Friday, December 20, 2013

December 2013 CU for SharePoint 2013 has been released

Microsoft has released the December 2013 CU for SharePoint 2013.

According to Stefan Gobner, there appears to be two files to download, due to size, as opposed to the single, self-extracting compressed file in the past. There also seems to be a major issue with this CU and the Performance Point Dashboard.

Please read carefully before deploying

ATTENTION:

Previous releases of the SharePoint Server 2013 cumulative update included both the executable and the .CAB file in the same self-extracting executable download. Because of the file size, the SharePoint Server 2013 package has been divided into two separate downloads. One contains the executable file (identified as ubersrv2013kb2850024fullfilex64glb), while the other contains the .CAB file (identified as ubersrv_1). Both are necessary and must be extracted to the same folder to successfully install the update. Both are available by clicking the same Hotfix Download Available link in the KB article for the release.

See the KB article of the SharePoint Server CU for more details.

KNOWN ISSUE:

After installing the SharePoint 2013 Server December 2013 CU PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer no longer loads. When you try to open Dashboard Designer in SharePoint 2013, you receive an error message. You should not install the SharePoint Server 2013 CU listed below if you need PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer.

The KB articles for December CU will be available at the following locations in a couple of days:
  • KB 2849961 - SharePoint Foundation 2013 December 2013 CU
  • KB 2850024 - SharePoint Server 2013 December 2013 CU
  • KB (delayed) - SharePoint Server 2013 with Project Server December 2013 CU
  • KB 2850013 - Office Web Apps Server 2013 December 2013 CU
The Full Server Packages for December 2013 CU are available through the following links:
After installing the fixes you need to run the SharePoint 2013 Products Configuration Wizard on each machine in the farm.
Be aware that the SharePoint Server 2013 CU contains the SharePoint Foundation CU. And the SharePoint Server 2013 with Project Server CU contains Project Server CU, SharePoint Server CU and SharePoint Foundation CU.
That means only one package has to be installed for the SharePoint 2013 product family.

See the KB article of the SharePoint Server CU for more details.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

F5 Load Balancing Methods / Algorithms

Using the default load balancing method

The default load balancing method for the LTM system is Round Robin, which simply passes each new connection request to the next server in line. All other load balancing methods take server capacity and/or status into consideration.

If the equipment that you are load balancing is roughly equal in processing speed and memory, Round Robin mode works well in most configurations. If you want to use the Round Robin method, you can skip the remainder of this section, and begin configuring other pool settings that you want to add to the basic pool configuration.

Selecting a load balancing method

If you are working with servers that differ significantly in processing speed and memory, you may want to switch to one of the Ratio or dynamic methods.

Round Robin

This is the default load balancing method. Round Robin mode passes each new connection request to the next server in line, eventually distributing connections evenly across the array of machines being load balanced. Round Robin mode works well in most configurations, especially if the equipment that you are load balancing is roughly equal in processing speed and memory.
Ratio (member) and Ratio (node)

The LTM system distributes connections among machines according to ratio weights that you define, where the number of connections that each machine receives over time is proportionate to a ratio weight you define for each machine. These are static load balancing methods, basing distribution on static user-assigned ratio weights that are proportional to the capacity of the servers. 

Regarding Ratio load balancing:

Load balancing calculations may be localized to each pool (member-based calculation) or they may apply to all pools of which a server is a member (node-based calculation). This distinction is especially important with the Ratio method; with the Ratio (member) method, the actual ratio weight is a member setting in the pool definition, whereas with the Ratio (node) method, the ratio weight is a setting of the node.

The default ratio setting for any node is 1. If you use the Ratio (as opposed to Ratio (member) load balancing method, you must set a ratio other than 1 for at least one node in the configuration. If you do not change at least one ratio setting, the load balancing method has the same effect as the Round Robin load balancing method.

Warning: If you set the load balancing method to Ratio (node), as opposed to Ratio (Member), you must define a ratio setting for each node.

