Archive for the ‘Administration’ Category

Cleaning Out the SharePoint Site Recycle Bin

July 16th, 2012
Posted by: admin

By Terry Engelstad
MCP, MCSE, CCNA, MCDBA, MCTS, MCITP
AIS Network Operations Manager

Recently, a SharePoint hosting customer asked us to perform routine maintenance on his SharePoint site.  As part of that, he asked us to clean out the Recycle Bin and have the automatic deletion mechanism disabled for the Recycle Bin.  He said that his company hadn’t cleaned its SharePoint Recycle Bin in over one year.

There are some things you might find interesting about the Recycle Bin, which is the first line of defense in recovering data. As you probably know, SharePoint uses a two-tier Recycle Bin. The first tier is at the User level where an item deleted from a List or Library will drop into the User Recycle Bin. This way, the Users can recover deleted items themselves. Then after a period of time, items will be moved from the User Recycle Bin to a Site Collection Recycle Bin. The duration for which an item sits in the User Recycle Bin is determined by a parameter in SharePoint Central and is specific to an entire Web Application.  The duration for which items will sit in the Site Collection Recycle Bin is determined by the amount of space available to hold these items and is also configurable via a parameter in SharePoint Central.

Currently, our customer’s User Recycle Bin is configured to never delete items.  There are quite a few items in various User Recycle Bins. There are two ways to clean them out.  First, somebody can go to each of the User Recycle Bins and remove items manually.  Or, second, the retention configuration parameter could be changed to a very low value, and after a period of time, the items will flush out on their own.

The difference between these two techniques is that the first one requires human intervention to find all the Recycle Bins and to make decisions about which items should be deleted or not. The second option is global and will affect all items in all Recycle Bins.

Naturally, if our client wants us to clean out the User Recycle Bins individually, they would also need to define the rules for deletion of those items (i.e., delete everything older than 30 days, for example).

On the other hand, if the customer wants us to change the configuration parameters, we’d be happy to do so.  That’s easy.

More questions about your hosted SharePoint?  Leave your comments below.

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SharePoint 2010 Security: Adding an SSL Certificate to Your Hosted SharePoint Site

June 11th, 2012
Posted by: admin

By Bill Peters
AIS Network Director of Sales

SSL certificates create secure (HTTPS) connectivity between your Web server and your visitors’ browsers.  If you are transmitting sensitive information via a Web site, such as Social Security numbers, credit card numbers or other personal information, you should secure it with SSL encryption to safeguard against others seeing your data.  If you do not use an SSL certificate, then you are vulnerable.

SharePoint Security

SSL certificates aid in ensuring data security for your hosted SharePoint site.

In a SharePoint environment, SSL certificates can easily be added to a hosted site in order to secure it.  There are different kinds of SSL certificates but I won’t address that in this blog.  Rather, this is about SharePoint 2010 security and the recent request by one client that we add an SSL certificate to his existing hosted SharePoint site with us.

In preparation, I asked him what domain name he wanted on the SSL certificate.   Unsure of my question, he responded, “Doesn’t the domain name have to match the domain of the (AISN) network?”

Here’s how I explained it to him.   In his case, the server hosting his SharePoint is a member server in the Active Directory domain called aisn.local.  Web sites which serve Web pages from this server (SharePoint included) can be addressed by either an IP address or a domain name.  This Web site domain is not the same type of domain as the Active Directory domain in which the server resides.  And actually, Active Directory domains such as aisn.local cannot be present on the Internet.  The ‘.local’ indicates to the Internet that it is a private, not a public, domain name.

That said, it is possible to have an SSL Certificate for either type of domain.  The real question is what are you going to use it for?  That was for my client to decide.

As I explained to him, if you intend to use the SSL Certificate for Server Identification, then we can get a certificate for you for “yournamehere.aisn.local”.  You would use this type of certificate when, for example, you remote desktop to the server.  It would guarantee that you are connecting to the right server.

If, however, you want to use the SSL Certificate for identification of your SharePoint Site, then you can pick any public name you want.  In this case, the domain must be registered publicly in order to get a public SSL Certificate.

So, for example, if you chose to address your SharePoint Site by the name “sp.yournamehere.com”, you would need to make sure that the domain name “yournamehere.com” is registered to you.  Then, you can define “sp.yournamehere.com” in IIS on your SharePoint server. You would also need to configure the public DNS for yournamehere.com such that the “host” known as “sp” points to the IP address on the server.

That explanation seemed clarify things for him.  I told him that I thought he was looking for the latter, but we do not know what his host and domain names are.  It appeared to me that he was addressing his SP site by IP address currently.  In order to assign an SSL certificate, it needs to have a full name.  We cannot register it to an IP.

Have more questions about hosted SharePoint 2010 and hosted SharePoint security?  Send me an email and I’d be happy to help.

