Bill Baer /bɛːr/

Governance relates to decisions that define expectations, manage access, and validate performance and investment performance defined by established processes and procedures. The information here contains references to governance resources as related to SharePoint 2010, for additional information see also Governance Overview (SharePoint Server 2010). Resources Resource Center (Governance in SharePoint Server 2010) The Governance Resource Center provides documentation, references, and solutions to help IT Professionals plan and prepare to govern SharePoint 2010 environments.

Keeping the trend going this week we’ll look at Active Directory Markers in SharePoint Server 2010. Governance is one of the key planning processes that should occur when considering the deployment of any technology, and SharePoint Server 2010 provides a number of tools and resources to facilitate the product and technology aspects of governance, one of which is the concept of Active Directory Markers to manage and control the uncontrolled proliferation of SharePoint in the Enterprise.

Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture LE version 1.0 has been released. Microsoft Site Delete Capture LE version 1.0 is an Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 solution package that when deployed to a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 server farm enables administrators to create a snapshot of site collections and Webs when they are deleted through the SharePoint user interface, the SharePoint Administration Tool, or Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007.

In the past several weeks, I’ve traveled along the west coast and overseas discussing governance as it applies to SharePoint Products and Technologies and am delighted to announce the availability of the beta of the SharePoint Asset Inventory Tool. The SharePoint Asset Inventory Tool is single reporting application that can be used to mitigate SharePoint Products and Technologies server proliferation by scanning the network for server machines with Windows SharePoint Services 3.

I’ve spent the past two months in various locations across the West coast speaking on governance in SharePoint Products and Technologies and one of the most common points of discussion is enabling a consistent look and feel across sites and Webs. While most commonly this is achieved through employing a master page, many organizations either limit the distribution of Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 or do not use Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 in their organizations, while there are many articles across numerous blogs providing prescriptive guidance on master page development, Feature stapling, and other variations to support the implementation of master pages, I’ve yet to find a complete tutorial on implementing master pages using a combination of Feature stapling and a Feature Receiver.

If you are in or plan to be in the Puget Sound area on November 8th, I encourage you to register for the PacWest Sales Event focused on governance in SharePoint Products and Technologies; presenters will include myself, Joel, Jim Adams, and others…for more information on registration, location, date, and details visit Joel’s blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/10/30/free-pac-west-sales-event-meeting-of-the-minds-governance-and-sharepoint-2007.aspx.

Site collection sizing is an important consideration in an overall capacity planning and governance solution. This article details the considerations when planning for capacity and determining how site collections should be sized. SharePoint Administration Tool (STSADM) The SharePoint administration tool, STSADM is most commonly used by SharePoint Products and Technologies administrators to backup and restore site collections or perform a variety of administrative tasks. Typically as the site collection size grows, the ability to use STSADM to backup and restore the site collection diminishes.

I’m pleased to announce the availability of Microsoft IT Team Site Life Cycle Management (MSIT TSLCM) Beta 1.0 for SharePoint Products and Technologies. Microsoft IT Team Site Life Cycle Management is a custom solution that provides lifecycle management for Windows SharePoint Services site collections and webs through write locking, backing up and recovering site collections/webs and is based on the out-of-box Site Usage and Confirmation feature. Microsoft IT Team Site Life Cycle Management Beta 1.