Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Rangers Ship New SharePoint guidance!

Before I get into the purpose of this post, it’s probably important to define just exactly what a “VSTS Ranger” is. The following definition was taken from Willy-Peter Schaub’s blog:

“Rangers are responsible for the creation of reusable “out of band” solutions for missing functionality in the TFS and VSTS family of products, striving for active community readiness knowledge sharing and are influencing VSTS.vNext … the next generation of the tools.”

There are Core Rangers and Extended Rangers. Members of the “Extended Rangers” team do not have to be Microsoft Employees. There are a number of non-Microsoft Extended Rangers. One of the cool opportunities that exist for MVPs in Team System is the ability to become part of the Extended Rangers Team. One of the cool benefits of being an Extended Ranger is participating on high-visibility projects that ultimately help make life easier for VSTS customers.

So, having said all of that (From an email I just received)….

In the last couple of days, Rangers shipped important guidance packages for MOSS TFS development. For maximum reach, we have simultaneously posted to the Team System Home and

Application Lifecycle Management Resource Center for SharePoint Server.

The two whitepapers are:

VSTS Rangers - SharePoint Server Custom Application Development: Document Workflow Management Project

Read about the real-world design, construction, and deployment of a custom SharePoint Server 2007 application to a mid-market enterprise customer using Team Foundation Server as an ALM platform.

and

VSTS Rangers - Using Team Foundation Server to Develop Custom SharePoint Products and Technologies Applications

Learn how to use TFS to support your SharePoint application development, and provide an integrated development environment and single source code repository for process activities, integrated progress reporting, and team roles.

 

The first article was created during a real world customer engagement and answers dozens of frequently asked questions and how-tos in a real world context vs. theoretical discussions. The article addresses very common questions around setting up and using TFS features for a MOSS development project.

Combined with the following guidance from P&P posted here, we have a good and almost complete story for our customers and partners. The two teams worked together to align these stories.

patterns & practices: SharePoint Guidance

The SharePoint Guidance contains a sample implementation of an intranet application based on SharePoint Server 2007 that demonstrates solutions to many ALM challenges.

SSWUG Virtual Conference Discount Code

The SSWUG “Ultimate” Virtual Conference is coming up soon! The conference is November 5-7, and features a ton of good information around SQL Server, Business Intelligence, SharePoint and .NET Development.

The cost for these conferences is only $100 per track, but if you use discount code VCTAF457840-140 during the registration process, that will give you 10% off, making it $90 per track! This is a great deal, you will not get this much information for this little cost anywhere else!

Here is an example 10 minute clip from one of my presentations: http://www.vconferenceonline.com/speaker.asp?id=TMalone-BI

Hope to see you there!

SSWUG "Ultimate" Virtual Conference

As those of you (1 or 2) that read this blog know, I've been pretty involved with the SSWUG Virtual conferences. I am the conference chair for the SharePoint virtual conference. and am delivering 3 sessions for the SQL and the BI conferences as well.

So you may wonder why I'm writing about this yet again........

Well, the folks over at SSWUG have decided to combine the 4 Virtual Conferences into a single, "Ultimate" conference.

Here is an excerpt from their press release:

Tucson, AZ, September 16, 2008: November 5, 6 and 7, 2008, SSWUG.ORG is presenting a comprehensive learning event for SQL Server, Business Intelligence, SharePoint and .NET Development technologies, at www.vConferenceOnline.com. The online event will present sessions in 12 simultaneous tracks from 40 different industry-recognized presenters. The conference, presented entirely online with broadcast-quality sessions and classes, includes full video of the presenters, downloadable session materials, transcripts and much more. In addition, attendees are not required to travel, instead being able to attend the conference from the comfort of their office or home. “We’re excited to present this fall conference suite – in the June conference, according to our attendees, combined, they saved more than $2,500,000 in travel and conference expenses alone,” says Stephen Wynkoop, Editor and Founder for SSWUG.ORG. “This, combined with the amazing array of presenters, the decreased time away from the office and the complete learning environment provided by the vConferenceOnline tools means our attendees and exhibitors get an excellent, meaningful online event never before possible.” SSWUG.ORG is combining four different conference disciplines in the comprehensive conference schedule. Attendees will be able to pick from Business Intelligence, SQL Server, SharePoint and .NET Developer technologies, all running concurrently. In addition, attendees are able to view sessions and download transcripts, scripts, examples and tutorials on-demand following the event.