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SharePoint 2010: Loopback Checking

March 1st, 2012
Posted by: admin

By Terry Engelstad
MCP, MCSE, CCNA, MCDBA, MCTS, MCITP
AIS Network Operations Manager

There is a security feature in Windows 2008 called Loopback Checking.  It’s a security feature in IIS, which is a way of stopping some denial of service attacks.  Since SharePoint 2010 runs locally on the server, and accesses its own databases by way of Communication Foundation service calls through IIS, technically, SharePoint is performing what could be construed as a self-denial-of-service-attack.  There is a registry hack to turn off the feature.

This feature is only an issue on servers which are domain controllers and running SharePoint and SQL Server at the same time.  Loopback Checking is not a problem on servers which are not domain controllers, nor in multi-server farm scenarios where SQL Server is not running on the same server as IIS.

For more information about disabling the loopback check, see Microsoft Support Article 896861.

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SharePoint 2010: Most Popular Third-Party Apps

November 25th, 2011
Posted by: admin

By Laurie Head
AIS Network Vice President

In Anaheim, at the Microsoft SharePoint 2011 Conference, Rob Koplowitz, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, unveiled the results of a Forrester survey on “Best Practices in SharePoint 2010 Adoption and Migration.”

The survey had been conducted in July and included responses from “510 IT decision-makers involved with evaluating, specifying, or administering SharePoint.”  Most interesting, I think, is that analysts found that 44 percent of those surveyed planned to tap third-party software for use with SharePoint.

According to Forrester, the top third-party tool used to augment SharePoint was Nintex Workflow (8% of surveyed).  Workflow tools were the most common solution, followed by administration and then social tools.  According to Forrester, the top third-party software vendors utilized for SharePoint are as follows:

  • Nintex USA for workflow
  • Bamboo Solutions for WebParts
  • AvePoint for administration
  • NewsGator Technologies for social networking
  • Axceler for administration
  • K2 for workflow
  • KWizCom for WebParts
  • Quest Software for administration
  • Metalogix Software for content management
  • Yammer for social networking

Two-thirds of the survey respondents (65 percent) were using SharePoint 2007.  SharePoint 2010 use was also high at 57 percent.

Which apps do you like best for SharePoint 2010?  Let me know by commenting below.

 

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SharePoint and Disaster Recovery Options

August 23rd, 2011
Posted by: admin

AIS Network Blog SharePoint 2010 Disaster Recovery

The SharePoint 2010 Disaster Recovery Guide.

By Terry Engelstad
MCP, MCSE, CCNA, MCDBA, MCTS, MCITP
AIS Network Operations Manager

The complexity and diversity of the Microsoft SharePoint platform also applies to its disaster recovery options.  When it comes to protecting your SharePoint farm from the effects of a catastrophic event, there are numerous tools and best practices.  But which is the best fit for you?

I recently completed reading and studying the SharePoint 2010 Disaster Recovery Guide by John L. Ferringer and Sean P. McDonough.  It’s a worthwhile read, if you have the opportunity and particularly if you are trying to determine whether your current procedure for backing up SharePoint environments provides adequate and proper recovery capabilities.

The book explains that there are three kinds of recoveries:

-          Content

-          Site Collection

-          Full Farm

If you need to do Content recovery, then the Content Database needs to be backed up. If you need to recover a Site Collection, then the Site Collection needs to be backed up. Content is backed up as part of a Site Collection, but a Site Collection is not backed up as part of Content. If you need to recover a full farm, then you need to do a Full Farm backup. Merely backing up the individual SQL Server databases does not capture enough information to recover a full farm. There are additional components that get installed on the server; these are not in a SQL Server database and therefore will not be available for a recovery.

This means that if your current procedure is to back up the SQL Server databases, then that method will not work for Full Farm recovery of SP 2010 Foundation or Server. According to Microsoft, this is an un-supported practice, which means you may get lucky and it might work, but then again, maybe not.

The only fully supported method for a full farm recovery is to do SharePoint Full Farm Backups. SharePoint Full Farm Backups are executed via:

1) SharePoint Central GUI,

2) PowerShell commands, or

3) stsadm command line.

Execution via PowerShell or stsadm can be scripted as batch jobs and scheduled. A full farm backup ends up including the SQL Server databases, but it also picks up the IIS configuration, the Hive, GAC components, and Customized Code – everything required for Full Farm Recovery.

In some circumstances, there may be a difference in the amount of space and time used to create a Full Farm Backup. FFB creates an un-compressed, directory structure, which would subsequently be backed up to storage for 14-day (or otherwise) retention. The “un-compressed” part will not be affected by those implementations using SQL Server Web Edition, since Web Edition doesn’t compress backups. For those implementations using SQL Standard or SQL Enterprise, this would result in additional disk space being consumed, because what was once compressed will no longer be compressed.

