In the previous two posts in this series I showed some ideas and thoughts on how to approach your SharePoint Search deployment. This third post is a wrap up as well as some external resources including training videos previously published on the Search TechCenter site on TechNet. Read the previous two posts in this series. SharePoint Search Deployment Guidance (Part 1) SharePoint Search Deployment Guidance (Part 2) In my last post I mentioned about the Search indexing component in MOSS. This Search Architecture white paper available from Microsoft (MS Word) provides details on how the Indexing Architecture works. In summary the two core core components of a Search solution are as follows. Indexing Engine The indexing component is capable of crawling and indexing a variety of content sources. It uses protocol handlers to connect a ...[Read More]

About one month ago (April 30th 2008) Zach Rosenfield (SharePoint Program Manager - Infrastructure) announced on his blog about the availability of the SharePoint Administration Toolkit. The Toolkit is the first in a series of updates that you should consider to be deployed into your SharePoint farm deployment. I haven't had the time to test this out hence the delayed post. This update will add the following capabilities to your SharePoint farm. A new menu named "Batch Site Manager" with a link to "Move, Lock and Delete Site Collections" A new STSADM command to update user alerts to a new URL when a site has been moved Let me explain what these mean and what you'll need to consider for deploying this update to your farm. There are two installers available for x86 and x64 and you can download the correct versi ...[Read More]

I will be presenting at the SharePoint User Group meeting in Wellington on 28th May (Wednesday) 2008. Session Title: Making the most of Search in SharePoint Organizations who are planning to implementing an enterprise search solution with SharePoint often approach this “technical problem” by asking “What do we need to index?” While this approach may yield results, they are usually less than optimal in some cases. We showcase what can be achieved using SharePoint Search and planning guidance for a better end user experience. I hope to cover the following: Search Center design and configuration Customizations to enhance the SharePoint search experience Community enhancements such as "Faceted Search" This session will be of interest to Intranet Administrators and Business Analysts. Presented by: Chandima Kulathilak ...[Read More]

Wow! This is ueber cool if you are into space imagery and what not. The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe. Want to see the same images that scientists at NASA use for their research or perform your own research with those images? Or do you want to see the Earth from the same perspective that astronauts see as they descend to Earth? How about taking a 5 minute break and viewing a panorama of a different city? Install WWT and start your explorations. Go get it here: WorldWide Telescope experience. Technorati Tags: WWT, MSFT, Telescope, Space ...[Read More]

First of all thanks to SQL Server User Group leaders Adrian Engelbrecht and Clive Trott for the invitation to speak and to Ron van Moorsel of Prophesy for helping with the tricky SQL questions and help with demos. Also I want to thank Todd Klindt [MVP] from Solanite consulting for allowing me to re-use his original slide content from the Seattle SharePoint Conference. As promised here are the links and resources that I used during the presentation. Planning and Maintenance SharePoint Server Planning and Maintenance on TechNet Advanced Planning Lectures and White Papers Office SharePoint Server server farm architecture (MS Word) Describes how to plan server farms for reliability and scalability, and how to deploy Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on a server farm. Configuring SharePoint Server Far ...[Read More]

Via [ Paul Andrew ] I'm pleased to announce the release of the User Guide, Samples and Walkthroughs for the Visual Studio 2005 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, v1.1. The Visual Studio 2005 extensions for SharePoint were released back in Feb 2008 and an update for Visual Studio 2008 is planned for release in June 2008. Official description and questions can be directed on Paul's announcement about the Visual Studio extensions post. For Developers (ASP.net) who are looking at starting out on SharePoint there is also a MSDN web cast series that will be happening over the next few weeks.   Each MSDN Web Cast is an introduction for .NET Developers to SharePoint and the Topic. You need to register for the web cast by clicking the link and entering some details. Then you get emailed a link to sign on and participate in ...[Read More]

Before it's going going gone.. head over to the early bird registrations and get yours today! Darryl has already blogged about this last week that 25% tickets were sold faster than he expected. Now if you look at the site its 84% sold out!!! With a great line up of sessions and content planned it will be a great event. Technorati Tags: TechEdNZ, TechEdNZ08, New Zealand, Events, MSFT, Microsoft Tech Ed ...[Read More]

I will be presenting at the Wellington SQL Server User Group on 15th May 2008 (Thursday). “How to manage your SharePoint databases in your SQL environment” Are you a SQL administrator who has been reluctantly thrust into the role of SharePoint administrator as well? In this session we cover SharePoint and why it relies on SQL Server. The session will also cover some maintenance steps you should take to keep both SQL Server and SharePoint working together. By the end of this session you'll have a good understanding of SharePoint and why it needs SQL Server for database services. Presented by Chandima Kulathilake. (MCTS/MVP - SharePoint Server) Pizza and drinks are being provided with the kind courtesy of Microsoft. Seating is limited to the first 50 registrations. Date and Venue: 15 May 2008 at 6pm. Intergen L7 Plunket House 12 ...[Read More]