 

Chris Shaw, Director of Virtual Conferences, outlines some of the concepts being addressed with the conferences: “We’re really looking to create an amazing community event. We want to make sure attendees are able to gain real-world insights into the technologies they use and support. They’ll also experience a wide array of technologies and, at the same time, they are able to come back, review sessions and pick up those finer points that may have been missed in sessions when they first are attended. The fact that you can review sessions on-demand after the original schedule means you won’t miss a single tip, and you can broaden your skill set by attending sessions from other disciplines,” said Shaw. “Our speakers are well-known book authors, Microsoft MVPs and recognized industry experts. Never before has such an incredible gathering of speakers been presented in an event like this, assuring that the information to be gained is top-notch and rock solid.” The virtual conference also means people are more environmentally conscious, and at the same time learning in ways simply not possible at traditional conferences. From full transcripts to on-demand materials, real-time chats with speakers and networking with other attendees and vendors, attendees and exhibitors both win. “The focus is on learning, networking, tips, tricks and techniques that you can put to use the minute you’ve finished with a session. More than 91% of our attendees say they can use what they’ve learned immediately in their jobs. Combine this learning with the eco-friendly online approach, the complete elimination of travel expenses for attendees, the interaction and learning tools provided, the expert speakers – you have a way to vastly increase your knowledge without breaking the bank or expending significant out of office time,” Shaw said.

My Interview with Chris Shaw

I was recently asked a series of questions by Chris Shaw and he did a very good job of compiling my answers and making me sound good.

Thanks Chris.

Read the article here: http://chrisshaw.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/interview-question-and-answer/ 

As you may know, I am the content chair for the upcoming SSWUG SharePoint virtual conference. The list of sessions and speakers for this conference are pretty amazing and considering that the total cost to attendees is $100 I don’t see how anyone could decide NOT to attend. Check it out, you will not be disappointed!!

SSWUG SharePoint Virtual Conference

If you've been reading my blog (I know there's at least ONE of you out there!) you know that I've been participating in the SSWUG SQL Server Virtual Conferences. These conferences have been very interesting to me, lot's of interaction during the chat sessions, and some pretty good information being delivered. I have to admit that it's weird watching yourself deliver a session, but overall the experience has been very good.

Due to the success with the SQL Server Virtual Conferences, SSWUG is expanding out into other technologies. I have volunteered (dumb, you may say!) to be the conference chair for the upcoming SharePoint virtual conference, which is being held October 15-17. You can check out the conference link here. http://www.vconferenceonline.com/SharePoint/

I am currently in the process of deciding what sessions will be delivered (The target is about 8 speakers, each doing 3 different sessions), so would like any comments that you might have about things that you'd like to see in the conference. Time is running out and this needs to get locked down soon, but if you have any comments about stuff you'd like to see in a SharePoint conference, please comment here.

MS TechReady DEVIL303 - SharePoint and ASP.NET

For those that attended my sessions here at the TechReady 6 conference, here's some promised information.

The slide deck that I used should be available on Comnet, but if it's not, you can send me an email (v-temalo) and I'll make sure you get the deck.

I apologize again for the fact that there were no lab machines available, but as I mentioned, the lab image and documentation can be downloaded from the download center (grab the HOL version of the lab, which is OFCHOL302) or if you simply want to walk through the lab, visit the Hands on Labs area in the BLUE section (Office Development)

Community Kit for SharePoint

In case you haven't seen it, there's a project on CodePlex that is centered around "open source" or community contributions to Windows SharePoint Services / Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.. There are several projects underway, including extensions to the blog and wiki templates.

