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RealSharePoint is an interactive forum for Administrators and end-users to learn, collaborate, and discuss the latest in SharePoint tips, tricks, and innovations. RealSharePoint is community-inspired and people-driven, so please feel free to join the conversation, contribute content, and help this community grow!

1/5/2009

January SharePoint User Group: New York City

Don't miss out on this month's meeting! It's not too late to register now for the NYC SharePoint User Group meeting this Wednesday, January 7.

Nilesh Mehta, President and CEO of NGenious Solutions, Inc., will be presenting on MOSS 2007: Data & Database Management. Learn from his wealth of experiences, take this opportunity to network, and broaden your knowledge of SharePoint!

Posted at 8:47 AM by Tucker Hall | Category: Events and Happenings; SharePoint News | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

12/31/2008

Branding in SharePoint

Ever wondered how you can brand your SharePoint site in an efficient and scalable manner? Wonder no more with the Ted Pattison Group SharePoint Brand Camp! Though the class is relatively new, the combination of course content, labs, and excellent instruction will have you up and running in no time. Considering the dynamic nature of SharePoint, it can be a daunting task to tinker with its settings for the sake of branding your site (or all of your sites).

Ted Pattison is one of the rare breeds of technical professionals who possess profound depth in a plethora of technologies and combines that background with a passion for providing easily understandable instruction to a broad audience. In his class, he sought to reach out to two distinct groups: designers and developers. He successfully blends relevant information with demos that naturally progress throughout the three-day course.

At the SharePoint Brand Camp, you can expect to learn the pros and cons of several approaches to branding in as well fine-tuning your understanding of SharePoint. It was definitely an eye-opening experience, especially when scrolling through several thousand lines of code in CSS. However, the finished product and education was well worth the wait.

Posted at 5:19 PM by Tucker Hall | Category: SharePoint Tips and Tricks | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

12/2/2008

Protecting SharePoint Data - Storage Experts Chime In

Lauren Whitehouse, analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, and Nilesh Mehta, president of NGenius Solutions coauthor of the book SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide from O'Reilly, were recently featured in an article on Enterprise Storage Forum discussing options for protecting your SharePoint data. With SharePoint's growing popularity, there's no denying that the amount of content stored in these databases make storage and recovery of SharePoint content absolutely critical to most organizations. According to Whitehouse, because all content is centralized in a database repository, storage/retrieval as well as backup and recovery becomes rather complex. Essentially, Whitehouse noted, "you've gone from a file server and a couple of PC's to a couple of clustered database systems and multiple file servers, in potentially multiple locations, to store [your] documents."

Because of complexity of protecting SharePoint data, both Whitehouse and Mehta recommend that enterprises invest in a third-party SharePoint backup and recovery utility. Whitehouse went on to say, "AvePoint has probably the best SharePoint backup, recovery and archiving solution".

Now Whitehouse mentioned archiving, which is something that she also recommended. In order to better manage your organization's overall storage capacity, it is generally advisable to remove the inactive, persistent data from the environment.

The take away, you gotta be smart in managing your storage, and you gotta take regular backups of your SharePoint content. "That will save your life, " said Mehta.

Posted at 8:19 PM by Andrew Yeung | Category: SharePoint News; Backup and Recovery; Archiving | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

11/17/2008

Microsoft Releases SharePoint As a Service

Microsoft made a big move into the SaaS space today with the GA release of SharePoint Online and Exchange Online. The new products - which have been in beta since March - have already been deployed by over 7,000 organizations globally.

Though the two products can be purchased seperately (SharePoint Online is priced at $7.25 per user/month) they can also be purchased as part of the company's Online Services suite, which includes Office Live Meeting, Exchange Hosted Services, and Office Communications Online. This bundle will integrate with the much anticipated Office Online, due out next year.

So what does this mean for SharePointers? Well - when it comes to the bottom line - potentially some significant infrastructure and staffing cost savings. Microsoft calculates that its customers will save 10-50% by moving to their Online Services platform.

In terms of functionality, the code-base is the same as the on-premise applications, but Microsoft is expecting to rely heavily on partner vendors to deliver value-adds to the platforms. Everything from migration services to security and administration enhancements are expected to roll out from partners with expertise in the SharePoint space.

Microsoft is making their move, and no matter what the outcome, the SharePoint landscape will never be the same. Read more about the release here.

