This exam which is a requirement for many a Gold Partner to get the SharePoint Fast software included in their Partner package is an interesting one.
According to one of our guys who passed the second attempt:
It was quite scenario based is what he said.
So there are four main areas, but what is is really that we need to do to pass?
a) One needs to be able to plan therequird hardware as well as how what needs configuring inside SharePoint
b) Then there is the deployment - and there are various ways to do this
c) Then there is a maintence, monitoring and backup/restore strategies
d) Finally there is the all imortant search, content management and Business Intelligence side of things.
#
Showing posts with label Microsoft SharePoint. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft SharePoint. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Studying for the SharePoint Administrator Exam 70-668
There are 4 main areas one nees to know very well to pass this:
It looks like I know the first 3 areas quite well and the 4ths ok except for some of the new stuff or should I say, the marketing fluff that Microsoft outputs as some of what they are asking for seems a little ambigous.
Will now go over tehir learning plan and do a few step by step SharePoint installs and configuration.
This is going to mean a little work over the next week or so.
Here's to my painful journey to dichipher and study for an exam with no real studfy book or course material except what one can glean from the requirements.
Found out that there are hundreds if not thousands of links to mini articles at technet and msdn.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/ff627858.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd776256%28v=office.12%29.aspx
So will go through these, plus hte help, and one of the wrox books and this will hopefully be what is required.
- Designing a SharePoint 2010 Farm Topology (27 percent)
- Planning SharePoint 2010 Deployment (26 percent)
- Defining a SharePoint 2010 Operations Strategy and Business Continuity (25 percent)
- Planning for Search and Business Solutions (22 percent)
It looks like I know the first 3 areas quite well and the 4ths ok except for some of the new stuff or should I say, the marketing fluff that Microsoft outputs as some of what they are asking for seems a little ambigous.
Will now go over tehir learning plan and do a few step by step SharePoint installs and configuration.
This is going to mean a little work over the next week or so.
Here's to my painful journey to dichipher and study for an exam with no real studfy book or course material except what one can glean from the requirements.
Found out that there are hundreds if not thousands of links to mini articles at technet and msdn.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/ff627858.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd776256%28v=office.12%29.aspx
So will go through these, plus hte help, and one of the wrox books and this will hopefully be what is required.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
SharePoint 2010 Administration exam
For the Microsoft Gold Partnership renewal coming up in 2012 this requires 4 people to do the exam below.
Exam 70-668:
PRO: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Administrator
Designing a SharePoint 2010 Farm Topology (27 percent)
Planning SharePoint 2010 Deployment (26 percent)
Defining a SharePoint 2010 Operations Strategy and Business Continuity
(25 percent)
Planning for Search and Business Solutions (22 percent)
Interesting how the farm topology is worth more than the other parts......
Monday, August 09, 2010
Recent Projects I’ve done
Microsoft Excel 2007 Chart and Table formatting for large professional services firm.
We had previously done an Excel Chart Formatting Add-in last year as part of a project to upgrade to Microsoft Office 2007. The client wanted to include nicely formatted tables as well as charts from Microsoft Excel into their Word Documents and PowerPoint Presentations.
As a result of their requirements, we made a customized ribbon which allowed the users select a chart or range of cells and click on the format button. After clicking on the format button a form popped up allowing them to select a standard size. They could also tick to output the result as an image for pasting straight into Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint. These images could be resized inside Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint without the fonts or other components losing their fidelity. We also helped them roll out a custom Microsoft Office Theme which was used to set the colours and the font used.
Automated daily Microsoft Excel Branch Reporting to a SharePoint Extranet.
The problem the client had was generating and emailing daily reports in Excel to each branch one by one. They wanted to automate the saving of these Excel Reports into SharePoint daily.
Initially SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 was looked at, but it didn't output the worksheet names nicely. We ended up using Microsoft Sql Server Integration Services to do the Microsoft Excel automation. There were a few tricks to make the pivot tables work nicely and now a Microsoft Excel report is saved each morning for each branch into their specific document library. The SharePoint Extranet was created from a script generated by our special Excel SharePoint Extranet creator Application. This makes it easy to set up SharePoint Groups that are easy to maintain.
Excel Application for generating monthly branch reports to large SharePoint Extranet.
