Which business books influenced you?

A while ago I tagged – 36 best business books that influenced Microsoft leaders – here are the ones I read and definitely liked together with some extra books (the ones in bold come from the original list):

• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.)
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
• Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
• Founders at work : Stories of startup’s early days
• The singularity is near: when humans transcend biology
• The Black Swan : The impact of the Highly improbable
• The conversation manager
• The Long Tail: Why the future of business is selling more of less
• The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century
• The wisdom of crowds
• My organisation is a jungle
• Bill Gates – Business at the speed of thought
• Who moved my cheese
• Giant Killers: thirty four cutting edge management strategies from the worlds leading tech companies
• Complexity: life at the edge of chaos
• Naked conversations: How blogs are changing the way business talk with customers

So which business books influenced you?

SharePoint Server 2010 Capacity Management– talking about software boundaries and limits

Some interesting stuff about software boundaries and limits in SharePoint Server 2010 – take a look at the table below. You should make a distinction between hard limits (which you simply should not exceed) and soft limits – which are a sort of recommendation.

Soft limits
	2007	2010
Content DB Size	100 GB	200 GB
File Size	2 GB	2 GB
DB’s per web app	100	300
Site collection size	100 GB	100 GB
List items per view	2000	5000
Application Pools	8 per web server	10 per web server
Managed Paths	20 per web app	20 per web app
Documents in a library		30 million with nesting. Depends heavily on usage and size of the documents
Indexed items in search	50 million	100 million

There is also a Technet article – SharePoint Server 2010 Capacity Management: Software Boundaries and limits – which provides some additional guidance – this also puts the numbers listed above a little more in perspective.

Content database sizes up to 1 terabyte are supported only for large, single-site repositories and archives with non-collaborative I/O and usage patterns, such as Records Centers. Larger database sizes are supported for these scenarios because their I/O patterns and typical data structure formats have been designed for, and tested at, larger scales.

For a full overview of the different white papers  - check out SharePoint Server 2010 performance and capacity test results and recommendations.

In general the new scale targets for 2010 go above and beyond the ones set in 2007 but design is still important although it becomes more difficult to bring a farm down by just putting millions of docs in one library – check out It looks like you’re building a large library. Would you like help? as well as Working with large lists in SharePoint 2010 – List Throttling .

Happy SharePoint-ing

 

Technorati Tags: sharepoint+2010,sharepoint,capacity+management,sps2010,sps+2010,microsoft,administration

BIWUG Session on SharePoint 2010 and FAST Search Server 2010 on December 1th

Agenda

18:00-18:30 Welcome with sandwich lunch

18:30-19:30 Building a public website with SharePoint Server 2010 – a practical case – www.vib.eu

19:30-19:45 Break

19:45-20:45 Introduction to FAST Search Server for SharePoint 2010

Location: RealDolmen, Industriezone Zenneveld, Vaucampslaan 42, 1654 Huizingen, Belgium

Registration is now opened on the BIWUG site www.biwug.be

Technorati Tags: sharepoint+2010,sps2010,fast,enterprise+search,biwug,community,microsoft

SharePoint 2010–Training videos overview

SharePoint 2010 on Chopsticks Belux

• The SharePoint Client Object Model – Part 1 (Serge Luca, MSDN Chopsticks)
• The SharePoint Client Object Model – Part 2 (Serge Luca, MSDN Chopsticks)

SharePoint 2010 Connections event

• KEYNOTE: The Evolution of SharePoint from Two Pet Projects to a Multi-Company Ecosystem – Mike FitzMaurice
• MSC02: Overview of the SharePoint 2010 Developer Platform – Steve Fox
• MSC03: Social Computing Overview – Daniel McPherson, Robin Meure, Mark van Lunenburg
• MSC04: Web Content Management in SharePoint 2010 – Donald Hessing
• MSC05: Silverlight and SharePoint 2010 Better Together – Jan Tielens
• MSC06: Client Side Technologies in SharePoint 2010 – Jan Tielens
• MSC08: Server Free Solutions: Sandboxed and Client-Only Solutions for SharePoint 2010 – Daniel McPherson
• MSC09: FAST Search for SharePoint: Capabilities Deep Dive – Sam Hassani
• MSC11: SharePoint 2010 Search – Richard Taylor
• MSC16: SharePoint BI Overview – Mike Fitzmaurice
• MSC17: Upgrading Your 2007 Solution to 2010 – Mirjan van Olst, Serge van den Oever
• MSC18: Introduction to SharePoint Designer 2010: Top 5 Great Things to Know! – Asif Rehmani
• MSC19: Overview: Creating Workflows with SharePoint Designer 2010, Infopath and Visio – Asif Rehmani
• MSC20: Creating Data-Centric Composite Applications Using SharePoint Designer 2010 – Asif Rehmani
• MSC21: What’s New in Office 2010? – Bart Wessels
• MSC24: Managing and Sharing Rich Media in SharePoint 2010 – Donald Hessing
• MSC26: Pex – Unit Testing of SharePoint Services that Rocks! – Peli de Halleux
• MSC27: Claims-Based Identity in SharePoint 2010 – Spencer Harbar
• MSC28: SharePoint 2010 Overview and What’s new for End Users – Matthijs Hoekstra
• MSC30: Advanced Web Part Development – Jan Tielens
• MSC31: SharePoint UI Customization – Marianne van Wanrooij
• MSC35: Integrating Workflows into Backend Systems using External Data Exchange Services – Wouter van Vugt
• MSC36: Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Tools Extensibility – Wouter van Vugt
• Creating Code-Free Mashups with InfoPath and SharePoint Web Parts

