Bill Baer /bɛːr/

What’s new and what’s coming with SharePoint & OneDrive Security, Compliance, and Administration – October 2018 Edition In today’s complex and regulated environment, businesses need to focus on building more secure solutions that deliver value to their customers, partners, and shareholders—both in the cloud and on-premises. Microsoft has been building enterprise software for decades and running some of the largest online services in the world. We draw from this experience to keep making SharePoint and OneDrive more secure for users, by implementing and continuously improving security-aware software development, operational management, and threat-mitigation practices that are essential to the strong protection of your services and data.

At Microsoft Ignite, we announced several exciting new features coming to the new SharePoint admin center. Today we’re excited to share that we’ll start to roll out these features worldwide later this month to organizations that have “Targeted release for everyone” turned on. What’s coming in this release? Make the new admin center your default admin center… The new SharePoint admin experience provides a completely revamped SharePoint admin center that draws heavily on our modern principles… an administrative console designed to help IT achieve more, so their users can achieve more.

Innovation in the cloud drives tremendous business value, and it delivers new capabilities to the IT professionals who work tirelessly to support, configure, administer, and secure their organizations’ content and services. Office 365 empowers you to support sophisticated requirements for security and compliance, to manage day-to-day operations, and to maximize the value of Office 365 to people in your organization. We’ve built Office 365 with global scale, exceptional reliability, and support for compliance across industries and geographies on top of intelligent security that keeps your service and content protected and private, we give you granular and dynamic controls so that you can manage access and distribution of your organization’s sensitive information.

In March 2017 we introduced device-based policies for SharePoint and OneDrive, that enable administrators to configure Tenant-level policies. Device-based access policies for SharePoint and OneDrive help administrators ensure corporate data is not leaked onto unmanaged devices such as non-domain joined or non-compliant devices by limiting access to the content to the browser, preventing files from being taken offline, printed, or synchronized with OneDrive. On September 1st, 2017 we continued to evolve our conditional access investments to address the ever-changing security landscape and business needs by introducing new levels of granularity with conditional access that allow administrators to scope device-based policies at the site collection level.

In May 2017 we unveiled our plans [https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/SharePoint-Blog/Introducing-the-new-SharePoint-Admin-Center/ba-p/70294] to simplify SharePoint administration through delivering an administrative experience that’s intuitive, intelligent, and simple. Since then we’ve made available the new admin experience as Preview for customers who have enabled Targeted Release at the Tenant level. In the next several weeks in our preview we’ll be introducing new updates on our journey to deliver an administrative console designed to help IT achieve more, so their users can achieve more.

In this post: SharePoint Admin Center Updates SharePoint Migration Tool Updates OneDrive Files Restore Microsoft has been building enterprise software for decades and running some of the largest online services in the world. We draw from this experience to keep making SharePoint and OneDrive more secure for users, implementing and continuously improving security-aware software development, operational management, and threat-mitigation practices that are essential to the strong protection of your services and data.

When moving your organization to cloud services, security concerns add another layer of consideration; one of trust. Security and compliance is an ongoing process, not a steady state. It is constantly maintained, enhanced, and verified by highly-skilled, experienced and trained personnel. We strive to keep software and hardware technologies up to date through robust processes. To help keep Office 365 security at the top of the industry, we use processes such as the Security Development Lifecycle; we also employ techniques that throttle traffic and prevent, detect, and mitigate breaches.

There’s a new culture of work; one that is increasingly diverse, geographically distributed, and mobile. Connectivity is ubiquitous and the ability to work remotely has become an ingrained part of the work practice. People have come to expect to be able to access email and documents from anywhere on any device - and for that experience to be seamless, among these trends includes the increasing use of shared systems, such as kiosks to access and work with corporate data.

