Wow! TechEd is over and demo gods were kind and I actually was able to run two complete demos of In-Place upgrade and a Database attach upgrade on stage! As promised to all those who were at my session here are the links and the session slides from “OFS308 SharePoint Upgrade Deep Dive”. Download the session slides for OFS 308 Resources for upgrading. Upgrade Planning Center – IT Professionals > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee517214.aspx Developer Resource Center for upgrading SharePoint 2007 solutions to SharePoint 2010 > http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee514557.aspx Upgrading from SharePoint 2003 to 2010 > http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ee947141(office.14).aspx Download of the SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Hyper-V Virtual Machine (Upgrading from 2003 to 2010) > http://www.microsoft.com/d ...[Read More]

Some eons ago.. I wrote a blog post about the same topic on SharePoint 2007 which still gets a fair few hits and one of the comments on that post recently was asking about SharePoint 2010 databases and why there was so many of them. And incidentally  I was preparing for a talk  on the same topic at the Wellington SQL Server user group so that comment couldn’t have come at a better time. If you are just starting out with learning SharePoint the chances are you will not need to know about SharePoint 2007. So I am going to *try* and not mention anything about 2007 but keep this post only on the topic of SharePoint 2010 and why SP2010 has so many databases. The new and improved architecture of SharePoint 2010 uses a concept called Service Applications. If you are struggling to understand this fundamental concept in SharePoint I suggest y ...[Read More]

Continuing on from my last post here are some more details about In-Place Records management in SharePoint 2010. Using a Records archive vs in place records management in SharePoint 2010 In Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 you can manage records in an archive, or you can manage records in the same document repository as active documents. With the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 in-place approach, when you declare that a document has become a record, the record remains in place, but Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 now manages it as a record. For example, a document might get a different retention policy when it is declared to be a record, or users might not be able to edit it. Designing for in-place records management with SharePoint 2010 In Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 you can manage records in an archive, or you can use ...[Read More]

There is much talk about PRA (Public Records Act) Compliance and it usually comes up in so many conversations that I’ve been having. Lot of the times I get the following question “So is SharePoint 2010 PRA Compliant?” Now for my readers who are NOT from New Zealand go over to NZ Archives site on what PRA compliance guidelines have been set out for NZ [ http://archives.govt.nz/advice/digital-continuity-action-plan ]. In a previous post many moons ago I did an overview on “SharePoint DoD 5015.2 and what it means to New Zealand public agencies who are looking at PRA compliance” . Which was just an overview. You’d also notice that some of my previous links to Archives.govt.nz has changed which I’ve updated as well. (Hmm change.. PRA.. ) This current post is most relevant to anyone who is working in the NZ public sector who are using or pla ...[Read More]

Microsoft has released a demo virtual machine consisting of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Beta. The download titled “2010 Information Worker Demonstration Virtual Machine (Beta)” is a 2 part Hyper-V based virtual machines. Note that you will need to allocate at least 6GB to the primary SP2010 VM to be able to demo and work on this. The optimal recommendations are listed on the download page. http://tinyurl.com/IWSP2010 System Requirements: Windows Server 2008 R2; Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise; Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard In order to run this demo you will need the following: - Windows Server 2008 R2 with the Hyper-V role enabled. - Drive Formatting: NTFS - Processor: Intel VT or AMD-V capable - RAM: 8 GB or more recommended - Hard disk space required for install: 50 GB. For my demo setup I use a HP 8530W EliteBook Pro Wo ...[Read More]

Please refer to my previous three posts on Upgrade Planning for SharePoint 2010 – These previous posts outline some important scenarios for your upgrade planning process. SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Planning Part 1, SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Planning Part 2, SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Planning Part 3. In this post I’ll outline the supported scenarios for your SharePoint 2010 upgrade from SharePoint 2007 and how to determine a best approach for your upgrade. I have been working with a few clients who are currently on SharePoint 2007 and are looking to upgrade to SharePoint 2010. So I will try and provide some real world data as part of this post. If you’ve been following my post series I outlined the steps and the approach to move your SharePoint 32bit farm to 64bit since SharePoint 2010 is only available and supported in 64 bit Windows Server ...[Read More]

Please read first two posts in this series. Planning for SharePoint 2010 Part 1, Planning for SharePoint 2010 Part 2. In the last two posts I showed you how to move your data tier to your new 64bit Farm. That is you moved all your databases and tested that you now have a 64bit based database server to host all the content databases. Let’s look at how we can move the application server and the web front end server tiers. In this case you can choose to move both Tiers Tier B and C at the same time or individually. In either case the approach is the same. In order to move your Application Server(s) and the Web Front End Server(s) you’ll need to first install the SharePoint binaries on the servers on Farm B. With information you gathered in your audit you’ll need to do a fresh install of SharePoint on the SPAPP1 server. Note that yo ...[Read More]

Please read Part 1 of this post series before you continue. In this post I will highlight how to move your (32 bit) SQL Server tier to 64 bit. In the case of moving your data tier there are few prerequisites that you should consider. In this case we have the assumption that your new 64bit SQL server deployment has followed best practice guidelines for SQL server. From a SharePoint point of view you should consider the following to enable effective management of your existing content databases or any new databases you are creating. SQL Server 2008 or 2005 (64bit) are both supported when moving to SP2010. Details about preparing your database server can be found here (TechNet). This may be a good time to also plan what your SQL maintenance regime would look like for your new data tier. Start with Database maintenance guidance for Sha ...[Read More]