The team at Microsoft Learning have realised that YouTube is a much better channel for on-line video based learning than hosting them on their own sites. I totally agree! subscribe now to the Microsoft learning channel on YouTube to get your daily fix of short learning videos ranging from using office to my favourite topic, programming SharePoint
Here a sample Learning Snack: LINQ to SharePoint!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Friday, October 1, 2010
How to Pass 70-668
So today I passed 70-668. The PRO exam of the SharePoint 2010 Administrator series. And I can't tell you how relieved I am.
I was kind of panicking about this one. Mainly because I had no idea what to expect. The planning guides on technet are horrendously theoretical and you get tangled up in links beyond links in no time. The supporting course is not even finished yet and nobody can tell you what the format will be.
Let me assure you, it will not require a BSc in Taxonomy and governance planning to pass the exam.
It is mainly scenario driven and the questions are pretty straight forward. If you have sat the 10174 SharePoint 2010 Administration and Configuration course you will have a good foundation to build upon.
From there you have to spend some more time configuring the different farm scenarios. No point in practicing how to use the Wizard! Do it manually and configure each component in your farm. Especially Search!
What to focus on? The most important part is knowing the hardware and software requirements for SharePoint 2010, how to upgrade to 2010, and how to build a small, medium and large farm. Especially how to distribute load of all components correctly in the farm, from Excel Calculation to Search crawling, indexing and querying. Know your Database Mirroring, Failover and Disaster recovery scenarios and know your network configurations and setups for IIS, authentication and firewalls. Most importantly it is hands on experience that will help you pass this exam. Not theory. So get stuck in and start building distributed farm environments. A lot of knowledge from building 2007 Farms will be easily translated into 2010 Farms, with the addition of new distribution capabilities due to the new service architecture.
If you are looking for a course that can help you prepare for this exam, I suggest you sit the Mindsharp/Combined Knowledge SharePoint 2010 Administrator Course. That covers the grunt and most important aspects of configuring and maintainting a best practice SharePoint Farm. Even the 2007 version of this course will give you many of the basic skills which can be translated into 2010 by extra studies. The Mindsharp/Combined Knowledge material is top notch and the trainers back it up with real world experience and vast pools of knowledge. You will never sit a Mindsharp/Combined Knowedge course with a trainer who does not know SharePoint inside out.
If you can't get hold of a Mindsharp/Combined Knowledge course in your area, then sit the Microsoft 50047 Advanced SharePoint 2007 Administration course. That covers all the important Enterprise setups that 5060 and 5061 ignore and gives real advice on farm configuration, disaster recovery and performance considerations. 50047 does assume that you have sat 5060 and 5061 or have equivalent real world experience. After sitting the course you then have to start applying the concepts to 2010 and get your hands dirty with how the 2010 service model can be configured and distributed in a farm environment.
One last tip (Probably the most important one). Read the questions and possible answers before reading the scenario. That will speed up the process and keep you focussed on the task at hand. Most questions can be answered by just reading one single section of the scenario. So identify the section the question relies on, answer the question in your head and then skim the rest of the scenario to make sure there is no other piece of information that could invalidate your chosen answer.
Some lnks to get you started:
70-668 Syllabus:
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-668
SharePoint 2010 Resource Center (good list of the most important technet articles you will require)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee263917.aspx
Hands on courses to upskill fast:
3grow combined Knowledge SharePoint 2007 Administrator course taught by your's truly
http://training.3grow.co.nz/nz/courses/1-sharepoint-2007-administrator-track
Microsoft 10174 SharePoint 2010 Administration taught by your's truly:
https://www.auldhouse.co.nz/content/202FCFB2-2BC9-4462-B795-E3E21A2E24BD.html?course=COUR2010070714285507145570
Microsoft 50047 SharePoint 2007 Advanced Administration:
https://www.auldhouse.co.nz/content/202FCFB2-2BC9-4462-B795-E3E21A2E24BD.html?course=COUR2009050111225107640409
More good resources on passing this exam collected by Matt Menezes:
https://spmatt.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/how-i-passed-70-668/#comment-450
I was kind of panicking about this one. Mainly because I had no idea what to expect. The planning guides on technet are horrendously theoretical and you get tangled up in links beyond links in no time. The supporting course is not even finished yet and nobody can tell you what the format will be.
Let me assure you, it will not require a BSc in Taxonomy and governance planning to pass the exam.
It is mainly scenario driven and the questions are pretty straight forward. If you have sat the 10174 SharePoint 2010 Administration and Configuration course you will have a good foundation to build upon.
From there you have to spend some more time configuring the different farm scenarios. No point in practicing how to use the Wizard! Do it manually and configure each component in your farm. Especially Search!