Dynamic Ratio

The Dynamic Ratio method is like the Ratio method except that ratio weights are based on continuous monitoring of the servers and are therefore continually changing.
This is a dynamic load balancing method, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the current number of connections per node or the fastest node response time.

The Dynamic Ratio method is used specifically for load balancing traffic to RealNetworks® RealSystem® Server platforms, Windows® platforms equipped with Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), or any server equipped with an SNMP agent such as the UC Davis SNMP agent or Windows 2000 Server SNMP agent. To implement Dynamic Ratio load balancing, you must first install and configure the necessary server software for these systems, and then install the appropriate performance monitor. For more information, see Appendix A, Additional Monitor Considerations .

Fastest (node) and Fastest (application)

The Fastest methods pass a new connection based on the fastest response of all currently active nodes. These methods may be particularly useful in environments where nodes are distributed across different logical networks. Load balancing calculations may be localized to each pool (member-based calculation) or they may apply to all pools of which a server is a member (node-based calculation).

Least Connections (member) and Least Connections (node)

The Least Connections methods are relatively simple in that the LTM system passes a new connection to the node that has the least number of current connections. Least Connections methods work best in environments where the servers or other equipment you are load balancing have similar capabilities.

These are dynamic load balancing methods, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the current number of connections per node or the fastest node response time.

Load balancing calculations may be localized to each pool (member-based calculation) or they may apply to all pools of which a server is a member (node-based calculation).

Observed (member) and Observed (node)

The Observed methods use a combination of the logic used in the Least Connections and Fastest modes. With the Observed methods, nodes are ranked based on a combination of the number of current connections and the response time. Nodes that have a better balance of fewest connections and fastest response time receive a greater proportion of the connections. The Observed modes also work well in any environment, but may be particularly useful in environments where node performance varies significantly.

These are dynamic load balancing methods, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the current number of connections per node or the fastest node response time.

Load balancing calculations may be localized to each pool (member-based calculation) or they may apply to all pools of which a server is a member (node-based calculation).

Predictive (member) and Predictive (node)

The Predictive methods also use the ranking methods used by the Observed methods, where nodes are rated according to a combination of the number of current connections and the response time. However, with the Predictive methods, the LTM system analyzes the trend of the ranking over time, determining whether a node's performance is currently improving or declining. The nodes with better performance rankings that are currently improving, rather than declining, receive a higher proportion of the connections. The Predictive methods work well in any environment.

The Predictive methods are dynamic load balancing methods, distributing connections based on various aspects of real-time server performance analysis, such as the current number of connections per node or the fastest node response time.

Load balancing calculations may be localized to each pool (member-based calculation) or they may apply to all pools of which a server is a member (node-based calculation).

SharePoint 2013 Load Balancing Affinity / Persistence / Sticky Sessions

I remember hearing that 2013 no longer requires sticky sessions (affinity/persistence) in the load balancing solution. This is due to the new distributed cache service which now hosts the login tokens. see more below


Improvements in claims infrastructure

SharePoint 2013 also includes the following improvements in claims authentication infrastructure:
  • Easier migration from classic mode to Windows-based claims mode with the new Convert-SPWebApplication Windows PowerShell cmdlet
    Migration can be run against each content database and each web application. This is in contrast to SharePoint 2010 Products, in which the migration was run against each web application. For more information, see Migrate from classic-mode to claims-based authentication in SharePoint 2013.
  • Login tokens are now cached in the new Distributed Cache Service
    SharePoint 2013 uses a new Distributed Cache Service to cache login tokens. In SharePoint 2010 Products, the login token is stored in the memory of each web front-end server. Each time a user accesses a specific web front-end server, it needs to authenticate. If you use network load balancers in front of your web front-ends, users need to authenticate for each web front-end server that is accessed behind the load balancer, causing possible multiple re-authentications. To avoid re-authentication and its delay, it is recommended to enable and configure load balancer affinity (also known as sticky sessions). By storing the login tokens in the Distributed Cache Service in SharePoint 2013, the configuration of affinity in your load balancing solution is no longer required. There are also scale-out benefits and less memory utilization in the web front-ends because of a dedicated cache service.
  • More logging makes the troubleshooting of authentication issues easier
    SharePoint 2013 has much more logging to help you troubleshoot authentication issues. Examples of enhanced logging support are the following:
    • Separate categorized-claims related logs for each authentication mode
    • Information about adding and removing FedAuth cookies from the Distributed Cache Service
    • Information about the reason why a FedAuth cookie could not be used, such as a cookie expiration or a failure to decrypt
    • Information about where authentication requests are redirected
    • Information about the failures of user migration in a specific site collection