SharePoint 2010 Advanced developer training

• SharePoint 2010 Developer Platform
• SharePoint 2010 UI Features
• Visual Studio & SharePoint Tools Oveview 
• Business Connectivity Services
• REST and LINQ | SharePoint 2010

TechEd 2009 Videos

• SharePoint Admins, the Reluctant DBAs. Todd Klindt of Solanite Consulting and Shane Young of SharePoint 911 discuss SQL Server for SharePoint admins.
• Following Best Practices and Avoiding Common Errors with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Development. Eric Shupps, president of BinaryWave, presents proven methodologies and common API mistakes in SharePoint Server 2007 projects.
• Building High Performance Features and Solutions on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Andrew Connell of Critical Path Training demonstrates proven publishing strategies for SharePoint developers.

• Top Five Ways to Make Your End Users Heroes with Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007. Asif Rehmani of SharePoint-eLearning.com shows how to instill best practices for your company and users with SharePoint Designer 2007.

• Go Beyond with the Business Data Catalog. Todd Baginski, enterprise solution strategist at Advaiya Inc., provides a series of demos using BDC runtime APIs and custom Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services in Silverlight applications.

• Social Networking and User Profiles for Business. Matthew McDermott, MVP with Catapult Systems Inc., explains social networking profile integration in SharePoint.

• Saving the World, One Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Deployment at a Time: Backup and Disaster Recovery. Todd Klindt of Solanite Consulting, and Shane Young of SharePoint 911 discuss data protection and recoverability in SharePoint Server 2007.

• Automate Business Processes Using InfoPath Forms with Integrated SharePoint Designer Workflows... All without Coding! Asif Rehmani, of SharePoint-eLearning.com, provides a deep dive into Office SharePoint Designer workflows, which let ordinary business users build and validate complex data-driven forms in InfoPath.

• An Introduction to SharePoint Applications using InfoPath 2010
• Building SharePoint Applications with InfoPath 2010
• Form-Driven Mashups using InfoPath and SharePoint 2010

SharePoint 2010 – Visual How to’s

• Visual How To: Creating SharePoint 2010 List Definitions in Visual Studio 2010
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg276355.aspx
• Visual How-to Video: Creating SharePoint 2010 List Definitions in Visual Studio 2010
  http://www.microsoft.com/resources/msdn/en-us/office/media/video/sharepoint.html?uuid=5dc5a521-3451-4445-a829-ad5a9339642c&from=mscomsharepoint
• Visual How-to Sample: Creating SharePoint 2010 List Definitions in Visual Studio 2010
  http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ProjectName=odcsp14h2&ReleaseId=5007
• Visual How To: Creating SharePoint 2010 Site Definitions in Visual Studio 2010
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg276356.aspx
• Visual How-to Video: Creating SharePoint 2010 Site Definitions in Visual Studio 2010
  http://www.microsoft.com/resources/msdn/en-us/office/media/video/sharepoint.html?uuid=efdb4d4d-1201-4a29-aa31-f63bfa1434b0&from=mscomsharepoint
• Visual How-to Sample: Creating SharePoint 2010 Site Definitions in Visual Studio 2010
  http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/odcsp14h2/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=5008
• Visual How To: Adding SharePoint Project Items to SharePoint 2010 in Visual Studio 2010
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg241249.aspx
• Visual How-To Video: Adding SharePoint Project Items with Visual Studio 2010
  http://www.microsoft.com/resources/msdn/en-us/office/media/video/sharepoint.html?uuid=21665af4-e7fc-4574-b9f3-9d5a08fd22c5&from=mscomsharepoint
• Visual How-To: Creating Custom Extensions for SharePoint 2010 Development Tools in Visual Studio 2010
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg241221.aspx
• Visual How-To Video: Creating Custom Extensions for SharePoint 2010 Development Tools in Visual Studio 2010
  http://www.microsoft.com/resources/msdn/en-us/office/media/video/sharepoint.html?uuid=d8c70185-6fb2-4b64-b696-921a58a575d9&from=mscomsharepoint