How are you approaching SharePoint 2010 disaster recovery?  I encourage your comments.

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Examining SharePoint Data Integration

August 18th, 2011
Posted by: admin

By Terry Engelstad
MCP, MCSE, CCNA, MCDBA, MCTS, MCITP
AIS Network Operations Manager

This week, we were contacted by a vendor for a new software product that claims to connect almost any on-premise data source (e.g., databases, ERP/CRM) to Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft Office 365.

I’m not sure of the value of this to a SharePoint hosting provider per se.  I’ll need to digest some different scenarios in order to understand how AISN would use this, but it gave me the idea for this blog.  Here’s a little background about data integration with Microsoft Office 365 (SharePoint), and probably, why this type of product evolved.

SharePoint MOSS 2007 introduced a new service called Business Connectivity Service (BCS). It allowed users to access external data in a variety of forms (databases, spreadsheets, files, etc.) from inside SharePoint. SharePoint 2010 renamed it “Business Data Connectivity” (BDC) and embellished the feature-set, including the ability to Search the external data. BCS and BDC do not copy data into SharePoint. They set up virtual connections to the data and allow other components within SharePoint to see and touch the data. At no point is data copied into SharePoint. Connections to external data are not persistent. This means they will exist for as long as necessary, then dissolve, then re-connect as necessary. This is not too efficient for large volumes of data.

When a connection is set up to an external source, there is a requirement to provide credentials in order to access the external data. SharePoint allows only three ways to provide credentials:

1) the Windows account of the logged on user running the SharePoint BCS/BDC process,

2) the operating system account of the service running the BCS/BDC process, or

3) a customized set of credentials.

MOSS only allows types 1 or 2.  On the other hand, SharePoint Foundation 2010 only allows types 1 or 2, and SharePoint Server 2010 allows all three types but needs to retain credentials for type 3 in a service called Secure Store. This service is available only in SharePoint Server – not MOSS and not Foundation.

Office 365 is built on the foundation of SharePoint Foundation (and so is our Shared SharePoint environment). Microsoft has stated that Office 365 does not allow accessing external data through BDC. I haven’t seen a document stating the reasons for this, but I can draw conclusions from the statements above.

First, since data is not actually copied into Office 365 SharePoint, there is no consumption of space, only consumption of network bandwidth and CPU. Since the pricing model for Office 365 is built around space consumption, Microsoft would not make any money if clients used, for example, only external data. Picture a SharePoint environment where there is no data stored locally, only accessed through BCS/BDC. Not too profitable.

Second, Office 365 does not allow access to external data because of credentials. In Office 365, Windows accounts and Operating System service accounts will have no meaning outside of Office 365. Therefore, a user could not authenticate with those credentials to any data source outside of Office 365. And again, since Office365 does not use the Secure Store feature found in Server, special/unique credentials cannot be stored.

So, long story short, there is still a need to get data into Office 365. The method proposed by this new software is to copy data from external data sources into SharePoint Lists. This is an OK way of getting data into SharePoint. I’m just not sure how many people would want to take advantage of it. We’ve had only one client in our Shared environment ask about BDC capabilities, and my research/response to that client has led to the above discovery. We do have one MOSS client using BCS to access several spreadsheets which they periodically refresh on their dedicated server.  None of our dedicated SharePoint 2010 clients are currently using BDC.

I’d be interested in any comments that readers of this blog may have.  What are your thoughts?

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SharePoint Hosting White Paper Rolling Out on Thursday

August 10th, 2011
Posted by: Michael Emrich

SharePoint White Paper

AIS Network has released a new white paper, "To Cloud or Not to Cloud: SharePoint 2010 Hosting Options...and Which One Is Right for You."

By Michael Emrich – Associate, Marketing & Sales

This Thursday will be a big day for AIS Network. Not only will it be the first day of SharePoint Saturday in Northern Virginia, an event we will be attending for the first time, but we will also be rolling out our first-ever white paper. Entitled, “To Cloud or Not to Cloud: SharePoint 2010 Hosting Options…and Which One is Right for You,” the white paper will serve as both a guide to SharePoint and its hosting and an in-depth analysis of the rapidly-growing cloud-based hosting platform for SharePoint.

The paper will serve as a guide to the many hosting options that SharePoint users have available to them. Some of the questions addressed in the paper include:

  • What are your SharePoint hosting options?
  • What are the pros and cons of each option?
  • In what situations would each be preferable?
  • What does each method need from you in order to work?

Selecting a hosting method needs to be a very educated decision, and this white paper is your text book.

The cloud-based hosting method will be discussed in great length, chronicling the explosive growth of hosting SharePoint in the cloud and what kind of options you’ll have available to you. The whole concept of cloud computing is still a relatively new one, so this white paper will hopefully educate you and clear up any misconceptions that you might have about the cloud.