What to focus on? The most important part is knowing the hardware and software requirements for SharePoint 2010, how to upgrade to 2010, and how to build a small, medium and large farm. Especially how to distribute load of all components correctly in the farm, from Excel Calculation to Search crawling, indexing and querying. Know your Database Mirroring, Failover and Disaster recovery scenarios and know your network configurations and setups for IIS, authentication and firewalls. Most importantly it is hands on experience that will help you pass this exam. Not theory. So get stuck in and start building distributed farm environments. A lot of knowledge from building 2007 Farms will be easily translated into 2010 Farms, with the addition of new distribution capabilities due to the new service architecture.
If you are looking for a course that can help you prepare for this exam, I suggest you sit the Mindsharp/Combined Knowledge SharePoint 2010 Administrator Course. That covers the grunt and most important aspects of configuring and maintainting a best practice SharePoint Farm. Even the 2007 version of this course will give you many of the basic skills which can be translated into 2010 by extra studies. The Mindsharp/Combined Knowledge material is top notch and the trainers back it up with real world experience and vast pools of knowledge. You will never sit a Mindsharp/Combined Knowedge course with a trainer who does not know SharePoint inside out.
If you can't get hold of a Mindsharp/Combined Knowledge course in your area, then sit the Microsoft 50047 Advanced SharePoint 2007 Administration course. That covers all the important Enterprise setups that 5060 and 5061 ignore and gives real advice on farm configuration, disaster recovery and performance considerations. 50047 does assume that you have sat 5060 and 5061 or have equivalent real world experience. After sitting the course you then have to start applying the concepts to 2010 and get your hands dirty with how the 2010 service model can be configured and distributed in a farm environment.
One last tip (Probably the most important one). Read the questions and possible answers before reading the scenario. That will speed up the process and keep you focussed on the task at hand. Most questions can be answered by just reading one single section of the scenario. So identify the section the question relies on, answer the question in your head and then skim the rest of the scenario to make sure there is no other piece of information that could invalidate your chosen answer.
Some lnks to get you started:
70-668 Syllabus:
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-668
SharePoint 2010 Resource Center (good list of the most important technet articles you will require)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee263917.aspx
Hands on courses to upskill fast:
3grow combined Knowledge SharePoint 2007 Administrator course taught by your's truly
http://training.3grow.co.nz/nz/courses/1-sharepoint-2007-administrator-track
Microsoft 10174 SharePoint 2010 Administration taught by your's truly:
https://www.auldhouse.co.nz/content/202FCFB2-2BC9-4462-B795-E3E21A2E24BD.html?course=COUR2010070714285507145570
Microsoft 50047 SharePoint 2007 Advanced Administration:
https://www.auldhouse.co.nz/content/202FCFB2-2BC9-4462-B795-E3E21A2E24BD.html?course=COUR2009050111225107640409
More good resources on passing this exam collected by Matt Menezes:
https://spmatt.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/how-i-passed-70-668/#comment-450
Thursday, September 30, 2010
SharePoint 2010 limits
I love Microsoft. No where can you expect a definitive answer.
The one article will tell you that the acceptable limit for site collections per web application is 500'000 (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff758647.aspx) and the next article in the same series will tell you it is 250'000 (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx)
Best of all, they both use the same wording!
"An example of a supported limit is the number of site collections per Web application. The supported limit is 500,000, which is the largest number of site collections per Web application that met performance benchmarks during testing. "
vs
"An example of a supported limit is the number of site collections per Web application. The supported limit is 250,000, which is the largest number of site collections per Web application that met performance benchmarks during testing."
In the end these limits are based on benchmark testing. I.e. when the performance of the farm starts falling below an acceptable level. It is not saying that the farm is running at top speed with 249999 site collections and then drops off. No, it is a curve. So imagine the performance curve starting high at 100%, dropping to 95% at 100'000, dropping to 90% at 250'000 and dropping to 80% at 500'000. The key question is, what is an acceptable level of performance. Looks like the author either changed his mind from one article to another, or two authors differed. In the end both are right, I guess. Because only you can define for yourself what acceptable performance is.
And don't forget, these benchmarks are tested in isolation. so when you store tens of thousands of 50MB documents in a document library hundreds of times per site and thousands of times per site collection, the 500'000 benchmark will never hold up. 50 would sound more realistic.
The one article will tell you that the acceptable limit for site collections per web application is 500'000 (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff758647.aspx) and the next article in the same series will tell you it is 250'000 (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx)
Best of all, they both use the same wording!
"An example of a supported limit is the number of site collections per Web application. The supported limit is 500,000, which is the largest number of site collections per Web application that met performance benchmarks during testing. "
vs
"An example of a supported limit is the number of site collections per Web application. The supported limit is 250,000, which is the largest number of site collections per Web application that met performance benchmarks during testing."