Posted at 4:39 PM by tucker hall | Category: SharePoint News; Events and Happenings | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

11/14/2008

Staring Up at the Cloud at SharePoint Connections

With all the buzz surrounding Microsoft's recent announcement of its cloud computing platform, Azure, it was not surprising that this week's keynote address at the SharePoint Connections conference in Las Vegas revolved around SharePoint's role in this cloud computing strategy.

Prior to sharing some of the details of SharePoint Online, Tom Rizzo, Director of Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, ran through a "state-of-the-SharePoint-market" preso, outlining some of the key focus areas and product improvements over the past year. Microsoft's strategy for SharePoint is actually quite simple - world domination, as Rizzo put it facetiously. As part of this strategy, this year's solutions were largely focused on riding the 2008 wave, offering support for Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008. Rizzo also encouraged customers to start leveraging SharePoint as a web content management platform, including the use of Silverlight technology (cuz apparently not enough customers do so). He showed off several examples of internet-facing websites that were actually quite impressive, including easyJet, Volvo, and Conservation.org.

Personally, I was hoping we would get a hint of what's on the horizon for SharePoint in Office 14, but no luck. With respect to the cloud initiatives, much of what has been outlined for SharePoint Services fo Azure has been tagged as "coming soon", but the audience did get to see a brief demo of SharePoint Online, which is currently in beta. SharePoint Online, hosted through Microsoft's data centers will offer different packages, based on a subscription model. This allows organizations to leverage SharePoint's best-in-class collaboration solutions without having to invest heavily in their own IT resources. While there are some delegated administration capabilities that are provided to customers, much of the farm level administration tasks are off limits. There are additional limitations, including support for custom code or 3rd party web parts, as well as considerations in a multi tenant hosting model. That said, Microsoft boasts some big name early adopters, including Autodesk, Coca-Cola, Energizer, and Ingersoll Rand. One audience member wanted to know - how will content loss be addressed? The answer - use the SharePoint recycling bin, and there might be additional charges from the data center for recovering lost data. Hmmm...great question, not-so-great answer. It sounds like some infrastructure providers will soon be stepping up to provide these services to offer straight up support in the cloud - stay tuned!

Posted at 8:20 PM by Andrew Yeung | Category: SharePoint News | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

11/13/2008

Do you SUSPECT an EMERGENCY?

Hello fellow SharePoint admins! Have you ever opened Central Admin or a SharePoint site on your farm and been greeted with this?

"Cannot connect to the configuration database."

*Queue menacing trumpet* DUM! DUMM! DUMMMM!

I ran into this exact situation after my MOSS environment was brought down by a starved laptop battery.

Microsoft suggests a few things you can check to resolve this issue. I gave their suggestions a whirl but I was still out of luck.

It turns out that the cause of the problem was that my sharepoint_config database entered suspect mode when my environment went down and was not recoverable on SQL startup.

Thankfully, this post about restoring a database in suspect mode saved the day.

You can run the following query in SQL Server 2005 to switch the database in suspect mode to emergency mode, repair it, and set it back to online mode:

EXEC sp_resetstatus 'DBname'
ALTER DATABASE DBname SET EMERGENCY
DBCC checkdb('DBname')
ALTER DATABASE DBname SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE
DBCC CheckDB ('DBname', REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS)
ALTER DATABASE DBname SET MULTI_USER

Note that you should only run this restore method if you have backups of the database but can't overwrite the databases to restore or no other methods have worked.

After running the query above I was immediately able to access my sites. Thanks Mohamad!

Posted at 5:21 PM by Michael Wu | Category: SharePoint Tips and Tricks | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

10/22/2008

TechEd North America is Once Again a 1-Week Event

Tech Ed 2009 is taking place in sunny Los Angeles next year, and it's sure to be another great time.

But the big news is that - unlike last year - Tech Ed North America 2009 will be a single-week event! The big event is taking place May 11-15, 2009. No longer is Microsoft breaking up the Developers and IT Pros segments into two seperate weeks!

Registration opens December 10, 2008 for the big show in LA.

And to stay up-to-date on the very latest in Tech Ed news and announcements, subscibe to the 2009 TechEd Newsletter here.

Posted at 4:15 PM by tucker hall | Category: SharePoint News; Events and Happenings | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

10/16/2008

Don't Have an SLA for SharePoint? Better Draft One Up!