The client previously had a mess of workbooks all linked for each branch for the last 3 years. Maintenance of these workbooks was a nightmare and updating them was extremely time consuming. A Microsoft Excel application was used to setup the scripts to create SharePoint Sites for over a hundred branches. This made creating the SharePoint groups and Sites just a matter of filling in the Excel Worksheet. Then a Microsoft Excel Application was created for generating monthly Excel reports and saving them to each branch's SharePoint document library. The end result allowed a user to click a button in Excel once a month after downloading the latest extract.
Major upgrade to Microsoft Office 2007
We upgraded Hundreds of Microsoft Word Templates and Microsoft Excel Macros from Microsoft Office 2000 to 2007 for large engineering company. To do this efficiently we used a Microsoft Excel application to find all the common functions, forms and toolbar buttons in the existing Microsoft Word Templates. After analysing the results, the solution involved moving most of the code, toolbars and forms from the Microsoft Word Templates to one main Microsoft Word Add-in. It is now much easier to maintain and update any of the Microsoft Word Templates.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Excel 2010 – Business Intelligence for the end user
This is totally awesome…
Code named Gemini, PowerPivot is an addin for Excel 2010 which gives you BI out of the box.
There's still the need for a decent data warehouse, so Database guys like me will still be required.
Given the nature of most data out there, this is both great and dangerous at the same time.
What's really compelling is the ability to suck in data from the web to compare your current data with.
There's also the PowerPivot server option in SharePoint 2010.
Note: You need to install SharePoint 2010 and not configure it and then install Sql2008R2 to let the magic begin.
Most people will only install the 32 bit version of Excel 2010 - the 64 bit is for those business analysts using PowerPivot to the extreme..as long as they have more than 4G of RAM on their desktop.
Regards,
Tom Bizannes
http://www.macroview.com.au
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
SharePoint Document Library Windows Explorer view not showing on Windows Server
This seems to be a Windows 2003 Server issue:
One article says to install the web dav client.
The simpler method to look at first is disabling strict name checking on the sql server.
This is just a registry setting, so it isn’t as much trouble as doing an install.
As per the white paper from Microsoft and also as per this article:
http://www.cleverworkarounds.com/2007/10/15/poor-windows-explorer-view-performance-in-sharepoint/
Regards,
Tom Bizannes
SharePoint Consulting
Sydney, Australia
One article says to install the web dav client.
The simpler method to look at first is disabling strict name checking on the sql server.
This is just a registry setting, so it isn’t as much trouble as doing an install.
As per the white paper from Microsoft and also as per this article:
http://www.cleverworkarounds.com/2007/10/15/poor-windows-explorer-view-performance-in-sharepoint/
Regards,
Tom Bizannes
SharePoint Consulting
Sydney, Australia
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Nightmare presenting at the SharePoint User Group
Presented at the SharePoint User Group on Tuesday 17th June.
The topic was The need for speed and recovery...based on a sql perspective...
Was heckled by both the co-ordinator and another bloke as they were adamant that Sql Backups of SharePoint couldn't be trusted even though they had never had issues with clients and Microsoft had never advised them otherwise.
So how does one handle such heckling...It even went so far as the SharePoint MVP saying he didn't believ in sql log backups and simple recovery mode was the only way to go!
What an &^*&*&( ...say no more....so many people are ignorant of sql server and when they see a realy large log file they think, krap...The log file doesn't grow out of control unless people don't do log backups....
So how does one handle hecklers? Hammer them for more specifics or say that's off the topic tonight, we can get back to you on a break...
Also, looked up books on speaking and there are some good ones that help you get your presentation across....Some reading is now in order...
One book kind of sums up how to present by it's title alone...Presenting with 7 slides or less..
I had 30 slides and was juping all over the place....
Below, then, are links to articles which offer good advice for handling difficult audience members, even hecklers.
• Dealing with difficult speaking situations (work911.com)
• Advice from 3M on dealing with Hecklers (3M website)
• Dealing with disruptive audience members (from Speakernet News)
• How to handle difficult audiences (presentation-pointers.com)
• Handling various forms of audience disruption (refresher.com)
• Dealing with difficult audiences (effectivemeetings.com)
• Dealing with difficult negotiators (negotiatelikethepros.com)
• Presenting to difficult audiences (helpforschools.com)
• Dealing with tough questions (findarticles.com)
• Do's and don'ts for dealing with difficult people (findarticles.com)
• Dealing with difficult people (findarticles.com)
• Dealing with hecklers and "snipers" (findarticles.com)
• Advice for stand-up comics (jessethecomic.com)
• The BBC on why people heckle
The topic was The need for speed and recovery...based on a sql perspective...
