SharePoint 2010 – WSS 2010

Tags: Beta

I will be teaching our (Critical Path Training) SharePoint 2010 Developer class in the Pacific Northwest and New England areas in the next 2 months. This five-day class, SPT2010 – Developing Solutions with SharePoint 2010, covers every angle for developers who are looking to learn the complete SharePoint 2010 offering. The class is targeted to .NET developers who may or may not have any experience with SharePoint. However those with SharePoint development experience (2003/2007) won’t be left twiddling their thumbs… every module is engaging with what’s new and great with the platform as well as the core SharePoint fundamentals (lists, libraries, etc).

Now is a good time to jump on the bandwagon and get your training. Why? While the class is delivered using the latest beta / release candidate release of SharePoint 2010, we’re also offering registration at a special pre-RTM/beta pricing of $1,995 (regularly $2,995) until SharePoint 2010 reaches the RTM milestone. We’re getting close to the RTM milestone with the recent news of the Office 2010 Release Candidate, SharePoint 2010 Release Candidate & Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate!

The two classes Andrew has coming up on either side of the US are in the Microsoft facilities in Redmond, WA (February 22-26, 2010) and Boston, MA (March 22-26, 2010). If the links don’t come across, you can get all the details you need at www.CriticalPathTraining.com.

So what’s covered in this SharePoint developer class?

• PowerShell, Visual Studio 2010 Developer Tools & SharePoint Designer 2010 (including extensibility)
• Client side programming (Client OM, WCF Data Services), LINQ
• Web Part Development
• Sandbox solutions
• Business Intelligence
• Search Customization
• Security fundamentals & claims based security
• Business Connectivity Services
• Workflows (Visio, SPD & Visual Studio 2010)
• Enterprise Content Management & Web Content Management

Space is limited, so make sure you register early!

Tags: Beta, Training

The VSeWSS project upgrade tools for Visual Studio 2010 beta is published here. It is planned to be published as sample code for the release of Visual Studio 2010.

This is an additional project template for Visual Studio 2010. When you create a project from this template it will ask for an existing Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services (VSeWSS) project. When you select the previous project it will create a brand new Visual Studio 2010 project that uses the new SharePoint 2010 project templates which are built into Visual Studio 2010.

Please review the README for the tool to get the best use from it. It should upgrade projects created with VSeWSS v1.1, v1.2 and v1.3 March CTP. The project must already have been compiled using the previous version of Visual Studio. You cannot use the VSeWSS project templates with Visual Studio 2010 so this upgrade project template is the best way to migrate your VSeWSS project to Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint 2010.

Please send me feedback about this tool through my blog or at the MSDN Forums so that we can improve it for the final release.

Tags: Beta, Upgrade

Management Packs allow users to monitor SharePoint 2010 with System Center Operations Manager. SharePoint Foundation Management Pack and SharePoint Server 2010 Management Pack enables monitoring of SharePoint Foundation 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Search Server 2010 (These is separate management pack for FAST search), Project Server 2010 and Office Web Apps. Once management pack is imported to System Center console, based on console configuration it automatically discovers what SharePoint bits or servers are installed in the environment that is being monitored and start monitoring those components.

These 2010 management packs will be released to System Center Operations manager catalog and will also be released to web along with SharePoint 2010 RTM.

Out of box experience

SharePoint Management Packs monitors all prominent services, Shared Services, SharePoint Health Analyzer rules, Web Applications and SharePoint Servers. In SharePoint 2010 you can use it to monitor both physical (servers and services running on those servers) and logical (Shared Services, Web Application etc.) of SharePoint. You can monitor multiple farms, and even fix some issues automatically by running out of box tasks. You can also write your own tasks using System Center Wizard or Windows PowerShell script to enable this self-healing.

Primary takeaway of SharePoint 2010 MP is depth and breadth of monitoring and rapid detection and resolution. Here’re the improvements compared with the previous product.

These numbers illustrate significant improvements over 2007 management pack. 1200% and 300% change in number of classes and discovery represents improvement in depth and breadth of monitoring. Change in number of monitors indicates improvement in granularity of monitoring that enables quick isolation of issues. Detailed knowledge articles represent rapid diagnosis and resolution. Did you also notice knowledge articles are on TechNet, which means we will be able to improve these articles based on your feedback even after release!

In 2007 you can just monitor, one farm with multiple servers and some services. Diagram view below reflects a typical 2007 monitoring. Anything that is crossed was not available in 2007 management pack and remaining had limited depth of one additional level.