In the end these limits are based on benchmark testing. I.e. when the performance of the farm starts falling below an acceptable level. It is not saying that the farm is running at top speed with 249999 site collections and then drops off. No, it is a curve. So imagine the performance curve starting high at 100%, dropping to 95% at 100'000, dropping to 90% at 250'000 and dropping to 80% at 500'000. The key question is, what is an acceptable level of performance. Looks like the author either changed his mind from one article to another, or two authors differed. In the end both are right, I guess. Because only you can define for yourself what acceptable performance is.
And don't forget, these benchmarks are tested in isolation. so when you store tens of thousands of 50MB documents in a document library hundreds of times per site and thousands of times per site collection, the 500'000 benchmark will never hold up. 50 would sound more realistic.
How to Pass 70-667
So you wanna become SharePoint certified? At least now, with SharePoint 2010, we have the MCITP SharePoint Administrator and SharePoint Developer accreditations.
70-667 is the first of two exams to achieve your MCITP SharePoint 2010 Administrator certification
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-667
And although I can't tell you what the questions will be, let me assure you, they are not trick questions.
I'd say about half of the questions are relevant to 2007 and 2010 alike, some are 2010 specific and others are there to catch you out where something has changed from 2007 to 2010.
The best way of making sure you pass any Microsoft exam on the first go is to use practice tests. Measureup and selftest provide some really good ones for all things techie. Sadly, none of them have gotten round to publishing SharePoint 2010 mock exams yet.
The best way of making sure you fully understand the material is sitting a Microsoft course: 10174 Configuring and Administering Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
This course contains all the stuff you need to know to feel confident about installing, configuring and running a SharePoint farm. Although officially Microsoft Courses and the exams are not directly related, there are strong overlaps of the material being taught and the questions being asked.
And here is the best news of all! I'm down to teach 10174 at Auldhouse in Wellington the week of 18/10/10.
https://www.auldhouse.co.nz/content/5f8ac4c7-9c13-4a6f-8d51-30762e93882b.html?loc=Wellington
So sign up now to get one step closer to your SharePoint 2010 certificate. I'll even dish out some tips during the course on how to tackle certain types of questions in the exam.
70-667 is the first of two exams to achieve your MCITP SharePoint 2010 Administrator certification
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-667
And although I can't tell you what the questions will be, let me assure you, they are not trick questions.
I'd say about half of the questions are relevant to 2007 and 2010 alike, some are 2010 specific and others are there to catch you out where something has changed from 2007 to 2010.
The best way of making sure you pass any Microsoft exam on the first go is to use practice tests. Measureup and selftest provide some really good ones for all things techie. Sadly, none of them have gotten round to publishing SharePoint 2010 mock exams yet.
The best way of making sure you fully understand the material is sitting a Microsoft course: 10174 Configuring and Administering Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
This course contains all the stuff you need to know to feel confident about installing, configuring and running a SharePoint farm. Although officially Microsoft Courses and the exams are not directly related, there are strong overlaps of the material being taught and the questions being asked.
And here is the best news of all! I'm down to teach 10174 at Auldhouse in Wellington the week of 18/10/10.
https://www.auldhouse.co.nz/content/5f8ac4c7-9c13-4a6f-8d51-30762e93882b.html?loc=Wellington
So sign up now to get one step closer to your SharePoint 2010 certificate. I'll even dish out some tips during the course on how to tackle certain types of questions in the exam.
SharePoint 2010 to CAS or not to CAS
Came across a statement by MS which got me thinking
"Untrusted solutions – Deploying custom code in bin folders can cause slow server performance. Every time a page containing untrusted code is requested, SharePoint Server 2010 must perform security checks before the page can be loaded.Unless there is a specific reason to deploy untrusted code, you should install custom assemblies in the GAC to avoid unnecessary security checking."
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff758647.aspx
So now GAC is good and CAS is bad?
Ok folks, let's all stop adhering to a least priviledge concept and start giving our code full trust every time we deploy something. Because if we don't, we'll slow down SharePoint.
I don't think so!
Although I understand the implications of having to check security of the code when Code Access Security Policies are involved, is the overhead of checking the policy when the assembly is loaded really that high? So far I have found no evidence of this causing a noticeable performance degradation other than in theory.
But hey, we have Sandboxed solutions now! So no need for CAS?
Although Sandboxed solutions take away a lot of headache from Server Administrators that previously had to chase down developers to find out why their server just crashed, they are not the golden bullet to all security issues. The question still remains, how much do you trust the code to do what it is supposed to do and not expose loopholes for others to exploit? Especially when installing third party features I personally would think twice about putting the dlls into the GAC of my production machines.