Was heckled by both the co-ordinator and another bloke as they were adamant that Sql Backups of SharePoint couldn't be trusted even though they had never had issues with clients and Microsoft had never advised them otherwise.
So how does one handle such heckling...It even went so far as the SharePoint MVP saying he didn't believ in sql log backups and simple recovery mode was the only way to go!
What an &^*&*&( ...say no more....so many people are ignorant of sql server and when they see a realy large log file they think, krap...The log file doesn't grow out of control unless people don't do log backups....
So how does one handle hecklers? Hammer them for more specifics or say that's off the topic tonight, we can get back to you on a break...
Also, looked up books on speaking and there are some good ones that help you get your presentation across....Some reading is now in order...
One book kind of sums up how to present by it's title alone...Presenting with 7 slides or less..
I had 30 slides and was juping all over the place....
Below, then, are links to articles which offer good advice for handling difficult audience members, even hecklers.
• Dealing with difficult speaking situations (work911.com)
• Advice from 3M on dealing with Hecklers (3M website)
• Dealing with disruptive audience members (from Speakernet News)
• How to handle difficult audiences (presentation-pointers.com)
• Handling various forms of audience disruption (refresher.com)
• Dealing with difficult audiences (effectivemeetings.com)
• Dealing with difficult negotiators (negotiatelikethepros.com)
• Presenting to difficult audiences (helpforschools.com)
• Dealing with tough questions (findarticles.com)
• Do's and don'ts for dealing with difficult people (findarticles.com)
• Dealing with difficult people (findarticles.com)
• Dealing with hecklers and "snipers" (findarticles.com)
• Advice for stand-up comics (jessethecomic.com)
• The BBC on why people heckle
Sunday, May 17, 2009
MacroViewWISDOM.com goes live
Finally MacroView has split the products and services into two different web sites.
The SharePoint WISDOM solutions are now on http://www.macroviewWisdom.com
The products and services are on http://www.macroview.com.au
It's funny, only one business day and the google analytics are already showing a good response....
The SharePoint WISDOM solutions are now on http://www.macroviewWisdom.com
The products and services are on http://www.macroview.com.au
It's funny, only one business day and the google analytics are already showing a good response....
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Synchronizing lists in SharePoint with Excel
Yes you can do it in both Excel 2003 and 2007
Did you know that you can get an addin for Excel 2007 for two way synchronization and you can write a macro to update a list from SharePoint via VBA code?
Just google "Publishing ad Synchronizing Excel 2007 tables to SharePoint Lists" to find the addin.
As for the Excel 2003 or 2007 vba code, this was cool.
A client wanted to color code a sheet from excel so we wrote code to dynamically create the list, copy it to another worksheet and colour in cells depending on the value in one column...
Just one click and this list always comes out nicely formatted.
Another case where a little coding can make life easier!
For Excel or SharePoint questions just goto:
http://www.macroview.com.au
Did you know that you can get an addin for Excel 2007 for two way synchronization and you can write a macro to update a list from SharePoint via VBA code?
Just google "Publishing ad Synchronizing Excel 2007 tables to SharePoint Lists" to find the addin.
As for the Excel 2003 or 2007 vba code, this was cool.
A client wanted to color code a sheet from excel so we wrote code to dynamically create the list, copy it to another worksheet and colour in cells depending on the value in one column...
Just one click and this list always comes out nicely formatted.
Another case where a little coding can make life easier!
For Excel or SharePoint questions just goto:
http://www.macroview.com.au
SharePoint Designer Issues with local - remote screen
If you don't refresh the local and remote views by clicking on the refresh item, it doesn't sort by date although the newer date shows!
Also, getting issures were a file uploaded is still showing as changed because the auther is different...
But I just uploaded it!
So something weird about the PC setting is making this show me as another user.
Also, getting issures were a file uploaded is still showing as changed because the auther is different...
But I just uploaded it!
So something weird about the PC setting is making this show me as another user.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Sql Server User Group on Tuesday 10th March 2009
Wow, a large crowd and many questions.
The topic was SharePoint for Sql Guys
Was trying to present three things but so many questions we barely got through the first bit.
The three parts were:
What you need to tell your SharePoint Administrator
What you need to do
What tools can help you.