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Disaster Recovery Guide

Where does it all go wrong with disaster recovery? Why a disaster recovery plan fails the business and costs IT staff their jobs or a promotion? This book is an easy to understand guide that explains how to get it right and why it often goes wrong.

Given that Microsoft's SharePoint platform has become a mission critical application where business operations just cannot run without complete up time of this technology, disaster recovery is one of the most important topics when it comes to SharePoint. Yet, support and an appropriate approach for this technology are still difficult to come by, and are often vulnerable to technical oversight and assumptions.

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Disaster Recovery Guide looks at SharePoint disaster recovery and breaks down the mystery and confusion that surrounds what is a vital activity to any technical deployment. This book provides a holistic approach with practical recipes that will help you to take advantage of the new 2013 functionality and cloud technologies.

You will also learn how to plan, test, and deploy a disaster recovery environment using SharePoint, Windows Server, and SQL tools. We will also take a look at datasets and custom development. If you want to have an approach to disaster recovery that gives you peace of mind, then this is the book for you.

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Disaster Recovery Guide - by Peter Ward, Pavlo Andrushkiw, Peter Abreu, Pat Esposito, Jeff Gellman, Joel Plaut.
  1. Design, implement, test, and execute solid disaster recovery plans for your SharePoint environment with this essential guide
  2. Learn out of the box backup and restore procedures
  3. Implement a solid disaster recovery strategy for custom development environments
  4. A quick hands on guide to get familiar with procedures to secure your data
  5. Learn why disaster recovery is a struggle to understand and implement
  6. Learn how to support optimized application recovery times with tiered service levels
  7. Inherit a mission critical environment that has no disaster recovery plans
  8. Get familiar with backup and restore procedures that are available to an administrator as well as the pros and cons of each
  9. Learn about Disaster recovery in regards to virtualization and the cloud
  10. Architect data in SharePoint with disaster recovery in mind
  11. Build confidence and refine disaster recovery plans with more frequent testing
  12. Create a theme for use with your video player
http://bit.ly/1dkaMHh

Monday, November 18, 2013

Remove / Uninstall SharePoint 2013 Cleanly

SharePoint 2013 is removed by uninstalling it from Control Panel. When you uninstall SharePoint 2013, most files and subfolders in the installation folders are removed. However, some files are not removed.

  1. Web.config files, index files, log files, and customization's are not automatically removed when you uninstall SharePoint 2013.
  2. SQL Server databases are detached but are not removed from the database server.
  3. If you uninstall a single server that has a built-in database, SQL Server Express is not removed.
  4. All user data remains in the database files

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

SharePoint 2013 Ports and Protocols

The following is a list of ports and protocols which SharePoint 2013 Farms utilize.

This can be leveraged as a guide for configuring firewalls and/or security hardening of the farm.

  • TCP 80, TCP 443 (SSL)
  • Custom ports for search crawling, if configured (such as for crawling a file share or a website on a non-default port)
  • Ports used by the search index component — TCP 16500-16519 (intra-farm only)
  • Ports required for the AppFabric Caching Service — TCP 22233-22236
  • Ports required for Windows Communication Foundation communication — TCP 808
  • Ports required for communication between Web servers and service applications (the default is HTTP):
    • HTTP binding: TCP 32843
    • HTTPS binding: TCP 32844
    • net.tcp binding: TCP 32845 (only if a third party has implemented this option for a service application)
  • Ports required for synchronizing profiles between SharePoint 2013 and Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) on the server that runs the Forefront Identity Management agent:
    • TCP 5725
    • TCP&UDP 389 (LDAP service)
    • TCP&UDP 88 (Kerberos)
    • TCP&UDP 53 (DNS)
    • UDP 464 (Kerberos Change Password)

