Lamont Harrington's Blog

An excellent whitepaper is available on our downloads site that provides guidance on implementing solutions on top of SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.  A breakdown of the sections is cited below:

• Chapter I - Document Goals
• Chapter II - Implementation Scenarios
• Chapter III - Implementation Environments
• Chapter IV - Implementation Activities
• Chapter V - Deployment Methods
• Chapter VI - Tools for the Job
• Chapter VII - Implementation Project Plan and Team
• Chapter VIII - Implementation Worksheet
• Chapter IX - Hotfixes
• Chapter X - Testing
• Chapter XI - Summary
• Chapter XII - Glossary
• Chapter XIII - References
• Virtualization
• SDKs and Centers
• Dev Tools
• Packaging Tools
• SOLUTION Framework
• Bin or Global Assembly Cache
• Features
• Authoring and customization
• Content Deployment / Migration
• Team Development
• Testing, Source Control and MSF
• Patterns and Practices
• Chapter XIV - Credits and Thanks To

Definitely worth the download.

Our Architecture Strategy Team has recently unveiled a great solution geared at simplifying the task of building Office Business Applications (OBA) using the Microsoft Office System platform. 

The solution, called the OBA Composition Reference Toolkit,  surfaces the underlying composition capabilities of the 2007 Office System and provides a prescriptive application composition experience for Information Workers to build OBA solutions. 

You can head over to the Architecture Center on MSDN to get more information about the solution and download the bits.  Right now, only the binaries are available, but the plan is to release the source code by mid-March.

Over on the SharePoint Team Blog is a good post citing resources related to deployments of MOSS/WSS on Windows Server 2008.  With the pending launch of the next release of Windows Server, it's important to know the impacts it has on deploying SharePoint Products & Technologies within your organization.  The resources cited in the post cover the following areas:

• WSS deployment on Windows Server 2008
• MOSS deployment on Windows Server 2008
• Upgrading from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 with existing SharePoint deployments
• SQL Server 2008 and SharePoint deployments

Check out these resources if you're planning on deploying MOSS/WSS on Windows Server 2008 or want to understand more about the process.  As we near launch of Windows Server 2008, you'll start seeing even more resources around this very topic.

Microsoft has recently released SP1 for both Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.  For a list of what's included in the service pack, you can view the SP1 whitepaper posted to Microsoft's TechNet website.  This information will be important from both a business and technical perspective as it relates to support installing SP1.  There's also a KB article that's recently been posted that provides invaluable information about SP1.

Important Note: WSS 3.0 SP1 should be installed before SharePoint Server 2007 SP1.

Critical Planning and Deployment & Installation Information 
Before installing SP1, read deploying software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 which will help you understand tips tricks and troubleshooting steps and Planning and deploying SP1 for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

Download locations:

Windows SharePoint Services

• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1, 32-bit edition and 64-bit edition
• Windows SharePoint Services Language Pack 3.0 SP1, 32-bit edition, 64-bit edition

Office SharePoint Server

• Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP1 (includes SP1 for Project Server, Forms Server, and Groove) 32-bit edition and 64-bit edition
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Language Pack 3.0 SP1 32-bit edition, 64-bit edition

Microsoft has recently released the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions CTP.  The extensions add new runtime functionality to ASP.NET 3.5 and ADO.NET, including (taken from the ASP.NET 3.5 extensions site):

ASP.NET MVC

• ASP.NET MVC provides model-view-controller (MVC) support to the existing ASP.NET 3.5 runtime, which enables developers to more easily take advantage of this design pattern. Benefits include the ability to achieve and maintain a clear separation of concerns, as well as facilitate test driven development (TDD).
  
  The ASP.NET MVC Toolkit provides HTML rendering helpers and dynamic data support for MVC.

ASP.NET Dynamic Data

• ASP.NET Dynamic Data helps developers build a fully customizable, data-driven app quickly. It provides a rich scaffolding framework that allows rapid data driven development without writing code, yet it is easily extendible using the traditional ASP.NET programming model.

ASP.NET AJAX

• New additions to ASP.NET AJAX include support for managing browser history (Back button support).

ADO.NET Entity Framework

• ADO.NET Entity Framework is a new modeling framework that enables developers to define a conceptual model of a database schema that closely aligns to a real world view of the information. Benefits include easier to understand and easier to maintain application code that is shielded from underlying database schema changes.

ADO.NET Data Services

• ADO.NET Data Services provide new services that find, manipulate and deliver data over the web using simple URIs. Benefits include an easy and flexible way to access data over the web, while enabling the separation of presentation and data access code.

Silverlight Controls for ASP.NET

• You can integrate the rich behavior of Microsoft Silverlight into your Web application by using two new ASP.NET server controls: a MediaPlayer server control that enables easy integration of media sources such as audio (WMA) and video (WMV) into your Web application, and a Silverlight server control that allows an ASP.NET page to reference both XAML objects and their event handlers.

To learn more about the extensions, check out Scott Guthrie's blog post on the topic or head on over to the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions site.

The final and complete edition of the end-user Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training is now broadly available to customers, in the Download Center. 
 