The feedback was quite good with most liking the topic etc
Will now need to add my scripts and presentation
Would recommend you run the reports that monitor the server or use settings to check the fragmentation
See….http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1d3a4a0d-7e0c-4730-8204-e419218c1efc&displaylang=en
You are probably better having a quick look at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc964305.aspx
The topic was SharePoint for Sql Guys
Was trying to present three things but so many questions we barely got through the first bit.
The three parts were:
What you need to tell your SharePoint Administrator
What you need to do
What tools can help you.
The feedback was quite good with most liking the topic etc
Will now need to add my scripts and presentation
Would recommend you run the reports that monitor the server or use settings to check the fragmentation
See….http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1d3a4a0d-7e0c-4730-8204-e419218c1efc&displaylang=en
You are probably better having a quick look at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc964305.aspx
sql server reporting services 2008 windows 2008 and sharepoint can all live together
Finally had the time to suss this out.
First you need to know the tricks to get to the hidden sharepoint admin settings and then there's one little config setting that will stop nearly every attempt to get it to work regardless of whether you use SharePoint integrated mode or native mode.
All I can say, is alot of people would strangle whoever created the sql server 2008 reporting services install because this one setting is just ridiculous.
And to think I thought it was IIS7 that was causing the issue!
Was getting errors like:
The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel.
and rsInvalidDataSourceReference
Regards,
Tom Bizannes
SharePoint and Sql Server
Sydney, Australia
Reporting Services and SharePoint Integration on Windows 2008 server
Had fun trying this on a windows 2008 box.
Note this also applies for setting up on a vista box....
Everything worked after hitting each bit a few times!
So important to get permissions set, root site collections set properly and IIS7 configured right before installing anything.
So the steps to install in order are:
Set up IIS7 with all the correct settings:
Common HTTP Features:
Static Content
Default Document
HTTP Redirection
Directory Browsing
Application Development:
ASP.Net
ISAPI Extension
ISAPI Filters
Security:
Windows Authentication
Tools:
IIS Metabase Management
IIS 6 WMI Management
Then make sure you set tcp and named pipes in the sql server surface area configuration tool for the remote connections.
Then install service 2 for sql server and the service pack for the service pack if it isn't up to version 9.0.3054
Then run the sharepoint reporting services msi file that integrates them noting this doesn't run on a windows 208 server unless you install a reg hack to run as admin or turn off the uac.
Then you need to go into the reporting services configuration tool to configure and that is where many get mixed up.
Reporting Services needs to use the same pool as sharepoint to integrate.
Everything finally fell into place except the reporting services configuration settings didn't show in the sharepoint admin application page.
Had to go to the _layouts pages instead.
When deploying your reports, the pc with report designer should also be service packed and then you get an extra option regarding sharepoint in your deployment options wording for your target folders etc.
http://servername:portno/_layouts/ReportServer/ReportServerSiteSettings.aspx
http://servername:portno/_layouts/ReportServer/ManageTrustedAccounts.aspx
http://servername:portno/_layouts/ReportServer/ReportServerSiteSettings.aspx?Settings=RS
Regards,
Tom Bizannes
Sydney, Australia
Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access Consulting
Note this also applies for setting up on a vista box....
Everything worked after hitting each bit a few times!
So important to get permissions set, root site collections set properly and IIS7 configured right before installing anything.
So the steps to install in order are:
Set up IIS7 with all the correct settings:
Common HTTP Features:
Static Content
Default Document
HTTP Redirection
Directory Browsing
Application Development:
ASP.Net
ISAPI Extension
ISAPI Filters
Security:
Windows Authentication
Tools:
IIS Metabase Management
IIS 6 WMI Management
Then make sure you set tcp and named pipes in the sql server surface area configuration tool for the remote connections.
Then install service 2 for sql server and the service pack for the service pack if it isn't up to version 9.0.3054
Then run the sharepoint reporting services msi file that integrates them noting this doesn't run on a windows 208 server unless you install a reg hack to run as admin or turn off the uac.
Then you need to go into the reporting services configuration tool to configure and that is where many get mixed up.
Reporting Services needs to use the same pool as sharepoint to integrate.
Everything finally fell into place except the reporting services configuration settings didn't show in the sharepoint admin application page.
Had to go to the _layouts pages instead.