So, if you’re going to be at SharePoint Saturday in Northern Virginia, stop by Booth #419 and pick up a copy. Or, if you’re more interested in an electronic copy, keep an eye out for the white paper’s pdf release on the company Web site.

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How License Mobility Removes Barriers to Going to the Cloud

July 19th, 2011
Posted by: Michael Emrich

Cloud Computing Man, AIS Network

AIS Network takes SharePoint to the Cloud.

By Bill Peters
AIS Network Director of Sales

Thinking of moving to the cloud, but don’t want to see your Microsoft software with Software Assurance become shelfware?

We can help.  AIS Network is the first SharePoint 2010-focused hosting company in the world to become a Microsoft Authorized License Mobility Partner.

There are many reasons why a company may be hesitant about moving their on-premise SharePoint environment to the cloud. A big reason has been that companies do not want to abandon their capital investment in software bought through their Enterprise Agreement or other Microsoft volume licensing programs.

Client Access Licenses, purchased through Enterprise Agreements, are perpetual Microsoft licenses that a company may place “on premise,” or on its own servers.  Up until recently, the catch with CALs was the part about “on premise.”  In general, this software could only be placed on servers owned by the company who owned the software, and not on the servers of another provider, such as a managed hosting company.

This could be a real impediment to a company that had already invested in CALs if they wanted to move their applications to the cloud, because they would be unable to do so without getting new licenses from their hosting provider.   Microsoft has a different licensing model for hosted server applications, called SALs (Subscriber Access Licenses).  Unlike CALs, you do not own SALs blackjack – you pay a monthly fee to rent them.  Rather than buy and own software (CALs), companies get subscriptions (SALs) to the software from their hosting company.

This is a more predictable investment in that you have a monthly fee to access the software with no significant capex. Server software bought using the CAL system requires an expensive initial investment, but it guarantees the software for life if Software Assurance is included, which, over time, may have a lower cost of ownership.

That all changed on July 1st.  Microsoft is now offering a service called License Mobility through Software Assurance. What “License Mobility” means is that customers with active Software Assurance coverage on their CAL-licensed products can use their CAL-licensed software with a hosting company, rather than only on their own servers. Instead of paying a monthly subscription fee in addition to software you already own, you can just use the software that is already yours — in the cloud.  Depending on the actual environment, there may be a small monthly fee (a fraction of the full SAL fee) for this privilege. In addition to SharePoint Server, other software eligible for License Mobility includes Exchange Server, Lync, SQL Server, Dynamics CRM software, and System Center servers.

License Mobility removes another barrier that companies face while going to the cloud. No longer will previously purchased software need to become shelfware. If that has been a major factor in keeping you from going to the cloud, then you now have a compelling business case to consider moving to the cloud.

Are you looking for license mobility?  We can help.  Contact me directly at bill(dot)peters(@)aisn(dot)net.

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Why You Should Care About SharePoint 2010 Administration

April 28th, 2011
Posted by: admin

Guest Blog

SharePoint 2010 is a very complex system… not only for a developer or consultant. It is also very complex for an administrator and regardless of your role as a developer or consultant in your company you need to understand the aspects of SharePoint administration.

And here is why:

As a developer your implementation is required to work not only in your environment but also in your customers environment. Since every customers infrastructure is different in the way it is organized your code might not work. Because of that a replication of your customers environment can save you lots of time and money because you will find errors during the implementation phase of your project instead of the going live phase. Of course it will keep you stress free and doesn’t impact the image of you and your employer.

As a consultant you need to understand the impacts of a SharePoint deployment. SharePoint is always deployed within an existing infrastructure. There aren’t only interfaces between existing servers and system… additionally you need to think about the administrator himself. He is the person who will be responsible for planning, deployment and maintenance. Bringing people with the right knowledge at the right time together is most important.

In order to get such an understanding an experienced SharePoint developer or consultant can be helpful. Otherwise a book about SharePoint 2010 administration is a good start and there are quite some books out there by Wrox, Microsoft Press, McGraw-Hill Osborne Media or Sybex. Usually a book for beginners is accurate since it doesn’t only tell you about administration it also tells you about the things behind features and functionality. Understanding the use case is a central part of the beginners book. If you are already familiar with the background of SharePoint 2010 you can switch to a professional book with a lot more detailed scenarios.

For a successful deployment and implementation of SharePoint 2010 it is the most important thing to get an understanding of basic administration. How do you deploy SharePoint? Which person does it affect? At which time do you need someone? Without thinking about that problems will occur and usually it’s too late or it requires more strength to revise it.

Choosing the right SharePoint book is essential since they cover content in a different way and in different depth.

Markus Ramirez is an independent SharePoint developer mainly in Switzerland but also in Germany and Austria. As a trainer he tries to sensitize people to take a look behind things in order to understand them.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

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