Check it out here: http://www.codeplex.com/CKS

SharePointPedia

Ok, so the name is stupid, but I think the idea actually has some merit!

Microsoft has quietly been putting together a real, honest-to-goodness Internet-facing site that is 100% SharePoint. They call the site SharePointPedia, and it can be found here: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/pedia/Pages/Home.aspx (actually that's what the DNS entry gets redirected to, the "real" URL is: http://sharepointpedia.com/)

The idea is to collect all things SharePoint related into a single location. Right now the site is a collection of articles and issues that have basically been culled from the MSDN Forums.

SQL Server Reporting Services and SharePoint Integration video

The geekSpeak session that I did last month has been posted to Channel 9. You can view it here:

 

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/geekSpeak

 

geekSpeak - SQL Server Reporting Service with Ted Malone

Listen in on this geekSpeak where expert Ted Malone shares his real-world experience implementing SQL Server Reporting Services and more.  His company Configuresoft has created a a product built out around all of Microsoft's BI and collaboration tools. 
Ted in an architect and developer who works with SharePoint, SQL Server Analysis Services, SQL Service Integration Services and, of course, SQL Server Reporting Services. 
Co-hosts Glen Gordon and G. Andrew Duthie get listener questions to Ted.  They also engage in a useful discussion of 'What is BI?'
Demos and discussion also includes the what, why, when and where of SharePoint and SQL Server Reporting services integration, data and collaborative tools all working together.  His talk also includes information about the BDC, or the Business Data Catalog.

Changes to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Licensing

Well, this apparently escaped my notice last month.. Microsoft has quietly relaxed some of the restrictions on MOSS 2007 licensing. One of the things that larger customers were faced with was the fact that you could not legally include both internal (intranet) and external (Internet) content on the same SharePoint farm. Well, according to the License FAQ, now you can:

 

Accommodation for simultaneous use of server software under Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites:

The same software is licensed under Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites under different use rights.  Office SharePoint Server 2007's use rights support private intranet sites and require CALs for licensed access, while Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet Sites does not require CALs, but does require that all content, information and applications be accessible through the internet to non-employees.  Please refer to the Product Use Rights (PUR) document for these products' use rights.

As an accommodation for possible deployment scenarios, customers wishing to consolidate their SharePoint needs under a single deployment may acquire licenses for both products, assign those licenses to the same server, and use the same running instance of the software simultaneously under both licenses.  However, customers must acquire CALs as required under the Office SharePoint Server 2007 use rights for users and devices accessing content in any manner not permitted under the Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites use rights.  

SharePoint 2007 sizing tool by HP

One of the biggest challenges faced by organizations that are deploying the latest generation of server-based products from Microsoft (SharePoint, Exchange, SQL Server, SMS, etc) is that Microsoft appears to have the idea that hardware is cheap and their customers are willing to spend whatever is necessary to deploy the latest and greatest.. Back in the "old days" (you know, when 64K RAM was all you were ever going to need) we focused on memory and CPU speed. I remember teaching SQL classes where I'd comment that you treated SQL server just like an airplane, "If it doesn't fly fast enough, just put a bigger engine on it". (Of course that was always said in jest, but unfortunately it was a strategy that was employed all too often)

These days, it's all about matching the IO subsystem to the application that you're running on the server. Memory and CPU speed are *almost* a byproduct. When customers purchase our product, we spend more time educating them on the IO subsystem that any other aspect of the hardware acquisition.

Well, it appears that HP is recognizing this trend as well, and (to give them credit) they're trying to stay out in front by offering a new tool to assist organizations that are about to deploy SharePoint 2007. The tool, which is available from HP as a free download (but does require registration), is pretty cool and does a good job.