When deploying your reports, the pc with report designer should also be service packed and then you get an extra option regarding sharepoint in your deployment options wording for your target folders etc.
http://servername:portno/_layouts/ReportServer/ReportServerSiteSettings.aspx
http://servername:portno/_layouts/ReportServer/ManageTrustedAccounts.aspx
http://servername:portno/_layouts/ReportServer/ReportServerSiteSettings.aspx?Settings=RS
Regards,
Tom Bizannes
Sydney, Australia
Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access Consulting
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Re: Michael Noel and SharePoint Virtualisation
This was really good…
Michael Noel did a really good talk about virtualising SharePoint using either HyperV or Vmware. ( and he also mentioned no 3 in virtualisation - Cirtix Xen Server)
Still cannot believe Michael flew in from the states today and is flying out again today….just to talk to me and Peter regarding virtualising SharePoint…
Well actually there were a few others there….
He’s written a few SharePoint and isa server books and whitepapers for Microsoft etc…He knew his stuff.
One of his clients has 250,000 SharePoint Users!
Don’t virtualise Sql Server was one very important point…This is due to the high I/O of Sql Server
Next to go physical would be Index Server….
Other Virtuals only lose 2% to 3% of CPU performance so web servers do make a good case for Virtualisation.
Watch the NUMA boundaries…giving to much Ram for a virtual doesn’t equate to better performance if the NUMA boundary is hit..--> Too much paging etc...
Good rule of thumb … Ram per vm = Ram/CPUs…..
e.g two quad cores --> 8 cpus --> 64G of Ram --> 64/6 = 8G per virtual.
Hyper V guys need to get Ms Virtual Machine Manger 2008 – came out in Oct 2008…
Check out:
http://tinyurl.com/virtualsp
http://tinyurl.com/edgenoel2
http://tinyurl.com/edgenoel3
Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is out now….
System Centre Data Protection Manager 2007 great for shadow copies to restore sharepoint servers faster..
VMware has a cool tool P2V (free now!!) for copying physica to Virtual Machines…
Will need to email some people who asked me about this this year….
Big sites get vmware ESX or Citrix xen server 5 for vmotion or xen motion for great fail over if one server goes down.
Synergy and AvePoint have some SharePoint Replicators? … Will need to check these out…
Peter came along because apart from hyper v he is now playing with vmware---
It was good that Michael confirmed what I had hinted to the guys about -- don't virtualise SQL Server..That being said, up to 100 users should push sq server too far? Maybe not unless they are really using SharePoint by using an addon like Wisdom DMF where they can easily open and save their documents....Then take no chances...
Michael Noel did a really good talk about virtualising SharePoint using either HyperV or Vmware. ( and he also mentioned no 3 in virtualisation - Cirtix Xen Server)
Still cannot believe Michael flew in from the states today and is flying out again today….just to talk to me and Peter regarding virtualising SharePoint…
Well actually there were a few others there….
He’s written a few SharePoint and isa server books and whitepapers for Microsoft etc…He knew his stuff.
One of his clients has 250,000 SharePoint Users!
Don’t virtualise Sql Server was one very important point…This is due to the high I/O of Sql Server
Next to go physical would be Index Server….
Other Virtuals only lose 2% to 3% of CPU performance so web servers do make a good case for Virtualisation.
Watch the NUMA boundaries…giving to much Ram for a virtual doesn’t equate to better performance if the NUMA boundary is hit..--> Too much paging etc...
Good rule of thumb … Ram per vm = Ram/CPUs…..
e.g two quad cores --> 8 cpus --> 64G of Ram --> 64/6 = 8G per virtual.
Hyper V guys need to get Ms Virtual Machine Manger 2008 – came out in Oct 2008…
Check out:
http://tinyurl.com/virtualsp
http://tinyurl.com/edgenoel2
http://tinyurl.com/edgenoel3
Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is out now….
System Centre Data Protection Manager 2007 great for shadow copies to restore sharepoint servers faster..
VMware has a cool tool P2V (free now!!) for copying physica to Virtual Machines…
Will need to email some people who asked me about this this year….
Big sites get vmware ESX or Citrix xen server 5 for vmotion or xen motion for great fail over if one server goes down.
Synergy and AvePoint have some SharePoint Replicators? … Will need to check these out…
Peter came along because apart from hyper v he is now playing with vmware---
It was good that Michael confirmed what I had hinted to the guys about -- don't virtualise SQL Server..That being said, up to 100 users should push sq server too far? Maybe not unless they are really using SharePoint by using an addon like Wisdom DMF where they can easily open and save their documents....Then take no chances...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