  • Default ports for SQL Server communication — TCP 1433, UDP 1434. If these ports are blocked on the SQL Server computer (recommended) and databases are installed on a named instance, configure a SQL Server client alias for connecting to the named instance.
  • Microsoft SharePoint Foundation User Code Service (for sandbox solutions) — TCP 32846. This port must be open for outbound connections on all Web servers. This port must be open for inbound connections on Web servers or application servers where this service is turned on.
  • Ensure that ports remain open for Web applications that are accessible to users.
  • Block external access to the port that is used for the Central Administration site.
  • SMTP for e-mail integration — TCP 25

Thursday, October 24, 2013

SharePoint 2010 / 2013 - Create, Add or Promote User Account to Farm Admin Account Rights

As we all know, adding user accounts to the Farm Administrators Group in SharePoint does NOT give those user accounts the same access/rights/security as the Farm Admin Account.

The Farm Admin has additional SQL rights/roles on the databases (config and content), as well as being added to multiple local server groups, providing access to the Sharepoint Powershell snap-in Admin Group.

Octavie has a great post on this. Take a look for more info:
blog.octavie.nl/index.php/2011/11/07/creating-additional-sharepoint-2010-farm-administrators/


Metalogix Acquires Idera’s SharePoint Business Including Market-Leading SharePoint Backup and Diagnostic Manager



Metalogix has been steadily buying up hefty swaths of the Microsoft SharePoint ecosystem — and it's now bought up Idera's SharePoint business. It includes tools that focus on backup, maintenance, security and governance.

"Metalogix suite of best-in-class SharePoint products now includes Idera’s SharePoint Backup product, the industry’s fastest SharePoint backup technology, which delivers instant deployments and full farm protection of business critical content. Metalogix will integrate SharePoint Backup with Metalogix StoragePoint, the industry-leading storage optimization technology, to provide lightning-fast speeds for the backup and recovery of terabytes of content in just minutes, instead of hours or days."

"Once the tools from Idera and Axceler are fully integrated with Metalogix, the company will focus innovation on cloud and mobile technology. The Axceler integration is right on schedule, and there's a webinar coming up in November that will more fully detail the company's plans."
- Metalogix Press Release, October 23, 2013

With over 14,000 customers, in 86 countries on 7 continents, Metalogix is the fastest growing SharePoint-focused Independent Software Vendor (ISV) in the world and a partner to get to know in the SharePoint space...

Take a look at Metalogix's SharePoint offerings for managing your SharePoint Farms/environments/implementations..

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Network & Server Best Practices and Hardening for Microsoft Products

While researching standards around enterprise-level server hardening and high availability best practices, I came across a couple of good documents/links.

Active Directory to SharePoint to networking best practices and security considerations for a full Microsoft implementation.


Microsoft High Availability Strategy 

Includes SharePoint, Exchange, Windows Server, SQL, Hyper V and clustering. Provides a logical overview of the many high-availability tools, solutions, and programs available from Microsoft.
Best Practices for Securing Active Directory
Contains recommendations to enhance the security of Active Directory installations, discusses common attacks against Active Directory and countermeasures to reduce the attack surface, and offers recommendations for recovery.
Appendix
Description
Contains a list of companies that produce patch and vulnerability management software.
Provides background information that helps you to identify the users and groups that are granted elevated privileges in Active Directory and on domain-joined systems. These accounts typically present the greatest risk because they can be leveraged by attackers to compromise and even destroy your Active Directory installation.
Contains information about protected groups in Active Directory.
Provides guidelines to secure the built-in Administrator account in each domain in a forest.
Provides step-by-step instructions to help secure the Enterprise Admins group in an Active Directory forest.
Provides step-by-step instructions to help secure the Domain Admins group in each domain in a forest.
Provides step-by-step instructions to help secure the built-in Administrators group in each domain in a forest.
Provides step-by-step instructions to help secure local Administrator accounts and groups on domain-joined systems.
Provides information and steps to create accounts that have limited privileges and can be stringently controlled, but can be used to populate privileged groups in Active Directory when temporary elevation is required.
Contains a list of third-party, role-based access control (RBAC) software vendors and their solutions.
Contains a list of third-party privileged identity management (PIM) software vendors and their offerings.
Lists events for which you should monitor in your environment.
Contains a list of recommended reading. Also contains a list of links to external documents and their URLs so that readers of hard copies of this document can access this information.