Last week we announced Office 365 Data Loss Prevention Block Access (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Security-Privacy-and-Compliance/Policy-Tips-in-SharePoint-Online-and-OneDrive-for-Business-at/ba-p/116158) with SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. Office 365 Data Loss Prevention Block Access prevents the potential for overexposure of sensitive information by allowing a Tenant administrator to configure Data Loss Prevention Policies limiting how and with whom sensitive information can be shared. For example, if a document is determined to contain sensitive information, for example U.S. Financial Data, a DLP policy can prevent that information from being shared externally or with guests while providing real-time policy information to the user attempting to initiate the share.

Balancing security and usability are core to ensuring people can collaborate effectively without interrupting the necessary flow of information across organizations. With SharePoint Online we’ve been at work developing security and sharing controls that are scoped at the site collection level. This allows Tenant administrators to configure more restrictive controls at the site collection level, than those that are configured at the Tenant level providing a balance between the need to protect corporate information and the requirement to collaborate effectively across and outside of the corporate boundary.

In March 2017 we introduced device-based policies for SharePoint and OneDrive, that enable administrators to configure Tenant-level policies. Device-based policies for SharePoint and OneDrive help administrators ensure corporate data is not leaked onto unmanaged devices such as non-domain joined or non-compliant devices by limiting access to the content to the browser, preventing files from being taken offline or synchronized with OneDrive. On September 1st, 2017 we’ve continued to evolve our conditional access investments to address the ever-changing security landscape and business needs by introducing new levels of granularity with conditional access that allow administrators to scope device-based policies at the site collection level.

Governments around the world are strengthening laws and regulations to protect citizens’ data, preserve national security, and protect business interests. Last week at Microsoft Ignite we announced new Multi-Geo Capabilities in Office 365 to help ensure you remain compliant with services to include SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange. The new Multi-Geo Capabilities in Microsoft 365 with SharePoint and OneDrive provide global organizations a solution to maximizing the value of Office 365, including SharePoint and OneDrive, while meeting data residency and compliance requirements.

Join myself, Neil Hodgkinson, Spence Harbar, Bob Fox, and other industry experts for a Microsoft Ignite pre-day training on implementing hybrid scenarios with SharePoint and Office 365. Cloud computing has become a popular way to reduce capital and operational expenditures, renew IT innovation, and gain the advantage of more rapid software delivery to meet the needs of business. However, compliance, data sovereignty, sensitivity concerns, or a significant investment in customization may limit your organization’s ability to take advantage of this.

Today at the SharePoint Virtual Summit, we unveiled the latest innovations for SharePoint and OneDrive, including powerful integrations across Office 365, Windows and Azure - and while we continue to drive forward with a cloud-first, mobile-first vision - security and compliance are at the foundation of everything we do. Microsoft has been building enterprise software for decades and running some of the largest online services in the world. We draw from this experience to keep making SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business more secure for users, implementing and continuously improving security-aware software development, operational management, and threat-mitigation practices that are essential to the strong protection of your services and data.

Today at the SharePoint Virtual Summit, we unveiled the latest innovations for SharePoint and OneDrive, including powerful integrations across Office 365, Windows and Azure. Innovation in the cloud drives tremendous business value, and it delivers new capabilities to the IT professionals who work tirelessly to support, configure, administer, and secure their organizations’ content and services. We’ve built Office 365 with global scale, exceptional reliability, and support for compliance across every industry and geography.

The days of the corporate boundary beginning at the firewall are over, today’s corporate boundary is the end user. Connectivity is ubiquitous and with an endless number of devices available, people have an increasing number of options for staying connected at anytime, anywhere. The freedom to work fluidly, independent of location has become an expectation as has the freedom to access email and documents from anywhere on any device—and that experience is expected to be seamless.

The English philosopher Alan Watts once said “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance”. Recent discussions are that of the changing role of SharePoint IT…as the cloud becomes mainstream, this conversation will inevitably thrive as a broader topic that transcends SharePoint. And while change may be to exist, opportunity continues to rise – the cloud has given way to capabilities previous impossible behind the firewall, from predictive analytics to machine learning, to infinite storage, and on-demand access to content and conversations.

