Enterprise AI & Cloud Architecture

The SharePoint physical architecture consists of software services running on one or more servers. There are three types of services that together run a SharePoint farm: front-end web, application and database services. Services Web services, running through Internet Information Server, is what processes the ASP.Net and sends back the html to a user's browser. Application services is where the "brains" of SharePoint are located. All of the SharePoint specific logic and services are processed there. Database services are run by SQL Server and it's where all the data/content for SharePoint is stored. Servers All the services to run a SharePoint farm can be run on one server or on multiple servers. For scalability (performance) and redundancy (fail-safe) purposes a distributed (multi-server) architecture is highly recommended. Single Server Farm                                     Mu...

SharePoint content types provide a way to package security, metadata and workflows for a specific file or document type or list item. That package of security, metadata and workflows will follow that file, document or list item wherever it's stored in SharePoint. Let's say you have a library called ' shared documents ' in the human resources site. Resumes and vacation requisitions forms are to be stored there. Documents of resume type will have their own set of properties or columns particular to it as well as vacation requisition forms. They may also have a specific workflows attached to each. Resumes may have fields like city, school and skills while the vacation requisition form may have fields such as manager, date request and status. In previous versions of SharePoint you would have to create a separate library for each document type or have one library and add all the possible properties for each type of document. Content types allow you to define a set of prope...

The SharePoint logical architecure consists of nested and isolated levels. These levels ensure security, navigation, search and branding are seperated for multiple SharePoint sites (intrant, extranet, internet) that may be implemented by an organization. SharePoint Farm The base level for any SharePoint implementation is the SharePoint farm. Physically a farm can consist of one server or many servers. An organization may implement one or more farms. This usually depends on security and performance needs. From a performance perspective it may make sense for an organization with locations across the globe to maintain multiple farms with those locations accessing content closest to them for speed. In these cases, content between the farms need to be synchronized. From a security perspective an organization may have a SharePoint intranet for internal content and a SharePoint extranet for third party access. All or some components of the extranet farm might have to be located in the...

Individual users or groups, either SharePoint groups or network domain groups, can be given permissions to a site in SharePoint. In order to give permissions, you must have full control permissions yourself to that site. The "S ite Permissions " link is where you go to view and manage permissions for the site. If you simply want to add a user to a group that you know has access to the site you can click on the group link in the " Groups " section in the left-hand navigation. If you don't see the group just click the " Groups " link in the left-hand navigation and a list of groups will appear to the right. figure 1 When a site is created the default option is to inherit the security settings from the parent site unless otherwise specified. Notice in figure 1 under the title "Permissions: Human Resources" the description, "This Web site inherits permissions from its parent Web site". If you need to modify the site's permiss...

SharePoint Services 3.0 search uses the same searching technology as SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). Previous versions of SharePoint services relied on SQL fulltext search. SharePoint Services 3.0 will index documents in a library, rows in a list, and content within pages on a site. SharePoint Services search indexes one site collection at a time and confines the search to the same site collection. For example lets say you have two site collections, site collection 1 and site collection 2. If you perform a search within site collection 1 you will only get results from data and documents stored in site collection 1. Security is applied to each item indexed. If a user performing a search doesn't have access to view a document or page indexed, then that item will not appear in the search results. Microsoft now provides Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express which can index multiple SharePoint site collections, web sites and other systems providing an enterprise search soluti...

In SharePoint all objects inherit their security settings from its parent by default. For example, when a library is created in a site the library will inherit the security settings of the site unless otherwise specified. The same would go for documents within the library. If you modify the security of the object in any way then the security inheritence is broken but not before SharePoint imports all the parent settings to the child. Afterwards any updates made to the parent object will not be passed down to the child object. Security in SharePoint is comprised of users, groups and roles. Users, Groups and Roles Users A user account comes from the authentication system. For example, if Active Directory is used to authenticate then the user accounts will come from it. Groups There are two types of groups SharePoint uses: domain groups and SharePoint groups . Domain groups can come from Active Directory much like user accounts and are created and maintained there. An...