So we are about halfway through our AvePoint Fall Seminar Series, taking place across 12 different cities in North America. In a few of the seminars, I asked for a quick show of hands to see how many in the audience have service level agreements (SLA's) in place for their SharePoint deployments. While I did not expect it to be a large number, I was very surprised by how few actually raised their hands. In Redmond, only three people said they have drawn up SLA's for their IT serivces for SharePoint. In Mountain View, that number was even lower - only one person raised his hand. I'm pretty sure people aren't being shy. I think when it comes to SharePoint, that is the reality right now - scary, but true.

We all know that SharePoint is a "wonder tool", and harnessing the power of this platform is the ultimate goal of every organization that realizes the value that it can bring. However, without proper governance, management, and planning in place, adoption of SharePoint will likely spiral out of control. One of the key aspects of proper management of this platform should really be around formalizing the IT operational plan and services. In order to do this, a proper service level agreement should be established that distills the understanding of what to expect.

Some sample items you can include in your SLA:

Length of time and approvals necessary to create a site
Length of time for problem resolution through a helpdesk
System performance to expect
Site, storage quotas
Data, system availability and recovery time objective
Content recovery point objective

By establishing an SLA, you will form a binding contract that ensures IT's commitment in managing the systems and resources to drive adoption and return on investment in SharePoint. Hopefully the next time I pose the same question in front of a live audience, I'll see more hands raised from administrators eager to share their own success stories.

Posted at 4:40 PM by Andrew Yeung | Category: Administration; Backup and Recovery; Events and Happenings | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

10/1/2008

Reporting from Disneyland - Deploying SharePoint Roadshow

Another week, another trip down to SoCal. This time I was on my way to Anaheim, CA - home of Mickey and Minnie. Right next door to the Disney funhouse was the 2nd stop of the Fall 2008 Deploying SharePoint Roadshow. Even though I wasn’t able to hang with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, or Daisy, with temperatures reaching over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, I was happy to spend the whole day indoors at our vendor booth.

Deploying SharePoint is all about helping administrators understand the basics and best practices of effective management of a SharePoint environment. The speaker for the day was Michael Noel, SharePoint Server MVP, and he walked through a number of sessions ranging from building out your SharePoint infrastructure, to implementing a highly redundant SharePoint farm, to leveraging SharePoint as an enterprise content management solution. All in all, it was a great event with a lot of educational material really geared towards getting organizations to really start thinking about SharePoint from an infrastructure perspective. A good portion of the audience had either just started deploying SharePoint or is still sponging up all the information that they can to ensure that SharePoint is the right solution for them.

I think a lot of the content was spot on. It’s great to see so many organizations realize the power of SharePoint, but at the same time, they are planning ahead on how best to deploy and manage this sprawling environment. After all, as representatives from Microsoft themselves have said, “Just because you can install SharePoint in 20 minutes, it doesn’t mean you should”. There needs to be the proper operational planning in place, a well thought out information architecture, and it really needs to be treated as a real IT platform. Among others, these infrastructure needs would include a business continuity plan, setting up appropriate roles and policies, determining needs for a geographically dispersed environment, and migration or interoperability with other heterogeneous platforms.

The day ended with a giveaway for a Bose Sound Dock. I had the privilege of drawing the winning raffle, and it belonged to –wait for it – Andy Gordon from Suzuki! Congratulations Andy! And so ended an eventful day. It was great to network with other members of the SharePoint community, but ultimately, all good things come to an end, and I once again had the unfortunate experience of steering my way back to the airport in the midst of the infamous SoCal rush hour traffic. For those of you who missed it, the Deploying SharePoint roadshow will be making additional stops in other cities. You can find an event near you here.

Posted at 9:06 PM by Andrew Yeung | Category: Administration; Deployment Architecture; Events and Happenings; SharePoint News | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

9/19/2008

Just Beyond 90210 - Gartner Portals, Content, and Collaboration Summit 2008

Driving down to the Gartner Portals, Content, and Collaboration (PCC) Summit in LA this morning was rough. I have come to the realization that you should never stay more than 5 miles away from your destination in LA cuz it will take you forever to get there! The stop and go traffic did allow me to enjoy the scenery, especially when I drove past Beverly Hills, 90210. Funny, I don't recall there being this much traffic on the TV show! And I will admit that I did manage to tune in to the new "90210" show the past couple weeks, just like all of you other closet "90210" fans.

But enuff about Beverly Hills. Don't ask me why, but driving through LA and experiencing all of its sprawling glory reminded me a lot of SharePoint. There seems to be so much to do in LA, but it's just so difficult to get around and find exactly what you need - just like SharePoint. It's not surprising that much of the theme around this year's Gartner PCC Summit revolved around effective governance and management of enterprise portals.