A new System Center Operations Manager Management Pack is now available for SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview. The Microsoft SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview Management Pack is designed to be used for monitoring SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview events, collecting SharePoint component-specific performance counters in one central location, and for raising alerts for operator intervention as necessary. By detecting, sending alerts, and automatically correlating critical events, this management pack helps indicate, correct, and prevent possible service outages or configuration problems, allowing you to proactively manage SharePoint servers and identify issues before they become critical.

The English philosopher Alan Watts once said “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance”. A recent #CollabTalk topic was that of the changing role of SharePoint IT…as the cloud becomes mainstream, this conversation will inevitably thrive as a broader topic that transcends SharePoint. And while change may be to exist, opportunity continues to rise – the cloud has given way to capabilities previous impossible behind the firewall, from predictive analytics to machine learning, to infinite storage, and on-demand access to content and conversations.

The question of read-only domain controllers (RODC) and SharePoint comes up frequently in conversation and on forums, whether not supported, and what potential issues can be expected if implemented with SharePoint. This article will help address some of these questions. FAQ Q: Can I use a read-only domain controller (RODC) with SharePoint 2013? A: Yes; however, there are limitations and constraints with certain operations (see below). An implementation of RODC with SharePoint should assume a writable replication partner.

Overview Document Property Promotion and Demotion is a Feature in versions of SharePoint designed to synchronize specific metadata across documents and its parent List columns and/or fields. Property promotion refers to the process of extracting values from properties of a document and writing those values to corresponding columns on the list or document library where the document is stored. Property demotion is the same process in reverse. Values are read from list columns and written to document properties.

So you downloaded the ULS Viewer and fired up on your SharePoint 2010 environment only to see something like this? -— System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for ‘UlsGump.AboutForm’ threw an exception. —> System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type ‘System.Reflection.CustomAttributeExtensions’ from assembly ‘mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089’. at UlsGump.AboutForm..cctor() — End of inner exception stack trace — at UlsGump.MainForm.MainForm_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl() at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m) at System.

Overview NOTE (8/26/2014) With any solution that externalizes the unstructured content with SharePoint you need to understand the limitations and optimal use of those solutions as documented at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff628583(v=office.15).aspx to include related latency and performance requirements. With any application organizations face consistent key challenges such as high efficiency and business value, complex configuration, and low total cost of ownership. Extending applications to the cloud in hybrid scenarios addresses many of these challenges, whether distributing SharePoint content across on-premises and Office 365 while leveraging search as a service (hybrid search) or externalizing data, extending it to the cloud with Remote Blob Storage or related technologies.

I’m excited to announce we’ve published a new and improved version of the ULS Viewer. About the Unified Logging Service The Unified Logging Service (ULS) is the primary logging mechanism in SharePoint to make it easier to develop applications, expose in-depth information for debugging, and vehicle to isolate problems or threshold issues when they are encountered. ULS writes events to the Trace Log and stores them in the file system.

Overview Service Pack 1 introduced new functionality that allows IT administrators to selectively redirect their users OneDrive for Business libraries to Office 365. In addition to OneDrive for Business redirection, Service Pack 1 also allows for the redirection of users Sites pages to SharePoint Online. When redirecting the Sites pages, when a user selects Sites on the navigation bar in SharePoint Server 2013 they are redirected to SharePoint Online. Since there is no affinity between content followed across SharePoint Server 2013 and SharePoint Online, users are presented only with local (SharePoint Online) content followed.

Preparing virtual machines for demonstrations can be a tedious process, compounding this is when virtual machines need to be started or shut down in a specific order. For example, starting database servers prior to starting web servers, or starting the preferred active node before the passive node. Starting those machines; however, is only a portion of the process, in most cases you will want them to be “available” before starting a subsequent machine.