A list is a component in SharePoint that stores a rows of information. For example, a list can be created to store web links in a human resources team site. Lists can contain metadata to describe the particular row in more detail and to make it easier to find. Metadata Metadata are fields or columns you can add to a library that are attached to every file stored in it. For example, you may want to add a site type metadata field to the web links list. Everytime a new web link is added to the list a site type can be associated with the link. This would make it easier to search for web links for a particular type. Creating a List Click the ' Site Actions ' box at the top-right side of the page and click ' Create ' Click on the ' Custom List ' link on the following page. Enter a name for the list, click the ' Create ' button and the list will be created in the site.                          Adding Metadata Cl...

A library is a component in SharePoint that stores files (documents). Think of a library as a folder on your file system that can also contain sub-folders. For example, a library can be created to store resumes in the human resources team site. Libraries can contain metadata to describe the particular file in more detail and to make it easier to find. Metadata Metadata are fields or columns you can add to a library that are attached to every file stored in it. For example, you may want to add a city metadata field to the resumes library. Everytime a new resume is uploaded to the library a city can be associated with the file. This would make it easier to search for resumes from a particular city. Creating a Library Click the ' Site Actions ' box at the top-right side of the page and click ' Create ' Click on the ' Document Library ' link on the following page. Enter a name for the library and select the type of documents to be stored. Click the ...

A page in SharePoint is comprised of web parts that exist within zones on a page. Web parts are components that come either out-of-the-box in SharePoint, or are available from third party vendors or custom developed by SharePoint developers. A web part can be re-used throughout the pages within a SharePoint site or in some cases across sites. For example in the page below there are four web part highlighted by different colors. The purple web part displays a short list of the new announcements stored in the annoucements library. The pink web part displays events from a calendar within the site. The green web part displays an image from a location the user specifies. The gray web part displays a list of links from the links list on the site. Configuring a Web Part To configure a web part click the down arrow next to it and select ' Modify Shared Web Part '. This will bring up a section on the right side of the form with the web part's settings. Click the ' OK ...

A SharePoint site, like any other web site, is comprised of pages. A page in SharePoint is a container for smaller components called web parts that provide some unique functionality or content. A page in SharePoint automatically inherits it's permissions settings from the library that its stored in within the site. This is the default page of a team site. Creating a Page To create a new page, click the 'Site Actions' box at the top-right side of the page and click the 'Create' option. Select either the 'Basic Page' or the 'Web Part Page' link. If you selected 'Web Part Page', you'll be presented with a variety of layout templates. Enter a name, select a template and click the 'Create' button and you'll create a new page. Edit a Page To edit a page, click the 'Site Actions' box at the top-right side of the page and click the 'Edit Page' option. Page Zones A page can include one or more zones...

Team sites are small web sites that are created to store documents, information and data about a particular thing. For example a site can be created for a department in an organization like human resources. A site can be created for a project or a site can even be created for a meeting. The point is that everything for the department, project, meeting or anything else is stored in it's own site. This makes it easy for people to work and share and it makes it easier to secure. This is how a new team site looks like: A site can also have sub-sites. For example, the information technology department may have a site and then have sub-sites for each team in the department. One for application development, network and communications. Creating a Site To create a site, click the 'Site Actions' box at the top-right side of the page and click the 'Create' option Select the 'Sites and Workspaces' link on the following page. On the following page you'll ...

Get Your Server Ready Installation of SharePoint Services 3.0 is a straight foward process. It must be installed on Windows Server 2003 or higher, either 32 or 64 bits. Make sure that the Application Server role has been applied, which installs IIS, and make sure ASP.Net is enabled. On a Windows 2003 Server, go to "Manage Your Server" under the "Administrative Tools" menu to apply or remove roles. After applying the application role, download and install the latest .NET framework version, which includes the latest version of ASP.NET as well. Install SharePoint Now download and install SharePoint Services 3.0. When you begin the installation you will be presented with two options, basic or advanced. Choose basic if all the components of SharePoint will reside on one server. Choose advanced if the various components of SharePoint will be deployed on seperate servers. For example, the database may be installed on a seperate server, this would require you to ...