Network Management System: Best Practices
ISO Network Management Model - How to increase the overall effectiveness of current netork management tools and practices.
The goal of fault management is to detect, log, notify users of, and (to the extent possible) automatically fix network problems to keep the network running effectively
The goal of configuration management is to monitor network and system configuration information so that the effects on network operation of various versions of hardware and software elements can be tracked and managed.
The goal of performance management is to ensure system and resource availability through SLA's, monitoring and reporting.
The goal of security management is to control access to network resources according to local guidelines so that the network cannot be sabotaged (intentionally or unintentionally).
Accounting management is the process used to measure network utilization parameters so that individual or group users on the network can be regulated appropriately for the purposes of accounting or chargeback. 







Thursday, September 26, 2013

SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search File Types Inclusion - not Exclusion

I just had a client which was looking to move their internet-facing search infrastructure from the expensive Google Search Appliance to SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search. After creating/configuring the content sources, I launched a full crawl. Once the crawl completed, I noticed that my index contained ~66% of the content the GSA indexed.

As I dug into the GSA configuration, I came across a frustrating scenario. GSA has a list of file extensions to EXCLUDE from crawls...which was a very short list (jpg's, gif's, mov, avi, mp3, etc)....my problem was that SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search's file type list is an Inclusion list, as opposed to an Exclusion list. The pre-populated list contains office and other common document extensions (~20) OOTB. This list helps with indexing collaboration documents and content without indexing lots of files which collaboration users would never require.

While that's a time saver for those implementing standard Enterprise Search in an intranet scenario, it is not a very good model for indexing external/public-facing content, (internet site, line of business applications/databases) for internet users, as many of these articles/content are spread across a wide range of file types.

For those of you out there who are screaming "my 2010 SharePoint Farm contains an exclusion list for crawled file types"... I bet you are running FAST Search as opposed to Enterprise Search... as FAST (F4SP) for SharePoint does indeed have the exclusion list and not the inclusion list.

After a bit of digging, I was able to find a post which detailed a solution for replacing Enterprise Search's Inclusion list, with an Exclusion list...(flipping the scenario upside-down and providing the same configuration as GSA).

Thanks to Allen Wang's and Venkat's posts: SharePoint 2010 Search File Type Include or Exclude
Thanks to Venkat's post for the PowerShell Solution: SharePoint 2010 Enterprise search to maintain Exclusion List for Crawled file Types Instead of Inclusion List

<Excerpted from above blog>

To flip the current Search Service Application to Maintain Exclusion File Types list instead of Inclusions list: (Run the below command in SharePoint PowerShell Console:)

  • Find your Search Admin Application's Application Class ID:
$sa = Get-SPServiceApplication | where { $_.ApplicationClassId -eq “52547a3d-66ed-468e-b00a-8c4a3ec7d404″ }


  • Set the Search Service Application to maintain Excluded File Types: (Run the below command in SharePoint PowerShell Console:)

$sa.SetIsExtensionIncludeList($sa.GetVersion(),0);

  • Stop and Start Search: (Run the below command in SharePoint PowerShell Console:)

net stop OSearch14
net start OSearch14

  • Remove the existing File Types: (Run the below command in SharePoint PowerShell Console:)
*Replace the “SSA” with the name of your Search Service Application*

$ssa = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication -Identity “SSA
$content = New-Object Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.Content($ssa)
$extList = $content.ExtensionList
$list = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
foreach ($ext in $extList)
{
$list.Add($ext);
}
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $list.Count; $i++)
{
$ext = $list[$i]
$ext.FileExtension
$ext.Delete()
}

  • Run a full crawl on content source and you should now see all the pages are being crawled except the file types in exclusion list

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Modifying File Types in SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search Index via PowerShell

Powershell commands for File Types in SharePoint 2010 content index

Powershell commands for adding, deleting and getting the file types in the content index.