WindowsLiveWriter/TrySystemCenterOperationsManagerManageme_BF95/image_thumb.png” width=”934″ height=”702″ />

In 2010 you can monitor multiple farms, multiple servers, services, shared services, SharePoint Health Analyzer rules (Which saves you a trip to central admin which also means that System Center Operation Manager console is your one stop shop for all monitoring requirements) and web applications.

Server Monitoring

WindowsLiveWriter/TrySystemCenterOperationsManagerManageme_BF95/image_thumb_1.png” width=”959″ height=”721″ />

Service Monitoring

WindowsLiveWriter/TrySystemCenterOperationsManagerManageme_BF95/image_thumb_2.png” width=”952″ height=”716″ />

Share Service Monitoring

WindowsLiveWriter/TrySystemCenterOperationsManagerManageme_BF95/image_thumb_3.png” width=”956″ height=”719″ />

SharePoint Health Analyzer monitoring (One stop shop for both native and external monitoring)

WindowsLiveWriter/TrySystemCenterOperationsManagerManageme_BF95/image_thumb_4.png” width=”955″ height=”718″ />

Web Application Monitoring

WindowsLiveWriter/TrySystemCenterOperationsManagerManageme_BF95/image_thumb_5.png” width=”956″ height=”719″ />

Download Management Pack Beta for SharePoint 2010

SharePoint Foundation 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=43d5ee9a-b9a6-441d-a35e-8a7b9b15e20c

SharePoint Server 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=c8a9d749-b7a8-412a-b2db-f3e464ed3fcf

Tags: Beta, Development

What better way to hold yourself accountable than to publically state what your New Year’s Resolutions are? I’ve got a few professional & personal resolutions but only care to share my professional ones here (there’s a reason why they are called “personal” right?).

I’m the kind of person that can fill up a to do list with all these ambitious things you want to accomplish, but if I don’t give myself a deadline or carve out time on my calendar, it won’t get done. So this year I’m picking just a few things and giving myself a month to knock it out. I usually get up around 5a when I’m at home to get a few hours of work done before the rest of the family gets up. Then I take a break and spend time with them until the kids head to school/etc. This is the ideal time to work on these things as it’s when I’m most fresh… so here it goes… things I want to get stronger at in 2010 (no shocker they all have a SharePoint correlation):

• Silverlight development – I managed to push off the Silverlight bug until just a few months ago, but now that I’m spending more time in it, I really like it. I’d like to get stronger at using the Expression Studio suite of tools to make more compelling UI’s and effects.
• WCF development – Today I get by just fine, but I can’t slam something out real fast. Why? I just haven’t needed it… so I’d like to add that to my tool belt.
• PowerShell – I absolutely love PowerShell, but I’m not as strong with it as it’d like to be. For instance, when doing general stuff on my machine or in SharePoint, I’d like PowerShell to be the first place I go for stuff, as well as building my own cmdlets, snapins and profiles.
• Visual Studio extensibility – I’ve got *tons* of ideas on how we can extend Visual Studio above and beyond what we have today for SharePoint development.
• WPF development – Since I live in the Web space I had almost zero use for building my own client apps. But I would like to get a bit more proficient. Like Silverlight, once I played with it a bit using the current tools, I really like the experience more than what we had in Windows Forms world.

What’s on your plate for 2010?

Tags: Beta, Deployment

Recently I ran into the following issue when I tried to deploy a SharePoint 2010 Project in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2. In the output window the following message was displayed and the deployment failed:

Error occurred in deployment step ‘Retract Solution’: The local SharePoint server is not accessible. Check that the server is running and connected to the SharePoint farm.

It turned out (thank you Event Viewer!) that the account that triggers the Deploy action in Visual Studio 2010 (typically the account you used to login in Windows) needs to have permissions in both the Configuration database and the Content database.

Tags: Beta

In case you missed it, Microsoft announced the general availability for SharePoint 2010 Beta 2. Now anyone can download, install and test it out!