Installing and Running the Sizing Tool

After you download the tool from HP, unzip the executable and run it. (If you're running Vista with UAC enabled, you'll need to answer the annoying UAC prompt). The tool takes a few moments to install, and then you'll be prompted to install the StorageWorks IO sizing tool as shown below:

Once the tools are installed, you execute them from the program files shortcut, which will launch the "sizer home" as shown below:

Basically the tool is a wizard-based tool that asks a few questions and then uses your answers to figure out the best deployment strategy. In my case (selecting a typical use-case for our Configuration Intelligence Analytics solution) the answer is:

Once I agree that a single-server solution is the right one for my SharePoint deployment, the tool calculates the total cost and generates a "pick list" for the server components as shown here:

 

Nice to see that the hardware vendors are picking up on the fact that people really do need to spec out the entire server, not just the CPU/memory configurations.

The moment of "Duh"!

During my GeekSpeak session on Wednesday, I was asked to provide a high-level overview of Business Intelligence. I provided what I thought was a decent answer, had a couple of follow-on statements, and Glen chimed in with some info as well.. Sounds good, right???? Well, here it is Friday now, and i was just going through the MSDN SharePoint Forums on BI when it hit me, "Duh!" Why didn't you tout Lynn's book on the subject????

So, better late than never. Lynn Langit has written a fantastic business intelligence overview book.

Amazon.com: Foundations of SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence: Books: Lynn Langit ISBN: 1590598342 ISBN-13: 9781590598344

SharePoint 2007 "Farm" Sizing

Yesterday, during my GeekSpeak webcast (Which was fun by the way) the question came up as to how many SSRS instances could be supported per SharePoint farm. I kind of stumbled through the question and didn't have a very good answer, so I spent a little bit of time yesterday researching the topic. Unfortunately I don't have a much better answer to post here today, but one thing that comes to mind is that there is a clear statement from Microsoft that there should be 1 Database Server for every 8 Web Servers in a farm. (See the Microsoft SharePoint sizing recommendations here: http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/6a13cd9f-4b44-40d6-85aa-c70a8e5c34fe1033.mspx?mfr=true )

So, using the ideas in the document above, and understanding that there can only be 1 SSRS instance for each Web Server, and "taking a bit off the top" for the overhead on the database server that an SSRS instance will generate, I'd say you should modify the recommendations slightly and say that you should limit SSRS integration to 5 instances of SSRS per Database Server in the farm. (This is in no way an official limitation, it's simply conservative extrapolation on my part)

Geek Speak on MSDN

I will be the guest speaker on the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) geekSpeak series on September 12!

I'll be speaking on the integration of SQL Server Reporting Services and SharePoint 2007.

Check it out!

SharePoint 2007 Performance

I have recently spent a lot of time working with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 and Excel Services. I can honestly say that MOSS is much easier to work with and much more feature rich than it's predecessor, but there is certainly a lot to think about with respect to capacity planning.

In my current project I am working exclusively with the Business Intelligence aspects of SharePoint and am relying on SharePoints capability to deploy dashboards and KPI lists that use a combination of Excel workbooks and SSRS reports that use connections to SSAS cubes. It turns out that Excel Services requires a fair amount of processing power, which, coupled with the base requirements for MOSS, means that we require significant hardware to deploy the solution even for a small number of users. The following diagram represents the logical layout of our single server deployment:

According to Microsoft, this configuration is not recommended for a production system. I can certainly see why, given the performance requirements.

One thing that we have run across on a regular basis is that MOSS tends to really fragment memory, and even on systems with a fair amount of available memory, SharePoint and Excel Services tend to require contiguous blocks of memory, which can quickly become constrained if access to Excel Services is requested by more than a one user. In order to alleviate this problem, the HeapDeCommitFreeBlockThreshold registry setting (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager) needs to be changed to 0x00040000 in order to ensure that the garbage collector keeps up with memory requests.