Add a new file type to the content index
$searchApplicationName = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication "<NAME OF YOUR SEARCH SERVICE APPLICATION>"
$searchApplicationName | New-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlExtension "ascx"

List a particular file extension
$searchApplicationName = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication "<NAME OF YOUR SEARCH SERVICE APPLICATION>"
$searchApplicationName | Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlExtension "ascx"

Display list of all file extensions
$searchApplicationName = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication "<NAME OF YOUR SEARCH SERVICE APPLICATION>"
$searchApplicationName | Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlExtension

Delete an extension
$searchApplicationName = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication "<NAME OF YOUR SEARCH SERVICE APPLICATION>"
$searchApplicationName | Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlExtension "ascx"| Remove-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlExtension

Friday, September 6, 2013

Office 365 - SharePoint Online Improves Limits and Makes It Easier to Restore Documents

Based on feedback and reports on how customers use the service, Microsoft made the following improvements to SharePoint Online:

Improved file upload experience
  • Increased file upload limit from 250MB to 2 GB
  • Expanded support for a broader range of file types: SharePoint Online now accepts a broader range of file types, specifically .exe and .dll. 
Uploading large files into SkyDrive Pro (applicable to team site document libraries as well); files were dragged and dropped from the desktop into the Web interface.
See SharePoint Online blocked file type list.
 Increased Site collection and list look-up limits
  • Increased site collection limit from 3,000 to 10,000 
  • List look-up threshold increased to 12 look-ups.
*Note: this increase only applies to Office 365 Enterprise plans (including Education and Government) - Office 365 Small Business and Midsize Business remain at a single site collection and twenty site collections respectively.
Review the list of all SharePoint Online boundaries and limitations. 
Improved self-restoration
  • Increasing recycle bin retention duration (from 30-90 days)
  • Turning versioning on by default for new SkyDrive Pro libraries with 10 versions being retained.
A user's SkyDrive Pro Recycle Bin accessed by clicking the gear icon > Site contents 


  • All above announcements apply to all Office 365 business plans - except the 10,000 site collection increase (only applicable to Office 365 Enterprise plans (including Education and Government).
  • Does not apply to Office 365 Home Premium offering, which combines the latest Office applications with Skype and SkyDrive storage.
  • Office 365 dedicated plans are not receiving this same update, because they are managed in a unique, isolated infrastructure.
  • SharePoint will not execute any arbitrary EXEs or DLLs uploaded by a user to a team site or to their SkyDrive Pro.
    1. SharePoint will only accept uploads from authenticated users reducing risks that an outside attacker could post any malicious files.
    2. SharePoint has an antivirus scanning engine built in to detect malicious files.
    3. If user's attempt to execute a malicious file in their synced folders, Outlook and Windows have warning pop-up dialogs requesting consent from the user before the malicious file can execute.
    4. Many users also have antivirus scanning applications on their client computers and therefore would detect and quarantine any malicious files.
    5. Finally, should admins have cause to worry about these scenarios, they can enable auditing to any document library to detect which end user initially uploaded the malicious file.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Storage and SQL Server capacity planning and configuration (SharePoint Server 2013)

The much anticipated, Storage and SQL Server capacity planning and configuration (SharePoint Server 2013) article is now live on TechNet.

The product group invested many hours of testing both SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 and SQL Server 2012 with SharePoint Server 2013. Use the resulting data in this article as a guideline to help you plan and deploy SQL Server in your SharePoint Server 2013 farm....

