Fpweb.net SharePoint Blog

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.  

(In this final post in a  4-part series on How to Upgrade SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 series resident SharePoint Engineer Joe Beyer provides insight on the configuring Microsoft SQL Server and the final steps using the Database Attach upgrade process.)

In my last post, I covered one of the two primary methods of upgrading SharePoint: the In-Place Upgrade. Now let’s take a closer look at using the ‘Database Attach’ method of upgrading.

Database Attach

For this method, I am going to assume the following tasks have already been completed:

• SharePoint 2010 required hardware and software is already in place and ready for upgrade.
• Current SharePoint 2007 environment has been patched with Service Pack 2 or later.
• Successfully ran PreUpgradeCheck (stsadm –o preupgradecheck).
• Ran the prerequisite installer on each web server in the farm.

At some point, you probably used Explorer View on your SharePoint site to move data in bulk.

Many times I’ve seen this taken one step further, and a drive mapped to the SharePoint Library. Interestingly enough, I’ve encountered several issues with this recently, and it took quite a while to actually confirm what was happening. There is a bit of a “bug” in this process, not so much with SharePoint but in the drive mapping protocol itself, that can lead to improper security elevation and false test results among other things. While this sounds scary at first, it is actually fairly innocent as long as you know what you are looking for and how to prevent it.

Let me provide a real-world client example. In one recent case, the Admin had utilized Explorer View and Drive Mapping on their SharePoint site. When the client contacted our SharePoint Support Team, they reported an issue where the Drive Mapping was not properly permission trimming, and so wished to disable this due to possible security problems that could result. Since they had combined drive mapping with Explorer View, this was not an easy request because disabling one disables both, (done by turning off WebDav). They were willing to give up the ability to Map Drives, but not Explorer View, so I dug into what the problem with the security trimming could be.

It’s spring cleaning time – and that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

Did you know? … Spring cleaning began ages ago when houses were kept warm though the winter by burning wood and using kerosene lamps to stay warm.  By the time the cold weather had left and you could open the windows, there would be a sickly layer of soot covering the house.  ‘Spring Cleaning’ involved the unfortunate task of scrubbing the walls and ceiling to prepare for the bright days of summer.

But if you’re a SharePoint administrator, Spring Cleaning can also be a time for renewal and clean-up of another kind. Has your SharePoint installation become unwieldy? Are there extra applications or old collaboration sites bogging down your performance- even though they’re no longer being used?

So whether you’re at home cursing yourself for still using kerosene lamps or just debating whether you really need that 1970′s paisley print couch in the corner of an otherwise barren basement, this Spring you should also be considering another environment that may need the soot knocked off it: your SharePoint environment.

Fortunately for you, Fpweb.net has some suggestions to get your SharePoint platform back into tip-top shape:

At last! Here is Part 3 of 3 of my How to Upgrade SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 series as promised (or at least Part 3A of 3 – I realized there was still a LOT of information to cover, so I decided to ‘Harry Potter’ it and break the last final installment into two posts).

I know most of you have had your SharePoint environments hanging in limbo while you patiently awaited this third and final blog. Let’s finally roll up our sleeves and get these environments back up and running on SharePoint 2010!

To pick up where we left off… the first blog of this upgrade series was essentially just a high level overview of the upgrade process as I just touched on each method. The second blog was more of an introduction to both the In Place Upgrade and Database Attach Upgrade methods. In this third blog, I would like to expand on each method in hopes that you can use this blog as a step-by-step guide to upgrade your environments.

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.