Fortunately for us, Microsoft has realized that MOSS performance and scalability is a concern for many organizations and have begun to publish very good information on MOSS deployment. I just wish that Microsoft Learning would realize that they need to publish some good MOSS deployment courses.

Take a look at the TechNet article on SharePoint capacity planning.

SharePoint and Forms Authentication

I have recently had the need to work with SharePoint (actually Windows SharePoint Services – WSS 3.0) 2007 and ASP.NET Forms authentication. For something that in the end turns out to be simple to configure, I had a heck of a time locating viable information through MSDN and the blogosphere.

So, with that in mind, I thought I would create a very simple step by step guide to help those who find themselves in the same boat (although I know nobody reads this blog anyway)

Configuring SharePoint 2007 / WSS 3.0 to use Forms Auth

One disclaimer that I'll give here is that I am going to give instructions for the simplest method of configuring MOSS/WSS to use forms auth. The end-result is a global configuration and it may not be the best solution for your particular environment, nor is it a particularly smart/secure idea. With that said, you can always expand upon the ideas presented here to customize the solution for your environment.

Step by step instructions are as follows:

1. Install and configure MOSS/WSS using whatever configuration you deem fit. (In my case, I needed a bare-bones default installation of WSS, but have also tested these steps with SharePoint 2007 Enterprise Edition)
   
2. From the Windows\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v2.0.50727 folder, execute aspnet_regsql
   
   1. Choose Configure SQL Server for Application Services
      
   2. Use the default database (which will create a database called aspnetdb on whatever instance you choose in the wizard)
      
   3. Once the wizard is complete, use SQL Server Mgmt Studio to grant access to the user that will be the security principal for the IIS Application Pool that WSS/MOSS will use. (By default it will be NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE)
      
3. Open the machine.config file from Windows\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG
   
   1. Locate the <connectionStrings> element
      
   2. Replace the connectionString attribute for "LocalSqlServer" with an appropriate string that points to the database you created in step 2
      
4. In SharePoint Central Administration, create a new web application
   
   1. Use the default NTLM authentication
      
   2. Once done, ensure you restart IIS (use IISRESET /restart from a command prompt)
      
5. Create a new Site Collection using the web application you created in step 4
   
   1. Ensure you assign a Windows account as the site administrator (You should test the site before changing authentication types, so you'll need an account that can access the site)
      
6. Ensure the new site works by browsing to it
   
7. Open SharePoint Central Administration Application Management
   
   1. Select Authentication Providers and ensure you select the correct web application (the one you created in step 4)
      
   2. Set the Authentication Type to "Forms"
      
   3. Set the Membership Provider to "AspNetSqlMembershipProvider" (It is imperative that you spell this correctly – you can cut/paste from machine.config <membership><providers> element if necessary)
      
   4. Once you save the configuration, restart IIS
      
8. Test the new authentication type
   
   1. Open the site in the browser. If all is working correctly, you will be presented with SharePoint's default ASP.NET login screen
      
   2. Try to login with any user/password combination. It should fail and return you to the login screen
      
9. Add users to the aspnetdb database
   
   1. The easiest way to do this is through Visual Studio's ASP.NET web configuration utility
      
      1. Create a new ASP.NET website project
         
      2. Don't change anything and build the project
         
      3. From the Website menu, choose "ASP.NET Configuration"
         
      4. Once the tool loads, choose "From The Internet" in the authentication column
         
      5. Add users
         
10. Test the site again
    
    1. Choose a valid username/password combination
       
    2. You should be able to login, but not access the site (SharePoint will tell you that you don't have access)
       
11. Open SharePoint Central Administration Application Management
    
    1. In the SharePoint Site Management section, add a user as a Primary Site Administrator (Choose a user you added in step 9)
       
    2. In the Application Security section, add any users to the Site Policy as necessary
       

Once these steps are followed, you should be able to enjoy WSS/MOSS with forms authentication.

I hope these steps have proven useful.