(more...)  http://blogs.technet.com/b/tothesharepoint/archive/2013/08/26/new-storage-and-sql-server-capacity-planning-article-for-sharepoint-server-2013.aspx


Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Metalogix Acquires Axcelor's ControlPoint

Source: Metalogix Press Release

At Metalogix we love to make history.  And today we have done it once again!

Today we announced the acquisition of Axceler’s SharePoint business, including the industry standard for SharePoint governance and administration, ControlPoint for SharePoint Administration. This acquisition is a game-changer for the industry and it marks a key milestone for our company in our decade-long commitment to providing the best-in-class SharePoint solutions for our customers to deploy, operate and protect their mission critical content.

The combination of our market-leading portfolio and Axceler’s successful SharePoint business firmly establishes Metalogix as the fastest-growing SharePoint-focused Independent Software Vendor (ISV) in the world with 13,000 customers in 86 countries on all 7 continents. With the addition of ControlPoint, Metalogix now offers our customers a unique value unmatched in the market – a single source delivery of a complete suite of SharePoint migration, administration, storage, optimization and replication technology that stands apart from the competition.

Today’s acquisition was made with our current and future customers in mind, as they will benefit in the following ways:

  • Enhanced SharePoint migration, governance, storage management and replicator technology suite featuring the best-in-class products at every point across the SharePoint lifecycle
  • Critical operations management expansion to support SharePoint growth and maturity with the addition of ControlPoint administrator and governance products
  • Expanded customer resources and support that includes including our live 24x7 support program

Today we’ve changed the landscape of the SharePoint industry, but this is only the beginning for Metalogix as we warmly welcome Axceler customers and partners to the Metalogix family and continue to evolve and grow together.  If you would like to learn more about the benefits of this acquisition, please read our press release and FAQ or visit the product page on Metalogix.com.

Thank you in advance for your continued business. I greatly look forward to enhancing our relationship and continuing to making history together.

Steven Murphy
CEO
Metalogix
murphy@metalogix.net

Thursday, August 22, 2013

SharePoint 2014 Conference

March 3-6, 2014 Las Vegas, Nevada

(excerpted from: http://www.sharepointconference.com/conference)

SharePoint Conference 2014 is being held March 3-6, 2014 at the Venetian Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. It is the largest Microsoft SharePoint event in the world, and has grown each year since it debuted in 2006.

The conference offers a wide variety of presentations, labs, certification testing, Q&A sessions, workshops, and networking events for attendees to build their skills and meet other SharePoint and Yammer professionals.

SPC14 is designed for our three major audiences, Developers, IT Professionals, and Executives with content ranging from overviews and introductory lessons to deep dive sessions.

We have a ton of topics from building solutions to designing architecture to maximizing ROI to increasing employee engagement and collaboration. We also drill down into areas like Search, Security, Yammer, Office, ECM, Architecture, O365, Azure, SQL Server, and many others to help our attendees get the most of SharePoint, Yammer and their related products. To learn more about what awaits you, check out the audiences page.

Along with the best new content, industry trends, and product announcements, there will be SharePoint and Yammer product managers, engineers, and industry experts answering questions, giving presentations, and hosting discussions. Access to the top SharePoint  and Yammer people has never been easier!


Friday, August 16, 2013

Keep SharePoint Farms Synchronized with Mixed Versions of SP

Metalogix releases Replicator for SharePoint..

Sync Across Any Version of SharePointSync Real-time Across Multiple Farms
Replicator finds the most efficient path across your network when syncing content across multiple farms. Content follows users as they go through their workday, regardless of where they are located. Replicator scales as your organization grows, ensuring that content is in-sync with your users. Replicator can sync immediately after changes happen or on a regular schedule, boosting productivity and collaboration and reducing errors and operational risks.
Make Content Highly Available icon

Sync Across Any Version

SharePoint is constantly evolving, with organizations deploying new versions regularly. Replicator provides the ability to synchronize content between distant farms across any combination of SharePoint 2007, 2010 and 2013. Keep SharePoint in sync during a migration, merger, and acquisition or when sharing content with an organization outside of your network.
Sync Farms or a Selection icon

Control What is Replicated

Organizations now use SharePoint globally, which often means 
that you may need to provide user access to all or just some 
content for business, security and compliance reasons. Replicator 
eliminates this problem by delivering the right content to 
different divisions and locations. You manage a master content 
database at headquarters and decide what to share with remote 
farms, with granularity from entire web applications to specific 
list item.

