Lamont Harrington's Blog

The Best Practices Resource Center for SharePoint Server 2007 has been recently launched on our TechNet site.  The intent of the site is to provide a resource for guidance and best practices in efforts to avoid common pitfalls and keep your Office SharePoint Server 2007 environment available and performing well.  The best practices cited within the resource center is based on real-world experience from Microsoft Consulting Services and the SharePoint Product Team.

Version 1.4 of the SharePoint Server 2007 SDK and the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK has been released.

What's new in the 1.4 release of the SharePoint Server SDK?

• Installation enhancements: You now have a choice of installation path when you’re installing the SDK. Browse to your preferred folder during setup. The default installation path for the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server SDK is <%Program Files%>\2007 Office System Developer Resources.
• Start menu navigation: This release features a new Start menu shortcut for quick access to documentation (compiled HTML Help, or CHM for short) files and the Welcome Guide (ReadMe.htm), which is a landing page with links to all the tools and samples. In Windows Server 2003, click Start, Programs, 2007 Microsoft Office System Developer Resources, Office SharePoint Server 2007 SDK to open: MOSS 2007 Technical Articles and Visual How-Tos, Office Forms Server SDK Documentation, Office SharePoint Server SDK Documentation, Welcome Guide, Windows SharePoint Services SDK Documentation. In Windows Vista, click the Windows Vista Start button, All Programs, 2007 Microsoft Office System Developer Resources, Office SharePoint Server 2007 SDK to open: MOSS 2007 Technical Articles and Visual How-Tos, Office Forms Server SDK Documentation, Office SharePoint Server SDK Documentation, Welcome Guide, Windows SharePoint Services SDK Documentation.
• Offline experience improvements: All of the technical articles, visual how-to articles, and book excerpts are now packaged—plus the Excel Services and Excel 2007 Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 Job Submission Developer Guide—into one searchable CHM file. Browse offline for content published on MSDN out-of-band with the SDK. (Known issue: Several links in the MOSSSDK_TechArticles.chm and WSSSDK_TechArticles.chm do not work in a strictly offline scenario. Also, WMV file screencasts or downloads associated with articles are not packaged in the CHM, to keep the download size manageable. Workaround: Browse to the content on MSDN online; for ease-of-use, the CHM file table of contents is the same as the MSDN Library table of contents.
• New tools and samples.  

What's new in the 1.4 release of the WSS 3.0 SDK?

• Expanded documentation of backup and restore features.  This release contains greatly expanded documentation of backup and restore features, including a new top-level node, "Backing Up and Restoring." The node includes twelve articles, including "Overview of Backing Up and Restoring Data in Windows SharePoint Services," and four new "How To" topics.
• Complete documentation of Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Backup.  Object model reference documentation in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Backup namespace is complete, and code samples are provided for all critical types and members.
• New documentation of the administrative object model.  A new section, "The Administrative Object Model of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0," contains six new articles, and the "Administration" section has a new, extended code sample.
• Revised Web Part documentation.  The section that provides conceptual documentation of Web Parts has been completely restructured, and two walkthrough topics have been significantly revised and rewritten.
• More migration support.  A new section, "Selective Content Migration," contains three articles to support selective migration strategies. Additionally, additions and revisions have been made to existing topics in the "Content Migration Overview" section, and a large number of API reference topics that support migration and deployment scenarios have been completed in the SharePoint.Deployment namespace.
• Expanded and updated reference documentation.  You can find enhanced documentation of types and members in the SharePoint.Workflow and SharePoint.WorkflowActions namespaces, the People Web service, and three ActiveX controls.

I've just moved my blog feed over to FeedBurner.  For those of you out there who aggregate posts on this blog, please update to my new feed.  This blog still supports the original DasBlog-based syndication service so those who are currently aggregating shouldn't be affected at all.  But for new vistors who wish to aggregate, please use http://feeds.feedburner.com/LamontHarringtonsBlog as your new feed.

Came across this blog post by Dare Obasanjo, PM on the Windows Live Team, about our approach to data center management where he highlights a paper written by Michael Isard of Microsoft Research, called Autopilot: Automatic Data Center Management, which describes the technology that Windows Live and Live Search uses to manage their web server farms. 

The paper provides a high-level overview of AutoPilot, while Dare’s post goes into more of its practical implementation.  Both are definitely worth reading

The Patterns & Practices Team have recently released v1.0 of the web services security guide (in PDF format) that shows how to make the most out of WCF.  With end-to-end application scenarios, it shows you how to design and implement authentication and authorization in WCF. Learn how to improve the security of your WCF services through prescriptive guidance including guidelines, Q&A, practices at a glance, and step-by-step how tos. It's a collaborative effort between patterns & practices, WCF team members, and industry experts.

The guide has been released on CodePlex and is available for download.