The training comes with rich set of videos, tutorials and articles that help end users learn the basics of SharePoint’s workloads. The kit can be installed directly to individual machines (stand alone edition), or directly onto a SharePoint environment (portal edition). IT Departments, or even groups such as HR, Corporate Learning, and others will be able to use and customize the kit to train users on SharePoint usage.

You'll be able to choose between two versions:

• Portal Edition: built on the Microsoft SharePoint Learning Kit (‘SLK’), the Portal Edition must be deployed onto a SharePoint Server site by a server administrator. It includes a reporting function that allows an administrator/trainer to track learners’ completed training topics. The content is compliant to the e-learning standard SCORM 2004.
• Standalone Edition: can be installed by an individual and easily accessed from a desktop icon. It does not allow customization or reporting, but give customers the ability to view the training before they deploy the Portal Edition on a SharePoint Server site.

Topics covered in the training include:

• Collaboration: team sites, permissions, Web parts, libraries, lists, blogs, wikis, and workspaces.
• Enterprise Content Management: document and records management, protecting files, using workflows, compliance, and more.
• Search: finding files, Web sites, information and people.
• Portals and personalization: My Sites, targeting content, and managing My Site access
• Business processes and forms: streamline business processes, gather information with forms, and configure workflows.
• Business intelligence: share Excel workbooks, work with a Report Center site, use dashboards, integrate internal data, and more.

I've posted in the past my up and down feelings about Telligent System's Community Server platform.  Over the past few years, I've seen it grow into a very solid product, and have commended Rob (via e-mail) on the fantastic job he and his firm have done in bringing Community Server to market.

But what has always stuck with me with regards to Community Server are the many similarities in functionality with SharePoint Products & Technologies and how I've always maintained the position that both products can compliment one another in any given collaboration and content management scenario.

Well, it appears that steps have been taken to show you how Office SharePoint Server 2007 can be integrated with Community Server.  Hans Hugli, a Software Design Engineer at Microsoft has written a nice article on MSDN that discusses how to integrate MOSS with Community Server's membership databases.

Check out the complete article here.

Microsoft recently announced an experimental developer toolset for building multi-tier web applications using existing and familiar tools, techniques, and patterns, called Microsot Live Labs Volta.

Volta’s declarative tier-splitting enables developers to postpone architectural decisions about distribution until the last possible responsible moment. It enables new end-to-end profiling and testing for higher levels of application performance, robustness, and reliability. In effect, Volta extends the .NET platform to further enable the development of software+services applications, using existing and familiar tools and techniques.

You architect and build your application as a .NET client application, assigning the portions of the application that run on the server tier and client tier late in the development process. You can target either web browsers or the CLR as clients and Volta handles the complexities of tier-splitting. The compiler creates cross-browser JavaScript for the client tier, web services for the server tier, and all communication, serialization, synchronization, security, and other boilerplate code to tie the tiers together. In effect, Volta offers a best-effort experience in multiple environments without requiring tailoring of the application.

You can download a technology preview of Volta from the Live Labs website.

The SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool is a set of free models of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) which allow you to explore the necessary infrastructure based on usage requirements. This tool uses the System Center Capacity Planner 2007 (SCCP) as an engine to provide for data collection, visualization, simulation and report writing. The tool can be used in pre-sales and feasibility study of a deployment project to give you a rough estimate of hardware requirements.

Typical business scenarios addressed by the tool:

• I don’t know if I need 10 Servers or 1 server to meet the needs of my large law firm of 1000 users.
• Should I buy 10 Server CALs or 5? I know I need something to get started, but not sure where to start.
• I’m confused by the capacity planning documentation; I wish I just had a tool I could put in a few inputs to get me started.
• I don’t want to have to hire a consultant to tell me I can handle my small 200 person deployment with a single server, but I can’t figure it out on my own based on available product documentation.
• I’ve used the HP capacity planning tool and I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do, but I would like a more platform agnostic view.
• My deployment is blocked until I can figure out what kind of topology I should be running to get basic high availability

The SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 collects the unique usage requirements of a particular SharePoint deployment by having the IT-Pro answer a series of questions about expected usage and operating conditions. The Capacity Planner then generates a recommended baseline topology and hardware configuration which can be modified through the SCCP model editor. Finally the tool can run simulations against the selected hardware configuration and generate estimated server loads and user experience reports.

To download the tool, sign up on the Microsoft Connect Website.

I often get a number of questions from developers who want to know how to apply their own customizations to the application pages that ship as a part of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.  Well, apparently, I'm not alone as we've just recently released a KB article that describes the process and addresses many frequently asked questions on how to perform these customizations in a manner that is supported by Microsoft.

Excerpt taken from the article:

Modifying the files that are installed by SharePoint is not supported. However, there are some scenarios in which you may have to modify these files to achieve consistent branding or other customizations. When you modify these files, you must consider that they may be replaced by future updates and service packs. Additionally, there may be complications when you upgrade to later versions of the product. Keep backup copies of all customized files in case they are overwritten by an update. Product support will provide commercially reasonable support for help with modifications but will be unable to provide product changes or hotfixes that result from modifying the files that are installed by SharePoint.

More details can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944105/en-us.