Sadly enough, there are loads of scenarios where you have no other choice but to run the code in the GAC and thus I am very grateful for the Sandbox, where I can run the code in a controlled environment before letting it loose on the whole farm.
For those of you who actually want to know how CAS works in practice, check out this little gem. It is based on .NET 1.1, but is still relevant today.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff648663.aspx
oh, and in .NET 4.0 some things have changed in regards to CAS, especially when calling GAC assemblies from partially trusted dlls. check it out here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd984947.aspx
"Untrusted solutions – Deploying custom code in bin folders can cause slow server performance. Every time a page containing untrusted code is requested, SharePoint Server 2010 must perform security checks before the page can be loaded.Unless there is a specific reason to deploy untrusted code, you should install custom assemblies in the GAC to avoid unnecessary security checking."
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff758647.aspx
So now GAC is good and CAS is bad?
Ok folks, let's all stop adhering to a least priviledge concept and start giving our code full trust every time we deploy something. Because if we don't, we'll slow down SharePoint.
I don't think so!
Although I understand the implications of having to check security of the code when Code Access Security Policies are involved, is the overhead of checking the policy when the assembly is loaded really that high? So far I have found no evidence of this causing a noticeable performance degradation other than in theory.
But hey, we have Sandboxed solutions now! So no need for CAS?
Although Sandboxed solutions take away a lot of headache from Server Administrators that previously had to chase down developers to find out why their server just crashed, they are not the golden bullet to all security issues. The question still remains, how much do you trust the code to do what it is supposed to do and not expose loopholes for others to exploit? Especially when installing third party features I personally would think twice about putting the dlls into the GAC of my production machines.
Sadly enough, there are loads of scenarios where you have no other choice but to run the code in the GAC and thus I am very grateful for the Sandbox, where I can run the code in a controlled environment before letting it loose on the whole farm.
For those of you who actually want to know how CAS works in practice, check out this little gem. It is based on .NET 1.1, but is still relevant today.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff648663.aspx
oh, and in .NET 4.0 some things have changed in regards to CAS, especially when calling GAC assemblies from partially trusted dlls. check it out here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd984947.aspx
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Send To Email with Attachment
Sending emails with a Sharepoint document as an attachment is a commonly asked for feature in Sharepoint.
Although the mailto: link used to work with the attachment parameter, this has not been supported by Outlook for a long time. Why? because it would be too easy to attach viruses to emails that way. Outlook would have to download a file from the internet and add it to the message. The chance of malicious code injecting into the process is too risky as well as the chance to send infected files to friends and colleagues.
So what is the solution?
If you wish to extend the send to menu in SharePoint, you can create a feature with a custom action to add another link to the ECM (Context Menu) which opens up a custom application page which then allows the user to enter receiver, subject and body. The server then could send the email directly via the configured SMTP server.
But beware!
This should only be done in an intranet scenario where the sending user has been authenticated. Otherwise it could be abused for spamming purposes too easily
Although the mailto: link used to work with the attachment parameter, this has not been supported by Outlook for a long time. Why? because it would be too easy to attach viruses to emails that way. Outlook would have to download a file from the internet and add it to the message. The chance of malicious code injecting into the process is too risky as well as the chance to send infected files to friends and colleagues.
So what is the solution?
If you wish to extend the send to menu in SharePoint, you can create a feature with a custom action to add another link to the ECM (Context Menu) which opens up a custom application page which then allows the user to enter receiver, subject and body. The server then could send the email directly via the configured SMTP server.
But beware!
This should only be done in an intranet scenario where the sending user has been authenticated. Otherwise it could be abused for spamming purposes too easily
Saturday, May 1, 2010
SharePoint Memory Leak
Todd Carter has posted a great article on a nasty little memory leak in SharePoint which has the potential to blow into a huge memory consumption beast for servers which have a lot of traffic and long uptime.
http://todd-carter.com/post/2010/02/08/SharePointe28099s-Sasquatch-Memory-Leak.aspx
In his article he highlights a problem with the HttpApplicatinoException handling of Sharepoint and also posts a very simple and effective solution where he ensures the applicationdomain is treated like a singleton and circumvents tens of thousands of unneeded objects in memory.
Sasquatch-Memory Leak
http://todd-carter.com/post/2010/02/08/SharePointe28099s-Sasquatch-Memory-Leak.aspx
In his article he highlights a problem with the HttpApplicatinoException handling of Sharepoint and also posts a very simple and effective solution where he ensures the applicationdomain is treated like a singleton and circumvents tens of thousands of unneeded objects in memory.
Sasquatch-Memory Leak
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