Sitecore 9 Update 1 SIF Prerequisites for a Scaled Environment

If you are following the Sitecore 9 Update 1 Installation Guide, you may note that the prerequisites for SIF can lead to failures with SQL Communication if you are installing a scaled Sitecore environment (ex. SQL is installed on one server, while your Sitecore roles are installed on separate servers).

You may not experience issues if you are installing Sitecore via SIF on the same servers as SQL or have SSMS installed on your Sitecore servers. This is because SQL and SSMS contain .dlls and files for SQL communication that a server without these components will lack.

For those deploying Production environments that are scaled with SQL separate of the Sitecore roles, it is imperative to ensure that you have the full prerequisites for a scaled environment, as it is atypical to install SSMS on scaled/production boxes. The following “SIF Prerequisites for a Scaled Environment” meet these requirements and are not currently in the Sitecore documentation as of the writing of this post. Please review the Sitecore documentation on a regular cadence for any changes that could affect the required prerequisites, including application improvements.

The “SIF Prerequisites for a Scaled Environment” are intended to be installed in order, with notes on sub prereqs such as SQLSysCLRTypes being a sub prereq for DacFx. IMPORTANT: This assumes you are installing Sitecore on Windows 2016 (Highly recommended as it contains IIS 10.0 and .NET 4.6):

SIF Prerequisites for a Scaled Environment

Prerequisite Name	Download Location and/or Installation Instructions
WebAdministration module (IIS)	Server Manager > Add Roles and Features or “Install-WindowsFeature -name Web-Server -IncludeManagementTools” PowerShell Command
ASP.NET 4.6 (4.6.2)	Server Manager > Add Roles and Features or “Install-WindowsFeature -name Web-Asp-Net45” PowerShell Command
Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable Update 3	https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53587
Web Platform Installer	https://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx
Web Deploy 3.6 for Hosting Server	Install via the Web Platform Installer
URL Rewrite 2.1	Install via the Web Platform Installer
Microsoft SQL Server TransactSQLScriptDom (2016 x64 and x86)	https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52676 Install both x64 and x86 versions, installing x86 version first
SQLSysCLRTypes (2016 x64 and x86)	https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52676 Install both x64 and x86 versions, installing x86 version first. Sub Prereq for DacFx
Microsoft SQL Server Data-Tier Application Framework (DacFx) version 2016 (2016 x64 and x86)	https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52676 Install both x64 and x86 versions, installing x86 version first
Microsoft Shared Management Objects for SQL Server 2016 (2016 x64 and x86)	https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52676 Install both x64 and x86 versions, installing x86 version first
Microsoft ODBC Drivers for Microsoft SQL Server (Version 13.1 x64)	https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53339 Install only the x64 version. Sub Prereq for Microsoft Command Line Utilities 13.1 for SQL Server
Microsoft Command Line Utilities 13.1 or Greater for SQL Server (Version 13.1 x64)	https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53591 Microsoft updated the 13.1 Utility page to Version 14.0, but it still requires the 13.1 ODBC Drivers
SQL Server PowerShell Module	Add “Install-Module -Name SqlServer -AllowClobber” and “Import-Module -Name SqlServer -Force” to the top of your SIF Installation Script to download and import the SQL Server PowerShell Module