Previously I posted about the major post SP 1 SharePoint Infrastructure Update which was released July and notes on some issues that were discovered post release. Subsequently MSFT has released a cumulative update that addresses these issues. Needless to say that you should test these in your pre-deployment servers prior to installing on your production deployments. To specifically address the prior mentioned Alternate Access Mapping Issue a Fix is now available on request. The download link and details about this fix is available via the following KB article. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956248/en-us I haven' tested these thoroughly yet so I am unable to confirm or deny but this post is highlight the availability of the August Updates. WSS 3.0 August Update Detailed description of the update - 956057 http://support.microsoft ...[Read More]

A few people have asked me how to approach migrations and upgrades for previous versions of SharePoint. If you are planning to migrate or upgrade the options available to you for various versions of SharePoint are as follows. WSS V2 to WSS V3 SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 WSS V3 to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Previously I have blogged about planning your migration and upgrade and also notes from one of the early upgrade and migration projects I was involved in. And remember PRESCAN is a must and in my opinion don't ever attempt to do in place upgrades. If you read my above posts you'll know why. If you are just starting to plan then here are some must read resources to help you plan. ...[Read More]

One part of SharePoint deployments that sometimes tend to fall on the way side is planning and providing a viable and practical option for recovering data in the event of a server failure. In most cases when a solution architecture is proposed with SharePoint you need to consider the following options in order to formulate a viable and practical backup and recovery option. Not only should you plan these it should be tested out and the steps required and the times taken to do an actual recovery noted so that your team is familiar with what to expect should the need arise. Depending on the type of solution being deployed and the impact it may potentially have on the business you may need to add availability as part of your solution architecture. This post however will showcase how you can successfully create and test a mock recovery pla ...[Read More]

Over last few months I've been reviewing and helping a few customers deploy SharePoint. One of the things that surprised me is that in some cases where the x86 binary of SharePoint has been installed on x64 capable hardware. It's an easy oversight especially if you grab the MSDN or a previously downloaded copy of the setup files. Make sure that you download the latest x64 version of the installer with service pack 1 if you are doing a new install. You should only deploy on x86 based hardware if there is a very compelling reason to do so. Here are the links for the required WSS and MOSS installs. For a WSS only x64 install : Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 x64 with Service Pack 1 For MOSS x64 install: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 x64 edition (Note that the link contains the RTM version and a version bundled with Service ...[Read More]

This page contains a list of guidance and best practice topics for planning and architecture for the deployment of SharePoint. I will update this list and make changes and add new information and links to articles when I come across them. MOSS 2007 Planning and Guidance for IT Pros Plan for server farms  (determining # of farms, org requirements and licensing) Plan for availability (Office SharePoint Server) & Database Mirroring Plan for performance and capacity (Office SharePoint Server) About performance and capacity planning (Office SharePoint Server) Additional performance and capacity planning factors (Office SharePoint Server) Tools for performance and capacity planning (Office SharePoint Server) Performance Test Scripts and Data population for VSTT: SPDataPop WSSDW.exe Logical architecture model: Corporate ...[Read More]

A friend of mine asked me this the other day.. and I was glad that I was asked this question. (Let's just say my friend was relatively new to SharePoint but have had years of managing typical software development projects). From a pure Project manager's view it can be seen that SharePoint projects are not different to any old IT project. BUT let me tell you that to successfully complete a SharePoint project you'll need to think and plan a lot more outside of a standard software development Project. If you are a Project Manager who is "New" to SharePoint and want to apply your traditional PM methodology to deliver a SharePoint project then please take a timeout and head over to Paul Culmsee's blog and read the series of posts on "Why SharePoint projects fail". Paul points out all the reasons why sometimes the best e ...[Read More]

When you create a site collection in SharePoint based on the OOTB starter template "Collaboration Portal Template" you get a series of sub sites such as "Document Center", "News", "Reports", "Search" and "Sites". Typically if your organisations has just installed SharePoint or are evaluating SharePoint this "Collaboration Portal Template" is the first place an end user will start their interaction with SharePoint.   One main point to note is that the slight variation of the available templates under the "Publishing" tab in Central Administration and on an existing SharePoint site which has been based on the  "Collaboration Portal Template" which is available the first time you create your starter site collection in the Central Administration ...[Read More]

UPDATE [29 July 2008]: Infratsructure Update Known Issues Please note that there are some issues with regards to this update and I highly recommend this update to be thoroughly tested prior to being deployed Please notice that the Infrastructure Update [ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951695 ] has been updated to include the following information with regards to AAM: Known issues discovered after release of this update Installing the Infrastructure Update in a SharePoint farm that uses Alternate Access Mapping with a reverse proxy or a network load balancer, such as in an extranet deployment, may cause some public URLs to become unresponsive. Microsoft is aware of this issue and is developing a solution. Before installing the Infrastructure Update, customers who use this configuration should use a test environment to verify ...[Read More]