SharePoint Development tends to be a wee bit more time consuming compared to “standard” ASP.NET development. Although Microsoft really helped us a lot by providing seriously improved integration with Visual Studio 2010, building, packaging, deploying and debugging can still be annoyingly slow.
Here are a couple of things you could do to speed things up a bit.
1. Fast hardware
Of course the most important part. Be sure to have a lot of RAM in your development machine, at least 4 GB. With the 64-bit OS requirement for SharePoint 2010 we can address more than 3 GB so make sure it is available. Even current generation laptops can handle 8 GB of RAM, no excuses anymore (apart from budget that is).
Because you probably run all required software on one machine, fast disks are equally important. This component improves the overall experience, but MSSQL Server benefits the most. If you are running virtuals, you can go for fast external disks using eSata (or maybe USB 3.0). If you are more like me (and don’t like the external disk hassle) be sure to examine the disk specs when shopping for new hardware.
2. The right OS
I tried running Windows 7 Ultimate with SharePoint 2010 installed locally. Yes it works, but it is still a desktop OS. And you really can’t run things like domain controllers and stuff like that locally. If you really want things to go fast, you boot a regular server OS, say Windows Server 2008 R2. It handles server software far better than any desktop OS. And if you can, just install all needed components on one server (i.e. MSSQL Server, SharePoint 2010, Visual Studio, Office, Domain Controller, DNS, etc.). And Windows 7 VHD boot makes dual booting a breeze!
If you do need more than one server, think about installing Windows Server 2008 R2 with the Hyper-V role. And run your servers on top of that! You will probably need at least 8GB (host + 2 guests), but will give you ultimate flexibility.
3. Tweak your OS and server software
Same old story:
- Don’t run unneeded services or components. No, you don’t need Adobe Auto Updater or the Windows Media Player Online Subscription blah blah. Check the Windows Services and registry “run” keys.
- If you run MSSQL Server (and you probably do), be sure to maximize its memory to a value you consider adequate. This way, it won’t hog up your machine. Also if you have more than one disk, store the “tempdb” on a different disk than the content or configuration database. Other “production” performance tweaks also apply of course.
- Regarding SharePoint IIS configuration, I normally run most parts on the same Application Pool. This saves valuable memory, but makes recycling take a bit longer. If you run many Web Applications but only develop in one, dedicate one AppPool to your development application and share the rest.
- Keep your content databases lean. There is normally no need to develop against a 50+ GB database. Just use a default empty one or with limited content. You can of course switch later on if you need to test your solution.
4. Be smart
When deploying and debugging SharePoint solutions, Application Pool recycles are a pain! Be smart when laying out your Visual Studio projects and decide which parts must be farm solutions and which parts sandbox solutions. Remember: farm solutions require a IIS recycle where as sandbox solutions do not (see earlier post about Sandbox solutions). You can always merge them later when heading towards production state.
If you are developing loads of Web Parts or User Controls (used by Visual Web Parts), there is another thing you could do. Since most of them are plain ASP.NET components, you can stick them on a simple ASPX page and develop them using IIS. Especially handy during the early stages and you can add them to your SharePoint project when they need a SharePoint environment.
5. Time savers
You probably already have the “CKS: Development Tools Edition” installed. If not, please do. They also contain several time savers regarding deployment, like Quick Deploy, Copy Assemblies and Copy Files. There is even a feature that warms up your site after a IIS recycle!
You probably have other tricks up your sleeve, but I thought I’d share mine.
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