Sync Despite Poor Connections icon

Sync Despite Poor Connections

Synchronizing SharePoint farms in remote offices or offshore locations 
can be tricky. Spotty network bandwidth and slow connections pose 
huge hurdles. Replicator overcomes these hurdles by automatically 
adapting to changing network conditions and rerouting content where 
it needs to go.

Make Content Highly AvailableOutages happen. Yet your 

content must be “always on” for customers, partners and employees. 

Set up a safety net by replicating content across multiple SharePoint 

farms. Give users continuous access to SharePoint even if any part of 

your environment fails. Use Replicator for up time during power, system 

or network failures and planned outages.

Replicator Sync Farms

Replicate to and from the Cloud

Want to use the Cloud to improve high availability or remote access? 
Replicate all or some of your content to Azure, Amazon or 
other cloud providers. Replicator's fast SharePoint synchronization and 
low bandwidth requirements make it the ideal SharePoint replication 
solution to extend content to the Cloud.
Replicate to the Cloud icon

Extend SharePoint to Partners and Customers

Share documents with partners and customers by setting up a server 
outside your firewall and synchronizing with headquarters. Replicator 
works through firewalls and ensures security when extending your 
business to external business partners.
Extend SharePoint to Partners and Customers icon

Prioritize Sync Based on Rules

Rank what replicates first, because your financial data is more important 
than company party pictures. Classify and prioritize content based on 
important site collections, list items or metadata such as document 
type, file size, or file name. Ensure the most important 
content is available and distributed on time.
Prioritize Sync Based on Rules icon

Conflicts? What Conflicts?

Resolve document version conflicts according to rules you define, either 
manually or automatically. For example, if the date on an inbound 
item is older than the date on an existing item, specify whether to skip it,
replace it, or create a report for further review. Email team members about
 conflicts for faster resolution.
Conflicts? What Conflicts? icon

Visually Manage Your SharePoint Replication

See your overall SharePoint layout to verify you've made the right connections 
and your content arrives in time. Verify the status of all your SharePoint 
replication activity over multiple servers, across distant farms, in one 
place. Drill down to see detailed traffic information and view replication 
trends by day, week, or month. Confidently know where your documents are 
in your SharePoint landscape.

SharePoint 2013 Service Accounts

The following is the list of accounts I use when building Enterprise Production SP2013 farms. 


Account name
Role
Rights
SPSetup
Used to install SharePoint binaries
• Domain User
• Local Admin all SP servers
• DBCreator SQL role
• SecurityAdmin SQL role
SPFarm
Farm account. Used for Windows Timer Service, Central Admin and User Profile service
• Domain User
• Local Admin during UPS provisioning
• Log on locally right
SPPortalAppPool
App pool id for content web apps
• Domain User
SPServicesAppPool
Service app pool id
• Domain User
SPMySitesAppPool
MySites App pool id for profile service
• Domain User
SPSearch
Search process id
• Domain User
SPContent
Account used to crawl content
• Domain User
SPProfileSync
Account used by the User Profile services to access Active Directory
Must have Replicating Change permissions to AD. Must be given in BOTH ADUC and ADSIEDIT. If domain is Windows 2003 or early, must also be a member of the "Pre-Windows 2000" built-in group.
SPCacheSuperUser
Super User Cache account
• Domain User
• Web app Policy Full ControL
SPCacheSuperReader
Super Reader Cache account
• Domain User
• Web app Policy Full Read
SPServices
The SPServices account is used to run several service applications 
• Domain User