In previous articles I discussed redirecting OneDrive for Business to Office 365 in SharePoint Server 2013 Service Pack 1. In addition to new functionality that allows IT administrators to redirect OneDrive for Business and Sites pages to Office 365, Service Pack 1 also allows IT administrators to activate Yammer as the default social experience for SharePoint Server 2013. When activated, the Newsfeed link in the navigation bar is replaced with a Yammer link that directs users to the organizations’ Yammer network.

Updated 8/12/2014 – Removed & as an illegal character. & character is now supported with OneDrive for Business sync client and Web UX. Updated 8/22/2014 – Updated to include prohibited types per http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-small-business-help/types-of-files-that-cannot-be-added-to-a-list-or-library-HA101907868.aspx. Updated 8/23/2014 – Updated to include optional UI-based scanning (FileCheckerUI.exe). Updated 8/31/2014 – Updated FileChecker.exe (integrated desktop and command line application). Updated 12/10/2014 – Updated to remove prohibited characters {, }, [, ], ~, and .. Updated FileChecker.

Service Pack 1 update is now available. Refer to the information below to acquire the updated Service Pack for your product: NOTE For a list of previously published KB’s refer to the recall information in the original post below. Product KB SharePoint Foundation http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880551 SharePoint Server http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880552 Project Server http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880553 SharePoint Server Language Pack http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880554 SharePoint Foundation Language Pack http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880555 Office Web Apps Server http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880558 Customers with Service Pack 1 Deployed

The SharePoint Server 2013 Trial image is now available in the Windows Azure China Platform Gallery. The image is based on the current Windows Server 2012 Datacenter release and includes a complete installation of SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise Trial patched with the March Public Update. NOTE Additional configuration is required to use the SharePoint Server 2013 Trial image include 1) a database server running SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2012 2) a server running AD DS.

3/21/2014 is the first full day of Spring, and the first full day of SQL Server 2014 RTM. Undoubtedly the question will be asked when will SharePoint Server 2013 support SQL Server 2014. While it remains early, SharePoint Server 2013 will support SQL Server 2014 with the April Cumulative Update. Resources SQL Server 2014 Home [http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/sql-server/] What’s new in SQL Server 2014 [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb500435(v=sql.120).aspx] Comments: March 2020 CU for SharePoint 2013 product family is available for download – Stefan Goßner - Mar 2, 2020

Preparing virtual machines for demonstrations can be a tedious process, compounding this is when virtual machines need to be started or shut down in a specific order. For example, starting database servers prior to starting web servers, or starting the preferred active node before the passive node. Starting those machines; however, is only a portion of the process, in most cases you will want them to be “available” before starting a subsequent machine.

There are a number of articles that describe how to rename and move the Search Service Application databases in SharePoint Server 2013; however, limited guidance on renaming the Search Service Application databases on the same server. The process itself differs little from the former, but worth documenting. Step 1 Suspend the Search Service On the Start menu, click All Programs. Click Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Products. Click SharePoint 2013 Management Shell. In the SharePoint 2013 Management Shell, enter the following Windows PowerShell statement to suspend the search service: $SearchService = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication Suspend-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication -Identity $SearchService

Summary Currently, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 is not supported for installation on computers running the Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system. Installing SharePoint Server 2013 on a computer that is running Windows Server 2012 R2 could lead to unexpected behavior, therefore, Microsoft does not support SharePoint Server 2013 in Windows Server 2012 R2. SharePoint Server 2013 with Service Pack 1 and SharePoint Foundation 2013 with Service Pack 1 will offer support for Windows Server 2012 R2.

AlwaysOn Availability Groups can provide a high-availability and disaster recovery solution for SQL Server Remote Blob Store (RBS) BLOB objects (blobs). AlwaysOn Availability Groups protects any RBS metadata and schemas stored in an availability database by replicating them to the secondary replicas. AlwaysOn Availability Groups Overview The AlwaysOn Availability Groups feature is a high-availability and disaster-recovery solution that provides an enterprise-level alternative to database mirroring. Introduced in SQL Server 2012, AlwaysOn Availability Groups maximizes the availability of a set of user databases for an enterprise.

