SharePoint 2013 – Hardware and Software Requirements and Prerequisites

With the launch of SharePoint 2013 Server, everyone is probably curious as to what hardware and software they should be preparing for their infrastructure. I have compiled the minimum hardware and software requirements below.  A more in-depth look can be seen here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485(v=office.15).aspx

Although not recommended, in terms of hardware, for a single server deployment you now need 24 GB ram for a server deployment! and for 3 tier farms, you need 12 GB for web & app servers. For software, the key differences are that you need at least Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit SP1 or above for all your servers, as well as SQL Server 2008 R2 64-bit SP1 or above for your databases. Also, SharePoint 2013 is now built on top of the .NET Framework 4.0 so we can use all the new and cool features in it and of course it is a pre-requisite for your servers.

Disclaimer: Everything indicated in this post are the published by Microsoft SharePoint 2013 requirements so they might change it at any time…..

Minimum Hardware Requirements for a 3 tier farm:

Web & Application Servers in a 3 tier farm

CPU:

• 64 bit and
• 4 cores

RAM:

• 12 GB production environments and
• Or 8 GB development environments

DISK:

• 80 GB system Drive
• Minimum of 2 X RAM free space of (i.e. 24 GB)

Database Servers

CPU:

• 64 bit
• 4 cores for small deployments
• Or 8 cores for medium deployments

RAM:

• 8 GB for small deployments
• Or 16 GB for medium deployments

DISK:

• 80 GB system drive
• Content and Data storage extra

Minimum Software Requirements:

Web & Application Servers

OS:

• Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit + SP1
• Standard
• Enterprise
• Data Center
• Web Server
• Or Windows 2012 Server 64-bit
• Or Windows 2012 Server R2 64-bit

PREREQUISITES:

• KB 2554876 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2554876)
• Windows KB -IIS Configuration Changes KB 2708075 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2708075)

These are installed by the SharePoint 2013 prerequisite installer:

• Web Server (IIS) role
• Application Server role
• Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.5 Release Candidate (RC)
• SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Native Client
• Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.0
• Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client (MSIPC)
• Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 SP1 (x64)
• Windows Management Framework 3.0 Release Candidate (RC) which includes Windows PowerShell 3.0
• Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) 1.0 and Microsoft Identity Extensions (previously named WIF 1.1)
• Windows Server AppFabric
• Cumulative Update Package 1 for Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server (KB 2671763)