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,sps+2010,training+material,training,microsoft,videos,community

Big Bang Theory and Information Management videos

• Big Bang Theory and Information Management Part 1 – Introduction
• Big Bang Theory and Information Management Part 2 – The Facebook Dilemma
• Big Bang Theory and Information Management Part 3 – The mobile exigency
• Big Bang Theory and Information Management Part 4 – The SharePoint Paradox
• Big Bang Theory and Information Management Part 5 – The shutterfly effect
• Big Bang Theory and Information Management Part 6 – The black swan

MVP for another year

About a month ago I found out that I have been renewed as SharePoint Server MVP. For people who don’t know what a MVP is– here’s Microsoft’s definition:

“This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in SharePoint Services technical communities during the past year.”

I became an MVP in 2005 and have been working with the Belgian SharePoint community ever since – it has been a great experience and I look forward to the next year.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,sharepoint+2010,community,mvp,sps+2010

Rational Guide to Multi tenancy in SharePoint 2010

Spence has an interesting series of articles about multi tenancy in SharePoint 2010 – a must read

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Planning your deployment
• 3. Example scenario and what multi tenancy brings to the party
• 4. Configuring the base infrastructure
• 5. Configuring Partitioned Service Applications
• 6. Provisioning Tenants

Technorati Tags: sps2010,sharepoint+2010,multi+tenancy,administration,sharepoint,microsoft

Quick Tip–Accessing guest from host with VMWare Workstation

Most SharePoint 2010 developers probably use VMWare workstation (or Virtualbox). But what if you needed to access your SharePoint 2010 environment running in a VM from your host environment? I actually needed this to write a Windows Phone 7 app for SharePoint Server 2010 and since I can’t install the Windows Phone Developer Tools on Windows Server 2008 – I decided to use the install on my Windows 7 host and access SharePoint 2010 from there.

Quite easy – just change network settings to use VMWare Network Adapter VMNet1 (Host only) - A private network shared with the host - this way you can access the host from on your guest OS.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,vmware,tip

Overview of SharePoint 2010 powershell cmdlets

Ever wondered how you can quickly generate an overview of the available Powershell commandlets for SharePoint 2010? Try the next command:

Get-Command –PSSnapin “Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell” | select name, definition | format-list > C:\SP2010_PowerShell_Commands.txt

Technorati Tags: powershell,cmdlet,sps2010,sharepoint,sharepoint+2010

BIWUG Presentations september 2010 online

The presentations from the BIWUG session in september 2010 are available on www.biwug.be in the meeting presentations document library :

• Upgrading from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010
• Administrating SharePoint with Quest

I would like to thank the people from Quest for providing the excellent location as well as our two speakers – Fouad and Karine.

Technorati Tags: biwug,sharepoint,sharepoint+2010,upgrade,sharepoint+server+2010,quest,administration,community

SharePoint Server 2010 “System.ServiceModel.EndPointNotFoundException” in OWSTimer.exe

If you get this error on your SharePoint Server 2010 development machine – ""System.ServiceModel.EndPointNotFoundException” in OWSTimer.exe – then you probably need to manually start the ForeFront Identity Manager Service – it did the trick for me …

SharePoint Stef provided the solution (and additional explanation) in his blogpost – SP2010 “System.ServiceModel.EndpointNotfoundException”.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint+2010,sharepoint+server+2010,sharepoint,administration,sps2010

Building a claims viewer webpart for SharePoint 2010

When running through the MSDN article – Claims Walkthrouhgh: writing claims providers for SharePoint 2010 – I noticed that it did not clearly showed how the webparts where build which showed the overview of the claims for a specific request. Reza pointed me in the correct direction by sending me the link to a post from Steve Peschka (a must read blog for people who work with SharePoint and claims) – Figuring out what claims you have in SharePoint 2010.