Remember this is beta software so things will likely break and you’ll also have a few extra things you’ll have to do to get it installed and working. Here are some posts to help you out installing the bits:

• SharePoint 2010 Public Beta is now available for download
• Windows-7.aspx”>Installation notice for the SharePoint Server Public Beta on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Windows 7
• Path to User Profile Synchronization success in SharePoint 2010 Beta
• Installation Notice for SharePoint 2010 Public Beta

Tags: Beta

With the release of SharePoint Server 2010 beta 2, everyone wants to create their own virtual machine. However between a few hotfixes and other stuff, it may not be the most straightforward process. We at Critical Path Training have created a complete setup guide that helps you get your own environment setup. It includes the following:

• Setting up a Windows Server 2008 R2 OS*
• Setting up Active Directory & DNS
• Setting up SQL Server 2008*
• Setting up & configuring SharePoint Server 2010 Beta 2
• Setting up & configuring Office 2010 Pro Plus Beta 2
• Setting up & configuring Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2

Our guide walks you though each step in a ton of detail complete with screenshots along the way. Like I said, there’s tons of detail… over 40pgs worth of helpful instructions! You don’t even need licenses for things like Windows Server 2008 or SQL Server… we show you where to get the trial / evaluation editions of these products. Of course, you’re free to use your own keys and if you like.

This guide is provided for free from the members only section of our site. Login (or first create your free account) at www.CriticalPathTraining.com & click on the Members link in the primary navigation (it isn’t there when you aren’t logged in). From there you can access all our members-only content including this document (located under the articles section titled SharePoint Server Beta 2 Virtual Machine Setup Guide).

Tags: Beta

Today we are announcing the general availability of the public beta of Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Visio 2010, Project 2010 and Office Web Apps for our customers and partners. Millions of people can download the beta at http://www.microsoft.com/2010. 

Office Mobile 2010 has also reached the public beta milestone and is now available on the Windows Mobile Marketplace for Windows Mobile 6.5 phones.

As part of the beta, we are unveiling several new capabilities, including:

• The Outlook Social Connector, a new feature which brings communications history, business and social networking feeds into the Outlook experience.
  • At beta, the Outlook Social Connector will support SharePoint social networking and support Windows Live at launch.
  • We are also announcing that LinkedIn will be the first social networking site to provide a connector for the Outlook Social Connector.
  • We are also releasing the Outlook Social Connector SDK for developers to build connectors to third party social networks.
• Technology and design advancements including deeper integration between Office 2010 and Office Web Apps, improved navigation, visual design and icon updates, a new Office logo and increased performance and stability.

We’re also announcing our plan to deliver Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP which will expand the long standing Duet partnership. The joint solution from SAP and Microsoft will enable interoperability between SAP applications and SharePoint 2010 and provide complete flexibility and extensibility to compose solutions that blend the worlds of process and collaboration. Duet Enterprise is built on top of the new Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint 2010. The solution is planned to be released in the second half of calendar year 2010.

SharePoint Public Beta Resources

• General information about SharePoint 2010: http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/Pages/default.aspx
• Resources for Developers on MSDN: http://www.mssharepointdeveloper.com
• Resources for IT Pros on TechNet: http://www.mssharepointitpro.com
• Have a SharePoint 2010 question? Ask it in the SharePoint 2010 forums

Where can I download SharePoint 2010 public beta?
You can download SharePoint and Office 2010 public beta from http://www.microsoft.com/2010

Is the SharePoint public beta supported?
The SharePoint public beta is not supported. However, we recommend looking at our resources listed above and asking questions in the SharePoint 2010 forums.

When is the final release of SharePoint and Office 2010?
We are planning to release SharePoint and Office 2010 in the first half of calendar year 2010.

Will there be a migration path from SharePoint public beta to final release?
We do not plan to support a SharePoint 2010 public beta to release bits migration path. The SharePoint 2010 public beta should be used for evaluation and feedback purposes only.

If I’m on SharePoint 2007, how do I get ready for SharePoint 2010?
Take a look here for getting ready guidance.

Is there a downloadable SharePoint 2010 VHD?
We plan to make a VHD available for download sometime in the future. We will announce its availability on our team blog.

How do I get trained on SharePoint 2010?
Please review the Getting Started page, the  IT Professional learning guide , the Developer learning guide , and the End User resources to ramp up on SharePoint 2010.

Tags: Beta

Microsoft announced on Monday that the much anticipated public beta of SharePoint 2010 (as well as the beta for Office 2010) is now available for download.  There is, however, one small catch in that the download is currently available only to subscribers of MSDN and TechNet.  If you already subscribe to either service, by all means, get thee to a download site:

• MSDN subscribers: Download Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 beta
• MSDN subscribers: Download Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 beta
• TechNet subscribers: Download Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 beta
• TechNet subscribers: Download Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 beta

If you don't currently subscribe to either service, but just can't wait for the open public Beta to get your hands on the 2010 goodness, be advised that a subscription to TechNet will run you considerably less than an MSDN subscription.

Note:  Before installing, don't forget to determine hardware and software requirements for SharePoint Server 2010.

Tags: Beta