The Cloud

(Welcome to The Next Byte, a series on Microsoft SharePoint and SQL Server written by Don Conrad, a.k.a. “Don SQL”, the Fpweb.net SharePoint database wizard and expert in all things SQL-related. In this post Don examines new features in SQL Server 2012. Missed an installment of The Next Byte? Check out the complete Microsoft SharePoint and SQL Server series.)

and now… THE NEXT BYTE

SQL Server 2012 Topics to Discuss:

1. Which new features will have the biggest impact for SharePoint?
2. Why is the filetable so important?
3. What are the pricing considerations?

Microsoft recently released the newest version of its premier enterprise database management system, SQL Server 2012. This update contains many new and significant features from the current release, 2008 R2. Many of the features are notable improvements over 2008 R2 and there are so many that we couldn’t possibly do justice to them in one article.

In fact, we won’t even try. Instead we’ll focus some of the feature updates that will have the most impact on Microsoft SharePoint, since, after all, SharePoint hosting is what we do here at Fpweb.net.

SQL Server 2012 key features (in no particular order):

1. AlwaysOn
2. Contained databases
3. The FileTable feature (*not a datatype)
4. Core-based licensing

A conversation about doing more with less

I found myself getting slightly annoyed the other day while talking with a friend. They run a small business and have yet to utilize social media to get the message across. They’re just a bit old fashioned and can’t be bothered to dive into this form of marketing. <Editor’s Note: Just to warn/relieve you, this post is not about social media; it’s about missed opportunities.>

I reasoned that Twitter and Facebook may seem trendy and self-indulgent to some, but what matters is that your customers are using it, and so are your competitors. It’s a free service – get on there and get your message out. Makes sense, right?

Time will tell if I win that battle, but it did remind me of a similar scratch-your-head scenario that still exists. Companies who still haven’t moved their SharePoint to a private cloud.

Now is the time

Recession. There’s your buzzword. Tossed throughout blog posts and newswires everywhere you look. Global economies are suffering and recessions are flaring up on every continent. And the blame is just as prevalent – tossed around at every politician and disaster in its path. But I’m not here to talk about how we got here; I’m just the guy trained in CPR and holding the life raft to get your business out alive.

I’m here to talk about moving your on-premise SharePoint infrastructure to the private cloud. Yes, it’s an economy only the Cloud could love. And that’s why you need to be…

Doing More with Less

I think we can all agree that whatever industry you’re in and whatever position you hold, you’ve been charged by your superiors or, for those at the top, your budget, to do more with less. The first time I heard this I looked down at the pencil in my hand and broke it in half. Bam! Two pencils. So I’m experienced at finding solutions. But sometimes the solution isn’t that simple; sometimes it takes more of a leap.

Want easy, seamless integration between your company’s network and Fpweb.net’s SharePoint Cloud? How about Disaster Recovery (DR) failover with fast, secure Virtual Machine (VM) replication across the Internet? New updates in the core Microsoft server product lineup are closing the gaps and facilitating smarter cloud-based SharePoint environments. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Microsoft SharePoint and the Cloud are becoming fast friends! (*hold for applause*)

At the recent Microsoft Hosting Summit 2012, I was thrilled to see the future of Cloud tools unfolding before my eyes. Microsoft is finally producing tools that enable providers like Fpweb.net to go big and fast. As a trusted SharePoint advisor and leading hosting provider for the platform, Fpweb.net is 100% SharePoint, and solving our customers’ SharePoint needs just got easier!

Fpweb.net has provided Microsoft’s SharePoint Team with a ton of feedback from our customers, and I am delighted to say that most of our wish list has been fulfilled with this release of products. Always nice to see Redmond recognizing Fpweb.net’s dedicated SharePoint team in their new product release presentations.

So, let’s talk about what the Microsoft Product Teams have been up to – and which tools Fpweb.net will be using to build the next-generation SharePoint Cloud. The big three core components behind SharePoint are Windows Server 8, SQL Server 2012 and System Center 2012. SPOILER: Windows Server 8 is the greatest Cloud platform on the planet…

Without further ado, let’s get started.  

Well folks, Spring is officially here!

What’s that you say? You’ve been enjoying the new season for the past month and a half? Okay, truth is… I have too! I spent all winter making meals in the Crock Pot (yes, I still consider this cooking), but the crazy nice weather has got me grilling anything and everything I can think of. Have you ever tried peaches on the grill, drizzled with honey? If not, please stop what you’re doing and go make some now… I promise you won’t regret it!

Alright, I may have gotten a little off track with the peach thing. But really… spring is all about baseball games, evening walks, and soaking up every minute of daylight you possibly can. Another thing it’s good for? Traveling the globe, talking about SharePoint. So without further ado, here’s what the Fpweb.net SharePoint Hosting ‘Road Crew’ will be up to in April:

[In Part 2 of his series on Document Management and Collaboration in Microsoft SharePoint, Matt Milsark offers advice on using the SharePoint check-in and check-out process. Missed the first post? Please read SharePoint Document Management: Collaboration in the Cloud.]

Check This Out!

Online document collaboration is quickly becoming standard practice for businesses of all sizes. Often times, multiple employees need access to create, edit, revise, proofread and review the same documents. Unfortunately, many businesses or departments or teams simply use a file share to store collaborative documents. But when multiple people need to work on the same content, strange things can happen. With a file share there’s no real way to manage who’s working on what document, and as a result it’s very easy in to overwrite the revisions made by another employee.