The March 2013 Public Update for SharePoint Server 2013 was released on March 12, 2013 and in addition to resolving several issues, features new and added capabilities such as the ability to configure multiple app domains in when using AAM or Host Header configurations. For a complete list of fixes included in this update see also Description of the SharePoint Server 2013 update: March 12, 2013. NOTE Ensure adequate disk space is available to extract the SharePoint Server 2013 March 2013 Public Update content.

Introduction What is an Extranet? A common definition for the term Extranet is a network that enables controlled access to external users or an extension of an organization’s intranet extended to external users to include customers, partners, suppliers, etc. in isolation from other internet or intranet users. Extranet topologies with SharePoint Products have become an increasingly popular solution to enable collaboration with partners, customers, and external users; however, can be complex to implement and maintain over time.

SharePoint 2013 implements new System Status Notifications designed to provide site users information about lifecycle events to include availability of upgrade, maintenance, and read-only states. System Status Notifications present important information about a SharePoint deployment and its availability, whether during upgrades, routine maintenance, or conversion to read-only. Users are kept “in the know” as they receive a prominent banner on their sites that provides insight into the activity being performed—helping reduce calls to the help desk and subsequent burden on IT.

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. 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, whether you’re looking to deploy a simple SharePoint-based Internet site or to quickly provision a development environment.

Introduction SharePoint Server 2013 introduces new User License Enforcement capabilities that enable the definition, assignment, and mapping of licenses to users associated with specific Active Directory security groups. For example an administrator can map Enterprise features to individual users who appear in the ‘Enterprise CAL’ Active Directory security group or limit usage of Duet capabilities to users in the ‘Duet CAL’ Active Directory security group. By default in SharePoint Server 2013 User License Enforcement is disabled when SharePoint Server 2013 is deployed and must first be enabled to begin assigning, using, and implementing user licensing capabilities.

Introduction SharePoint Server 2013 introduces several new service applications; among them is the new Machine Translation Service. The new Machine Translation Service enables you to reach more people with new cloud-based translation services capable of translating not only sites, but also their content. These services have a comprehensive set of APIs, REST, and CSOM support, so content can be pre-translated when needed, or translated on the fly by users—asynchronously, synchronously, or streaming.

SharePoint 2013 includes Windows Management Framework 3.0 the as one of the new prerequisites to installation and configuration. Included in the Windows Management Framework 3.0 is Windows PowerShell 3.0. Windows PowerShell 3.0 extends upon the usability of Windows PowerShell 2.0 while maintaining backward compatibility with Windows PowerShell 2.0. Windows PowerShell 3.0 includes a number of new capabilities that can help administrators of a SharePoint farm including new session management, Web access, and scheduling capabilities.

Web and Application Servers Minimum Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 (Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter) Requires KB 2554876, KB 2708075, KB 2759112 Optional Windows Server 2012 (Standard or Datacenter) Prerequisites Web and Application Servers Web Server (IIS) Role Application Server Role Microsoft .NET Framework Version 4.5 SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Native Client Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.0 Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client (MSIPC) Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.

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.

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.

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.

Service Pack 1 introduces a new method of moving Site Collections between Content Databases where RBS is used known as ‘shallow copy’. Overview What is ‘shallow copy’? ‘Shallow copy’ refers to moving structured content without moving the underlying unstructured content. With SharePoint 2010 Products ‘shallow copy’ moves the structured Site Collection data across Content Databases without moving the unstructured data which is comprised of user created content such as PowerPoint Presentations, Word Documents, etc.

Today we are announcing some important and exciting changes to our software boundaries and limits for SharePoint 2010 Products, in summary SharePoint 2010 Products will now support content databases up to 4TB. However, prior to considering multi-terabyte databases you should thoroughly review the following whitepapers: Managing multi-terabyte databases with SharePoint 2010 (http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26700)) Abstract Managing large content databases with SharePoint 2010 requires careful planning and consideration to include capacity management, performance, and data protection.