Some things you should know when you try to build a claims viewer webpart of your own:

• First download the Windows Identity Foundation SDK
• Read the basics about Claim Based Identity from the Microsoft Patterns & Practices group – A guide to Claims-based Identity and Access control

The code is actually pretty simple – you can use a Visual Web Part (new in 2010) or a standard webpart – here’s a snippet

IClaimsPrincipal cp = Page.User as IClaimsPrincipal;   
if (cp != null)  { 
  IClaimsIdentity ci = (IClaimsIdentity)cp.Identity;   
  foreach (Claim c in ci.Claims) {
       sb.Append(c.ClaimType + " " + c.Value + "<br>"); 
  }
} 

Have fun ….

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,sharepoint2010,sps2010,claims,CBA,WindowsIdentityFoundation,WIF,claims+based+authentication,sharepoint+server+2010

SharePoint 2010 Software Development Kit – august 2010 release

On september 9th a new version of the SharePoint 2010 SDK (august 2010) was released – a must have for every developer.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,sdk,sharepoint+2010,sps2010

Form Based Authentication in SharePoint 2010 and what it has to do with Claim Based Authentication.

Starting from SharePoint Server 2007 it is possible to use the ASP.NET membership and role provider for authentication purposes (meaning you are not limited to pure windows authentication). SharePoint Server 2010 extends on this model by providing claim based authentication.

For authentication 2010 in SharePoint you can choose between 2 models:

• Classic mode authentication
• Claims based authentication mode

Classic mode is provided mostly for legacy purposes since claims is the way forward – take a look at Plan Authentication Methods (SharePoint 2010) on Technet for more details.

If you plan to use anything other then plain windows authentication you have to go for claims based authentication (CBA). Claims based authentication in 2010 supports the following underlying authentication mechanisms:

• Windows claims (when you log on with NTLM or the Kerberos protocol)
• Forms-based authentication claims (when you use an ASP.NET membership and role provider – so use a SQL Server or Oracle database as back-end store)
• Security Assertions Markup Language (SAML) claims -when you log on by using a security token service (STS), such as Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) 2.0.

Claims based authentication in 2010 is implemented on top of Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) – so I recommend that you take a look at this blog post to get you started with a number of resources – Windows Identity Foundation resources for SharePoint 2010 developers.

I wanted to try out Forms-based authentication claims using SQL Server as back-end store and I tried out a number of walkthroughs but this one worked like a charm – Configuring claims and form-based authentication for use with a SQL provider in SharePoint 2010  (Thanks you, Spence for pointing me in the correct direction)

Some additional remarks:

• I first tried this article – How to:Forms Based Authentication(FBA) on SharePoint 2010 but it did not complete correctly – at least for me. It however provides an interesting alternative for managing your ASP.NET users using the IIS 7.0 MMC that I was not aware of. When I find the time I will probably try it again to see how this works.
• It might be interesting to take a look at this Codeplex project – http://fba.codeplex.com
• The steps outlined are mostly manual steps – in a production environment you would probably want to automate it more or less – take a look at SharePoint 2010 Forms Based Authentication Configuration Manager which provides a possible solution

References:

• Forms authentication in SharePoint Products and Technologies (2007): Introduction
• Forms Authentication in SharePoint Products and Technologies (2007 - Part 2): Membership and Role Provider Samples
• Forms Authentication in SharePoint Products and Technologies (2007 - Part 3): Forms Authentication versus Windows Authentication.
• Configuring custom providers using SharePoint 2010 claim based authentication.

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,sharepoint+server+2010,sps2010,claims,CBA,authentication,security,WIF

BIWUG goes Facebook...

I just started a BIWUG group on Facebook - join us if you are interested in sharing information around the Microsoft Information Worker Community in Belgium and Luxemburg

Powershell changes from SharePoint 2010 beta to RTM

When testing some SharePoint 2010 Powershell scripts I noticed that there have been some changes in the naming from beta to RTM – for a good overview check out Changes in SharePoint 2010 powershell commandlets (Forums)

Update: Apparently there is also a Technet page which describes the changes – Updates to Windows PowerShell cmdlets (SharePoint Server 2010)

Technorati Tags: SharePoint2010,sharepoint,powershell,Microsoft,sps2010,administration

10 extra seats available for BIWUG september 2010 session

The number of available seats for the BIWUG session of september 16h has been increased to 45 people (previously 30 people) so 10 people can still register – go quickly to www.biwug.be

Technorati Tags: biwug,sharepoint,community,sharepoint+2010

Free Microsoft training sessions available at MIC Belgium

The Microsoft Innovation Center in Belgium organizes a number of interesting events:

• SharePoint Developers Day  - 15 september
• Club des experts: BPOS & Office Online & Office Web App – 16 september
• Testing Visual Studio 2010 – 21  september
• Silverlight 4 – 7 october
• Club des experts – SharePoint & gestion documentaire
• Construire son Mock up en quelgues heurs – 4 november 4t

All sessions are in French – and registration is possible through – www.mic-belgique.be

Technorati Tags: MIC,microsoft,silverlight,sharepoint,BPOS,developers

BIWUG IT Pro session on september 16th

BIWUG (www.biwug.be) is announcing another session about SharePoint on September 16th at the Quest offices in Diegem.