Microsoft SharePoint helps eliminate the collaboration difficulties normally associated with file shares with tightly integrated document management features. With SharePoint’s check-in and check-out feature, overwriting edits is impossible because when a document is checked out, no other person can make edits to that document until it is checked back in. Users can view the current document, but cannot make edits.

Innovative-e, Inc. and Fpweb.net are proud to host a free SharePoint webinar series – “Temptations That Lead to the 5 Deadly Sins of SharePoint in the Enterprise.”

Join us for the next webinar in the series, “5 Risky SharePoint Temptations for IT Leaders” on Thursday, March 29, 2012, at 2:00pm ET. Co-hosts Dux Raymond Sy, managing partner of Innovative-e, and Mark Miller, Director of Global Strategy and Senior Storyteller at Fpweb.net, will discuss SharePoint risk management and take an in-depth look into the “temptations” or mistakes that IT leaders make when it comes to implementing and managing SharePoint enterprise-wise.

The “SharePoint Temptations” series is an extension of the original “5 Deadly Sins of SharePoint in the Enterprise” webinar. Innovative-e’s monthly webinar series began in January and Fpweb.net is proud to be joining this month as a co-host. The series will continue through June 2012.

Please register FREE to attend this featured SharePoint webinar.

You will be sent a link to obtain your unique attendance URL the day before or morning of the event.

(Don Conrad, a.k.a. “Don SQL”, is Fpweb.net’s resident database wizard and expert in all things Microsoft SQL related. In this post he examines the next version of SQL Server. Missed an installment of The Next Byte? Check out Don’s complete Microsoft SharePoint and SQL Server series.) 

The Next Byte – Special Edition

Microsoft is busy promoting its next version of SQL Server, the database that powers the SharePoint platform. The RTM (“Release to Manufacturing”) edition of SQL Server 2012 is already available for download, and Microsoft will publicly unveil this new database technology before the end of March. As a result, SQL Server database administrators – and DBAs-in-training – are occupied studying up on the differences between SQL Server 2008 and this new version. For this “Special Edition” post, I’ve taken a break in my on-going talks about SQL Server to cover the highlights of new features in SQL Server 2012.

Perhaps the most pressing questions for SQL Server DBAs are:

1) What are the major enhancements?
2) What editions are available?
3) Did the pricing change?

Many of the feature updates in this version are truly significant and really enhance the usefulness of SQL Server. They are less about storing more, faster. Instead, they are more about how can I use my data quicker and better. They also directly address the massive increase in information that has been ongoing for 10+ years and is now threatening to be unmanageably large. How can we store, and access in a meaningful manner, the incredible quantities of data we already have stored and continue storing the increasing magnitude of data that we will have accumulated in the next few years?

Fpweb.net is hosting FAST Search Server in the SharePoint Cloud

You have a choice in enterprise search. And let me assure any enterprise or mid-sized company, you don’t just need FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, you want it! When you’re running a company that is powered by outside-the-box thinking, you can’t be limited to “out-of-the-box” features. You need your environment to grow with your business needs.

If the purpose of using SharePoint is to benefit from the productivity and collaboration that it enables, you’ll miss a key business benefit by disregarding FAST Search.

So what is FAST Search Server?

We’ve written a pretty comprehensive look at the features of FAST Search Server 2010 but in the meantime, here’s a brief summary:

Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint takes all of the search and integration capabilities that are baked into SharePoint Server 2010 and then amplifies those capabilities with improved flexibility and scale along with beefing up the content processing to the point that it can index and search over a billion items. Which is a lot.

Sure, in one sense Microsoft SharePoint is an application: the SharePoint software package is installed and deployed directly on a server (or cluster of multiple servers). But SharePoint is so much more than just another enterprise-level application. Fundamentally, SharePoint is also a platform. Beyond its ‘off-the-shelf’ capabilities for online collaboration and workflow management, SharePoint also serves as the backbone to enable specialized apps and solutions from third-party vendors.

With a SharePoint environment, you get a fully-featured platform upon which other business-critical applications can be installed. And under the broad umbrella of the SharePoint platform, there is a rich tapestry of business applications to choose from: Business Intelligence (BI) apps, content and document management apps and extensions, search software ‘bolt-ons’ including FAST Search Server, extensible code libraries, reusable web parts, security and compliance solutions and list goes on and on. While maybe SharePoint was originally conceived as a standalone program, it has evolved to become a premier applications platform for developers to customize and build upon.

(This blog is a follow-up to Rob LaMear’s Understanding the Hybrid Cloud SharePoint Model.)

As Director of SharePoint Engineering at Fpweb.net, one of my roles is traveling around and talking with people about hosted SharePoint. One of the more interesting comments I get is “My organization has data we can’t move out to the cloud, so we can’t use your service.” Interestingly enough, I love hearing this, because it usually indicates that they haven’t yet considered the most powerful and functional way to implement SharePoint in the Cloud…The hybrid model.

A misconception here is that this is an all-or-nothing solution, which is far from accurate. The power of any cloud service is to find services that are great at what they provide, then bolt them together to get the best of everything. Traditionally Hybrid cloud solutions refer to a combination of cloud services and On Prem infrastructure, but you can also consider a hybrid solution a mixture of services in the cloud. Want some examples? We can do that…