I attended a session this morning entitled "Best Practices Balancing Governance and Empowerment with SharePoint", presented by Jeff Teper, Corporate VP at Microsoft. On one hand, you want to empower your end users to innovate and contribute, but on the other hand, you don't want to lose control, so the key is to really find that balance between the two extremes. SharePoint Governance, as Jeff described, encompasses four different areas:

Roles and responsiblities
Operational excellence
Information architecture
Application architecture and lifecycle

Around these main categories, Jeff went on to discuss various different considerations around operational excellence for effective SharePoint governance. These included provisioning policies, content lifecycle, SLA service tiers, geographic distribution, and HA and DR plans.

Overall, it was a very insightful session. It's been about 18 months since SharePoint 2007 made a splash, and no doubt a majority of the organizations have started adopting it, but very few have been able to effectively govern their sprawling environment. Among the few successes was Pfizer, who came up on stage and described how they had carefully executed against their governance plan, and have succesfully deployed SharePoint to over 63000 users across 122 departments and 11 divisions. Their environment consists of over 4 data centers, 6300 sites, and 143 custom solutions (even thos 97% of their needs are satisfied by out-of-the-box SharePoint capabilities).

Interestingly enough, within their governance plan/checklist was the need for a granular backup and restore plan, for which they had chosen a third party solution in AvePoint's DocAve Software Platform. In his own words, Dave Biersach, Program Manager for Pfizer said they can now achieve granular restores in just minutes, when previously it had taken hours. It's great to hear that from a happy customer!

Posted at 1:44 AM by Andrew Yeung | Category: Administration; Backup and Recovery; Events and Happenings; SharePoint News | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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AvePoint Hands-on Lab at MTC-NY

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SharePoint Happenings

1/7/2009 5:00 PM		New York SharePoint User Group (SPUG) Meeting This dynamic group meets on the first Wednesday of every month at the Microsoft Offices in New York City. Address: 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Sixth Floor New York, NY 10104 Phone: (212) 245-2100 Fax: (212) 245-3290
1/13/2009 11:00 AM		Mid America SharePont User Group (SPUG) Meeting This dynamic User Group meets on the second Tuesday of every month, and covers a broad range of SharePoint-related topics.
1/27/2009 5:00 PM		New England SharePoint User Group (SPUG) Meeting This dynamic User Group meets on the fourth Tuesday of every month, and covers a broad range of SharePoint-realted topics. Visit http://www.clearwaypartners.com/SUGHome.htm- to learn more and register.
1/28/2009 5:30 PM		Delaware Valley SharePoint User Group (SPUG) Meeting This dynamic User Group meets on the fourth Tuesday of every month, and covers a broad range of SharePoint-realted topics. Visit www.rbjtech.com to learn more and register for this monthly event.
2/4/2009 5:00 PM		New York SharePoint User Group (SPUG) Meeting This dynamic group meets on the first Wednesday of every month at the Microsoft Offices in New York City. Address: 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Sixth Floor New York, NY 10104 Phone: (212) 245-2100 Fax: (212) 245-3290
2/10/2009 11:00 AM		Mid America SharePont User Group (SPUG) Meeting This dynamic User Group meets on the second Tuesday of every month, and covers a broad range of SharePoint-related topics.
2/24/2009 5:00 PM		New England SharePoint User Group (SPUG) Meeting This dynamic User Group meets on the fourth Tuesday of every month, and covers a broad range of SharePoint-realted topics. Visit http://www.clearwaypartners.com/SUGHome.htm- to learn more and register.
2/25/2009 5:30 PM		Delaware Valley SharePoint User Group (SPUG) Meeting This dynamic User Group meets on the fourth Tuesday of every month, and covers a broad range of SharePoint-realted topics. Visit www.rbjtech.com to learn more and register for this monthly event.
3/4/2009 5:00 PM		New York SharePoint User Group (SPUG) Meeting This dynamic group meets on the first Wednesday of every month at the Microsoft Offices in New York City. Address: 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Sixth Floor New York, NY 10104 Phone: (212) 245-2100 Fax: (212) 245-3290
3/10/2009 11:00 AM		Mid America SharePont User Group (SPUG) Meeting This dynamic User Group meets on the second Tuesday of every month, and covers a broad range of SharePoint-related topics.