Considering virtualizing SharePoint 2010? We’ve created a one-stop shop for guidance and more at http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/product/Related-Technologies/Pages/virtualize-sharepoint.aspx.

Updated June 29, 2011 SharePoint Server 2010 Cumulative Updates and Service Packs File Version Description Downloads and Documentation 14.0.5114.5003 June 2010 Cumulative Update KB983497 KB2124512 KB2182938 KB2204024 KB2281364 14.0.5123.5000 August 2010 Cumulative Update KB2352342 KB2352355 14.0.5128.5000 October 2010 Cumulative Update KB2394320 14.0.5130.5002 December 2010 Cumulative Update KB2459257 14.0.5136.5002 February 2011 Cumulative Update KB2475878 14.0.5138.5001 April 2011 Cumulative Update KB2512800 14.0.6029.1000 Service Pack 1 KB2460045 14.0.6106.5000 June 2011 Cumulative Update KB2356599

Site Recycle Bin Service Pack 1 introduces long awaited Site Recycle Bin functionality that enables self-service recovery of site collections and sites. In the past IT Professionals were tasked with restoring entire databases to recover deleted site collections and sites and would generally require expensive restore environments to support the task. Now in Service Pack 1 administrators can quickly and easily recover site collections and sites accidentally deleted by their owners in a process similar to that of the Recycle Bin we have for Lists, Libraries, and Documents.

In SharePoint 2010 we removed StorMan.aspx (Storage Space Allocation) (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982587/EN-US) which in previous versions of SharePoint enabled granular management and insight into storage. For example, the page would show you the top 100 documents or document libraries in terms of size. With that information end users could the page to clean up content from their site(s) by deleting the large content that they no longer needed. In Service Pack 1 we are bringing back an improved StorMan.

One of the most challenging aspects of maintaining a SharePoint deployment is understanding why certain events have transpired in the environment, often IT Professionals and Developers only have access to when an event occurred and are tasked with parsing Performance Counters, Event and Diagnostic logs, or executing Transact-SQL statements against the Usage database to put the what and why to the when. These tasks are typically accomplished through an array of tools such as Excel, Log Parser, SQL Server Management Studio…read more on the SharePoint Team Blog.

FILESTREAM is a new feature in SQL Server 2008 that enables the storage of unstructured data on a NTFS file system. FILESTREAM (local or remote) is supported in SharePoint 2010 as one mechanism of reducing capital expenditures through enabling the storage of large binary unstructured data on content addressable or commodity storage. Unstructured Data Unstructured data refers to information…read more on the SharePoint Team Blog.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 is a pre-built, role-based, self-service portal for both datacenter managers and business unit IT consumers to simplify the provisioning of infrastructures for their applications and services. The System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 provides automated workflows designed to help on-board business unit IT departments and enables partners to expose their unique hardware capabilities through familiar Microsoft scripting technologies. System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.

FILESTREAM is a new feature in SQL Server 2008 that enables the storage of unstructured data on a NTFS file system. FILESTREAM (local or remote) is supported in SharePoint 2010 as one mechanism of reducing capital expenditures through enabling the storage of large binary unstructured data on content addressable or commodity storage. Unstructured Data Unstructured data refers to information that does not adhere to a defined model or does not fit well into relational tables in SharePoint unstructured data can refer to Microsoft Office document file formats, video, audio, and related file types.

As more organizations seek to reduce operating and capital expenditures, solve the challenges of datacenter density, and provide elasticity to their SharePoint deployments – virtualization becomes the focal point of discussion. SharePoint 2010 provides more flexibility in support of virtualization and similar to other server technologies requires proper planning to ensure those goals are met. SharePoint 2010 Virtualization Support and Licensing [All elements of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 are fully supported when deployed in a Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V technology environment.

