Innerdimension.net

Microsoft just released a whitepaper documenting backup and recovery options for those that implement small to medium SharePoint 2007 farms. The document covers everything from the file to the farm level, as well as mentions some additional tools available on CodePlex to autoarchive on site delete, and some guidance on customizations via Solutions. Check it out.

Data Protection and Recovery for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 in Small to Medium-Sized Deployments

I’m currently in the middle of my employer’s SharePoint migration from 2003 to 2007, and in the process we’re moving to new hardware, new farm structure, and new availability requirements.  Something that I’m trying to get a handle on is that Database Mirroring only supports up to 10 databases at a time, and this would be a bare MOSS implementation if you would mirror all databases and keep the out of the box SQL 2005 databases (3 SSP, 1 MySite ContentDB, 1 MOSS Content DB, 2 Central Admin DBs, 1 Index DB, 2 ReportServer DBs).  For those implementations that split out their content databases, this would be a significant problem.  Here are some links that help to address the debate on what scenarios you should use for your High Availability application.

• Joel Olson has two posts on Replication and High Availability, and where any SharePoint admin / architect should start:  Replication and High Availability, Mirroring, Log Shipping, and High Availability Resources
• On Technet, there is an article to plan for your availability requirements:  Plan for Availability (Office SharePoint Server)
• Mauro Cardarelli has a brief article on MOSS 2007 and High Availability, mentioning the modes of database mirroring implementation, as well as a link to a Microsoft Article outlining Database Mirroring with Office SharePoint Server and Windows SharePoint Services:  MOSS 2007 and High Availability
• The last one is a sample high-level solution utilizing database mirroring provided by Scot Hiller:  Database Mirroring in SharePoint 2007 for Disaster Recovery

As for our implementation, we’re currently proceeding with the Database Mirroring approach, since our hardware is already purchased, but there are some other compelling ways to provide seamless high availability posted above.

Well the site is now on the production MT 4.0 codebase, which was released today. I haven’t had the time to dig into why the sidebar templates get all clobbered when I try to strip out the junk and add in a widget set, but hopefully I’ll get to it soon.

Jesse Gardner recently posted a great article on his Movable Tweak site documenting the fundamental design changes between MT3 Templates and MT4 Teamplates. If you haven’t looked at the templates, basically all of the current templates have been modularized so common components are read from the same file, where previously you had to go to every template you wanted to change by hand. You can read the article here.

So I just upgraded from MT4 Beta 6 to RC1 today, and also went through every template to update it to the new MT4 code (something I didn’t do during Beta 6). Everything works as intended. I then try one of the new standard styles available through the UI. It loads okay, but it removes the widget list I created. The problem is, the styles should enumerate / create a widget set to use for the style, and instead it seems to be hard-coded to the style itself. Nice, now I have to scrape through module code to take their stuff out and put back the widget selection code that should have been there in the first place. Ugh.

Well I’m now on yet another Social Netoworking app called Pownce. Kind of like Twitter, kind of like IM, but different. You can also share events and files (up to 10MB). If you’re on, add me.

Today when I was looking at the plethora of “social networking” sites that I already belong to or view posts on, I came to a question that I’m not sure has an answer:  Are several social networks really a good thing?  For the sake of being on the “right” platform for your friends / colleagues / acquaintances, are we diluting whatever message / content / item / link we post?  Let me know what you think either in the comments, or via email.

In the process of test upgrade runs for my company’s implementation of MOSS 2007, our MOSS server threw up a bunch of errors regarding memory being corrupt, etc.  Well the From the Field blog posted a solution that seems to be working in my case.  Basically it involves installing the Microsoft Hotfix 923028 for .NET 2.0, but then also re-entering the username and password for the SharePoint Timer Service.  You can read their post here.

Well I took the leap and upgraded the site to MovableType Version 4 Beta 6. Living on the bleeding edge, but the new features seem worth it. Enjoy!

Not sure when the change happened, but Codename Tahiti is now called Microsoft SharedView.  Basically this is a free product under the Windows Live line of software tools that lets you conduct online meetings with up to 15 participants for free.  While the session loads, there is a Microsoft ad window that does display, but after that everything else is ad free.  The interface is unobtrusive and out of the way, and seems to work very well in my tests (in Tahiti phase as well as SharedView phase).

 

Here is the obligatory sample screenshot:

 

As you can see the SharedView interface consists of the toolbar at the top of the screen.  They’ve also added hooks into vaious Office applications to make it easy to fire up a SharedView session.

 

To download the SharedView Beta, click here.