Bill Baer /bɛːr/

The 2012 SharePoint Conference is in just over 30 days. This is the SharePoint event you don’t want to miss. For our core IT Professional audience we’ll have over 150 dedicated sessions, 40+ Hands on Labs, deep demonstrations, and more. Whether you’re just learning about SharePoint 2013 or have been working with SharePoint Server 2013 Preview you’ll find a variety of sessions, chalk talks, and labs that provide a blend of overview, deep dive experience, and best practice recommendations.

Step 1 Prepare the Operating Environment Preparation of your development environment is determined by the apps you will develop and the systems you have access to. If you want to distribute apps for SharePoint through an app catalog, such as apps for SharePoint will full control permissions, a local installation of SharePoint 2013 is required; otherwise an Office 365 Development Site can be used. NOTE Apps for SharePoint will full control permissions are not supported on an Office 365 site.

In order to remain competitive in today’s business climate you need to be able to respond to change and challenges quickly. Sometimes that means adjusting your SharePoint infrastructure on a moment’s notice to maintain a competitive advantage. Procuring and managing hardware can be costly and time consuming – and sometimes it may only be needed temporarily. Infrastructure as a Service solves these challenges through a ready-to-use, pay as you go solution which means you can deploy in hours as opposed to days.

Learn more about SharePoint Server 2013 features and capabilties through immersive training at http://technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint/fp123606. Download and install SharePoint Server 2013 at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/hh973397.aspx?wt.mc_id=TEC_121_1_4. Get help, guidance, and interact with the community at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointitpropreview/threads. Stay up to date on SharePoint Server 2013 at http://technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint.

Introduction Changing software can be difficult, SharePoint Server 2013 simplifies the upgrade process, empowers the user, and improves resiliency and manageability through new features and capabilities designed to balance the needs of users with those of IT. What’s new in upgrade… Deferred Site Collection Upgrade Site Collection Health Checks Evaluation Site Collections Deprecated Upgrade Approaches Separation of Schema and Site Collection Upgrade Upgrade in SharePoint 2013 separates the aspects of site collection and schema upgrade improving performance and resiliency related to the upgrade process.

The User Profile Service Application stores information about users in a centralized location used by SharePoint’s social computing features to support natural collaboration. The User Profile Service Application is also required when provisioning My Site personal sites, enabling certain social computing features such as newsfeeds, and the creation and distribution of user profiles across server farms or sites. To learn more about the User Profile Service Application see also http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee662538.aspx.

At SPC 11 in Anaheim, CA we announced the new Windows PowerShell Command Builder which enables users to visual construct Windows PowerShell cmdlets through structured Verb – Noun combinations on a simple design surface. To learn more about the Windows PowerShell Command Builder read the Windows PowerShell Command Builder Getting Started Guide. To begin using the Windows PowerShell Command Builder see SharePoint Server 2010 - Windows PowerShell TechNet.

If you attended my SharePoint Conference Session on SharePoint 2010 on SQL Server Denali you’re probably ready to get started with some of the features and capabilities we discussed and demonstrated today, particularly AlwaysOn Availability Groups which provide a robust, ready to use solution supporting both local redundancy and remote disaster recovery. NOTE SharePoint 2010 is not currently supported on SQL Server Code Name “Denali”. There are several prerequisites to using AlwaysOn which are documented further at http://msdn.

Interesting in learning more about claims-based authentication in SharePoint Server 2010? We’ve just published a comprehensive whitepaper that describes claims-based identity, its relationship with SharePoint Server 2010, implementation specifics, and more. Download the whitepaper at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh487289.aspx.

I’ve recently noticed a number of posts on social.msdn.com related to configuring SharePoint 2010 with Windows Firewall with Advanced Security. The following post provides the basic steps necessary to get started with provisioning a SharePoint 2010 server farm in environments where the Windows Firewall is enabled. To access an instance of the SQL Server through a firewall, you must configure the firewall on the computer that is running SQL Server to allow access.