, 64 bit
• Windows Server 2022 Standard or Datacenter, 64 bit

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3.1 SharePoint Server Subscription Edition prerequisites download

Each Windows Server where you want to install SharePoint also needs the following SharePoint Server Subscription Edition prerequisites:

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.8
Visual C++ Redistributable Package for Visual Studio 2015-2019

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3.2 SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Download

You can download SharePoint Server Subscription Edition from Microsoft:

SharePoint Server Subscription Edition

During installation you can use the following trial product key:

• Enterprise: VW2FM-FN9FT-H22J4-WV9GT-H8VKF
• Standard: KGN4V-82BMC-H383V-QJVFT-VCHJ7

Note: You must use an Enterprise product key for SharePoint to enable Project Server 2019.

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3.3 Download Language Packs for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition

You can download SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Language Packs from Microsoft:

SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Language Pack

Note: Changing the language on the download page changes the language of the language pack to the selected language.

Language packs or not part of your SharePoint Server 2019 requirements. They are additional installations.

You don't need to install a language pack for English if you install the English version of SharePoint Server 2019.

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5. Are there SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Virtualization requirements?

If you're using virtualization products to run SharePoint Server you need to pay attention to the following limitations. [13]

The following virtualization features are not supported by SharePoint Server:

• Dynamic Memory
  Please allocate a fixed amount of RAM to your virtual machine running SharePoint Server. Hyper-V Dynamic Memory or VMware Memory Ballooning are not supported.
  
  
• Virtual machine online backups
  Backing up running virtual machines leads to an inconsistent state of the SharePoint farm because the backup doesn’t happen at the same time for every server in the farm.
  If you need to backup virtual machines you need to shut down every server which is part of the SharePoint farm including SQL Server. You also need to restore every virtual machine during the restore process.
  
  
• Virtual machine snapshots
  "If a snapshot of SharePoint is required, shut down all SharePoint Servers and SQL Servers in the farm prior to taking a virtual machine snapshot. If a restore is required, restore all servers in the farm. Delete the snapshot as soon as possible as it may incur a performance penalty." [14]
  
  
• Differencing disks
  Microsoft suggest not using differencing disks for a long period of time because of performance issues. Therefore, I suggest not using them at all.
  
  
• Virtual machine replication
  
  
• SAN (Storage Area Network) replication of SharePoint Server virtual disks

Creating Virtual Machine Templates is supported. You can install SharePoint Server prerequisites, SharePoint Server and updates. You can save your virtual machine as a template as long as the Configuration Wizard has not been run.

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6.1 SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Installation Accounts

You must have the following domain accounts for the initial deployment [15]:

This table shows the required SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Installation accounts.

Account type	Account name (example)
SQL Server Service	domain\sqlSvcAcc
SharePoint Farm Administrator	domain\spAdmin
SharePoint Farm Account	domain\spFarmAcc

SQL Server Service Account

The SQL Server service account is used to run SQL Server and should be a domain account. SQL Server is required to store data from SharePoint and companies usually have a dedicated team of database administrators.

If you are a small startup or want to create an isolated environment you need to take care of this account.

SharePoint Farm Administrator

The setup administrator is used to install and configure SharePoint Server Subscription Edition.

SharePoint Farm Account

The farm account is used:

1. for configuration and management of the server farm by SharePoint itself,
2. as an application pool account for Central Administration and
3. to run the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Workflow Timer Service.

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6.2 SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Service Accounts

Service Applications [18] provide additional functionality for your sites and require a lot of different accounts. Sometimes one Service Application requires more than one account so you may want to group accounts by Service Application.

A better way is to group Service Applications by account.

Application Pool Account for Service Applications:

This table shows the required SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Service Accounts.

Service Application	Account name (example)	Requirement
App Management Service Business Data Connectivity service Machine Translation service Managed Metadata Service Project Server Service Search Service Secure Store Service User Profile Service Visio Graphics Service Word Automation services	domain\spService	Must be a domain user account.