Agenda

• 18:00-18:30 Welcome
• 18:30-19:30 SharePoint administration and granular recovery (Speaker Quest)
• 19:30-19:45 Break
• 19:45-20:45 Upgrading from SharePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010 (Speaker – Karine Bosch)

More details and registration on the BIWUG site – www.biwug.be

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,community,biwug,sharepoint+administration,sps2010,upgrade

SharePoint 2010 Meeting Workspaces and Blogs are not MUI enabled

A while ago I wrote about the new multilingual capabilities of SharePoint 2010 based on the Multilingual User Interface (MUI) – see Multilingual User Interface (MUI) in SharePoint 2010 – Part I and Multilingual User Interface (MUI) in SharePoint 2010 – Part II. But beware – apparently not all site definitions support the MUI.

If you try to enable alternate languages for a SharePoint 2010 meeting workspace you will get an error stating “this site is based on a template that does not not support alternate languages”.

Now if you want to find out which webtemplates support MUI you can run the following Powershell script:

$siteUrl = "http://hades/"
$site = get-spsite $siteurl

$site.GetWebTemplates("1033") |foreach {Write-Host $_.Title $_.Name  $_.SupportsMultilingualUI;}

you will get a listing of all installed webtemplates within thesite collection specified by the url parameter. Notice the SupportsMultilingualUI property of the SPWebTemplate object – for the Meeting Workspaces and Blog site definitions this will return False.

Next is the complete listing returned on an install with SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Edition.

Global template GLOBAL#0 True
Team Site STS#0 True
Blank Site STS#1 True
Document Workspace STS#2 True
Basic Meeting Workspace MPS#0 False
Blank Meeting Workspace MPS#1 False
Decision Meeting Workspace MPS#2 False
Social Meeting Workspace MPS#3 False
Multipage Meeting Workspace MPS#4 False
Central Admin Site CENTRALADMIN#0 True
Wiki Site WIKI#0 True
Blog BLOG#0 False
Group Work Site SGS#0 True
Tenant Admin Site TENANTADMIN#0 True
Access Services Site ACCSRV#0 True
Assets Web Database ACCSRV#1 True
Charitable Contributions Web Database ACCSRV#3 True
Contacts Web Database ACCSRV#4 True
Issues Web Database ACCSRV#6 True
Projects Web Database ACCSRV#5 True
Document Center BDR#0 True
(obsolete) Records Center OFFILE#0 True
Records Center OFFILE#1 True
Shared Services Administration Site OSRV#0 True
PowerPoint Broadcast Site PowerPointBroadcast#0 True
PerformancePoint PPSMASite#0 True
Business Intelligence Center BICenterSite#0 True
SharePoint Portal Server Site SPS#0 True
SharePoint Portal Server Personal Space SPSPERS#0 True
Personalization Site SPSMSITE#0 True
Contents area Template SPSTOC#0 True
Topic area template SPSTOPIC#0 True
News Site SPSNEWS#0 True
Publishing Site CMSPUBLISHING#0 True
Publishing Site BLANKINTERNET#0 True
Press Releases Site BLANKINTERNET#1 True
Publishing Site with Workflow BLANKINTERNET#2 True
News Site SPSNHOME#0 True
Site Directory SPSSITES#0 True
Community area template SPSCOMMU#0 True
Report Center SPSREPORTCENTER#0 True
Collaboration Portal SPSPORTAL#0 True
Enterprise Search Center SRCHCEN#0 True
Profiles PROFILES#0 True
Publishing Portal BLANKINTERNETCONTAINER#0 True
My Site Host SPSMSITEHOST#0 True
Enterprise Wiki ENTERWIKI#0 True
Basic Search Center SRCHCENTERLITE#0 True
Basic Search Center SRCHCENTERLITE#1 True
FAST Search Center SRCHCENTERFAST#0 True
Visio Process Repository visprus#0 True

 

Technorati Tags: sharepoint,sharepoint+2010,MUI,Multilingual,SPS2010,microsoft