1. Product Name Change o Windows SharePoint Services is now going to be known as SharePoint Foundation 2010. o Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is losing the Microsoft Office preface and will be known simply as SharePoint Server 2010. 2. New Product Requirements o All versions of SharePoint 2010, including SharePoint Foundation will be 64-bit ONLY! o Requires x64 version of Windows Server 2008 running on a 4-core 2.5GHz server w/8GB RAM! o Requires x64 version of SQL Server 3. Overview of What’s New o New Look and Feel Interface – Hello Ribbon! o New Central Administration Console o New Access Services o New Visio Services o New Digital Asset Management o New PerformancePoint Services o New Health Monitoring o New Sandboxed Solutions o New PowerShell Support o New Office Web Apps 4. Overview of What’s Improved o Improved Excel Services o Improved BDC – Now called Business Connectivity Services o Improved Enterprise Search – ...

RESOLUTION:I recently came across the issue where after a fresh and successful install of SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS2007) that the Central Administration Site would give an application error upon loading for the first time. After changing in all the web.config files we are able to see the “Could not write to output file ‘The directory name is invalid.’” error pointing to a folder below the WindowsMicrosoft.Net directory. This error indicates that something is amiss with the ASPNET user account and it doesn’t have permissions to write to the folders below the Microsoft.Net folder. To solve this follow these simple steps. Open up Computer Management and verify that the user ASPNET exists. Navigate to the Microsoft.Net directory (typically C:WindowsMicrosoft.Net) and open up it’s security properties. Add the ASPNET user under the security tab and give it read/write/modify rights. Click on advanced and check the box to replace permissions on child folders. Restart IIS and th...

SharePoint History In 2007, Microsoft will release the third version of their SharePoint server product - Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007). It will provide a wide variety of features that make it a complete information management platform, capable of delivering solutions for business intelligence, collaboration, communication, composite applications (mash-ups), content management, portals, process automation... you get the picture. This post charts the progress from SharePoint's initial beginnings through to the end-to-end information management platform that it is becoming, and the market changes that have also occurred along the way. The above diagram provides the visual version. It should be noted that what follows are my own thoughts and opinions, and they do not necessarily represent the views of any employers, past, present or future :-) It's particularly relevant to this post, given I worked for Microsoft from 2000 - 2005 and at one point ...

Sharepoint 2010 Upgrade requirements: Before you can perform an in-place upgrade or database attach upgrade to SharePoint Server 2010, your existing Office SharePoint Server 2007 environment or new SharePoint Server 2010 environment must meet the following minimum requirements. 1.Hardware requirements: SharePoint Server 2010 can only run on a 64-bit edition of the Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008 with SP2 O/S. If you plan an in-place upgrade, your Office SharePoint Server 2007 installation must be running in a 64-bit Windows Server 2008 environment. If your Office SharePoint Server 2007 installation is currently in a 32-bit environment, you cannot perform an in-place upgrade on the existing server or server farm. You must install SharePoint Server 2010 on a different server or farm that supports 64-bit applications, and then move your data to that server or farm by using database attach upgrade. 2.Operating system requirement: Windows Server 2008 or Wi...

1. What are Application Pages in SharePoint? Application Pages SitePages 1. Unlike site pages (for example, default.aspx), a custom application page is deployed once per Web server and cannot be customized on a site-by-site basis 1.Site Pages Can be site specific WE Can manage different site pages for different Sites. 2. Application pages are based in the virtual _layouts directory. In addition, they are compiled into a single assembly DLL. 2. Site Pages stores in Content DB and can be retrieved by WSS File Provider Using Safe mode Parser. 3. With application pages, you can also add inline code. 3.You can’t add any inline code 4. A good example of an Application Page is the default Site Settings page: every site has one, and it's not customizable on a per site basis (although the contents can be different for sites). 4.Example is default.aspx and all webpages created in site . 2. Which is Better a UserControl or WebPart? Ans: Advantages of...