Unattended Service Accounts (Accounts for accessing External Data):

PerformancePoint Services or Visio Graphics Service can access and display data from external sources. You may need an unattended service account in certain cases [20]. This kind of account is stored inside the Secure Store Service Application in SharePoint.

This table shows the required SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Service Accounts for Accessing External Data.

Service Application	Account name (example)	Requirement
PerformancePoint Service Visio Graphics Service	domain\spUnattended	Must be a domain user account.

Search Accounts:

This table shows the required SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Service Accounts for Search.

Service Application	Account name (example)	Requirement
Search Service (The default content access account is used by the indexer to access content)	domain\spSearchDCA	Must have Read Access to the content being crawled.
Search Service (Optional separate content access account used with a custom crawl rule)	domain\spSearchCA	Must have Read Access to the content being crawled.

Synchronization Connection Account:

This table shows the required SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Service Accounts for User Profiles.

Service Application	Account name (example)	Requirement
User Profile Service (Inside the User Profile Service Application, you can create connections to directories where your company’s user profile information is stored. Each connection needs an account to access the directory.)	domain\spUPSync	Must be a domain user account. Replicating Directory Changes permissions on the domains being synchronized.

SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Service Account Permissions

"The SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard (Psconfig) and the Farm Configuration Wizard, both of which are run during a complete installation, configure many of the SharePoint baseline account permissions and security settings." [16]

So there's nothing to prepare right now.

SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Service Account Best Practice

Please have a look at Service account recommendations if you want to know more.

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6.3 SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Web Application Accounts

Any kind of site you create in SharePoint like Team Sites are part of a Web Application and a Web Application requires an Application Pool plus Application Pool Account [16] to run:

This table shows required SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Application Pool Accounts for Web Applications.

Account type	Account name (example)
Application Pool Account for Content Sites, e.g. Team Sites	domain\spAppPool
Application Pool Account for My Sites	domain\spAppPool

It is recommended that you use one account for both Web Applications if you don't have special isolation requirements for the content you store [17]. Both accounts:

• Must be a domain user account created in Active Directory.
• Must not be a member of the SharePoint Farm Administrators group.

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6.4 Summary

So, if you plan to configure SharePoint you usually need additional domain accounts depending on your needs:

This table shows a summary of required Application Pool accounts.

Account type	Account name (example)
Application Pool Account for Content Sites, e.g. Team Sites	domain\spAppPool
Application Pool Account for My Sites	domain\spAppPool

And:

This table shows a summary of required service accounts.

Account type	Account name (example)
Application Pool Account (for Service Applications)	domain\spService
Unattended Service Account	domain\spUnattended
Default Content Access	domain\spSearchDCA
Optional Content Access	domain\spSearchCA
Synchronization Connection	domain\spUPSync

At this point you need to decide which isolation requirements the business owner needs. I suggest requesting all accounts from your Domain Administrator at once. This scenario applies to most companies, SharePoint farms and isolation requirements.

Anyway, your business owner might have more isolation requirements if you’re working e.g. for a bank. You can use the list above as a starting point and enhance it with new accounts based on your requirements.

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Resources

• [1] Hardware and topology requirements for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition
• [2] Hardware and topology requirements for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition
• [3] Hardware requirements - database servers
• [4] Storage and SQL Server capacity planning and configuration (SharePoint Server)
• [5] Hardware and topology requirements for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition
• [6] Create a high availability architecture and strategy for SharePoint Server
• [7] Choose SQL Server version and edition
• [8] Analysis Services features supported by SQL Server editions
• [9] Reporting Services Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server 2016
• [10] High Availability Solutions (SQL Server)
• [11] Gather storage and SQL Server space and I/O requirements
• [12] Software requirements for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition
• [13] Plan for virtualization of SharPoint Server
• [14] Limitations
• [15] Initial deployment administrative and service accounts in SharePoint Sever
• [16] Account permissions and security settings in SharePoint Server 2016 and 2019
• [17] Service account recommendations
• [18] About administrative and service accounts
• [19] Service account recommendations
• [20] About administrative and service accounts