The traditional and most accurate definition of multi-tenancy remains as a single instance of software that services multiple organizations or clients virtually partitioning its data and configuration allowing those clients to work within a customized application instance. SharePoint Server 2010 delivers new features and capabilities that contribute to supporting true multitenant architectures that are useful not only to hosting providers, but the Enterprise equally. Multi-tenancy, when carefully planned and applied within the Enterprise, is one of many solutions that contribute to reduced cost, complexity, and overall management.

Understanding search is the primary means in the Enterprise for surfacing and locating information…as a result, it has become a mission critical component of SharePoint deployments. The rise in adoption of SharePoint 2010 in organizations has led to more customers seeking to leverage the benefits of the new search architectures, whether Enterprise Search in SharePoint 2010 or FAST Search Server 2010, as part of their topologies. In either scenario, customers are faced with a decision on how to accomplish upgrade and accommodate their end users.

Make the most of the Developer Dashboard Monitoring Latency and SQL Server Round Trips Among the information provided through the Developer Dashboard is information about page latency and database queries surfaced under Execution Timeout in the user interface in the Web Server section. Using the information provided in this field you can determine whether or not a recently introduced feature or particular page is exceeding acceptable performance thresholds in your environment.

BranchCache If you manage a centralized, regional, or distributed infrastructure with a distributed or clustered user base, a combination of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 may be the best pairing to mitigate the impact of bandwidth and latency penalties that are commonly incurred under such distributions. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 introduce a new feature (BranchCache) that can reduce wide area network (WAN) utilization and enhance Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies responsiveness when users access content in a central office from branch office locations.

We’ve recently released the first administration toolkit for SharePoint Foundation and SharePoint Server 2010. The toolkit includes a new User Profile Replication Engine, a new Security Configuration Manifest, a new Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) Connector, and the Load Testing Kit (LTK). User Profile Replication Engine The User Profile Replication Engine was first introduced as a standalone application in later adminisration toolkits for Office SharePoint Server 2007 to replicate profiles between Shared Services Providers (SSP).

We’ve recently published a new whitepaper that describes the core concepts of identity in SharePoint 2010 and Kerberos’ role in authentication and delegation. The whitepaper is divided into nine (9) core scenarios: Scenario 1: Core Configuration Scenario 2: Kerberos Authentication for SQL OLTP Scenario 3: Identity Delegation for SQL Analysis Services Scenario 4: Identity Delegation for SQL Reporting Services Scenario 5: Identity Delegation for Excel Services Scenario 6: Identity Delegation for Power Pivot for SharePoint

If you’ve recently installed KB938444 and have run into post-installation issues, we’ve posted new guidance and potential solutions here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint/archive/2010/06/22/installing-kb938444.aspx.

SharePoint 2010 provides the administrator a number of improvements to facilitate rapid problem identification and resolution. Among these is the implementation of Correlation Ids. Correlation Ids are GUIDs assigned to events which transpire during the lifecycle of a resource request. As problems occur, the Correlation Id is commonly surfaced within the context of an error when presented to the person initiating the request or through the Developer Dashboard. User Interface (error.

Prior to upgrading to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007/Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 one of the prerequisites some of you may have already noticed is running PRESCAN.EXE from the installation directory. This post will hopefully provide some insight into PRESCAN.EXE as well as best practices on when it should be run. PRESCAN.EXE has two primary purposes: It parses and saves List definitions with the associated Lists. SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 2 already incorporates this feature whenever a list is modified; however, this process should be completed for all Lists, so prescan calls the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 2 method to persist that data.

Typically there is no real impact in the event a user profile is removed from the SharePoint profiles database; the profile will be restored during a full or incremental import. Though the statement is true for the most part when only considering Windows SharePoint Services sites, the behavior varies considerable when including My Site sites in the scenario. Since Windows SharePoint Services content is stored as a table in the sites database, the content can be easily recovered and archived; however, though My Site/Personal site content is similar in this respect many of the end-user facing customization exists as a shared service within SharePoint Portal Server.