SharePoint Technologies by Nitin Tiwari

SharePoint Foundation 2013 prerequisite

2012-09-07T01:38:00.004-07:00

SharePoint Foundation 2013

Minimum System Requirements 2013

H/W Requirements- 64-bit 4 core processor , 4 GB memory for development or evaluation and 8 GB for production ,80GB Free Disk Space

Operating System-64bit Edition of Window server 2008 R2 SP1(KB976932)

Database -64 bit Edition of SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1(KB2528583)

Pre-Requisite

Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.5 Release Candidate (RC)

Windows Management Framework 3.0 Release Candidate (RC)

Application Server Role, Web Server (IIS) Role

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Native Client

Windows Identity Foundation (KB974405)

Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 SP1 (x64)

Windows Identity Extensions

Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client

Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.0

Windows Server AppFabric

Cumulative Update Package 1 for Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server (KB 2671763)

Hotfix

KB 2554876 - The SharePoint parsing process crashes in Windows Server 2008 R2

KB 2708075 - FIX: IIS 7.5 configurations are not updated when you use the ServerManager class to commit configuration changes

KB 2472264 - You cannot customize some TCP configurations by using the netsh command in Windows Server 2008 R2

SharePoint Foundation 2013

Sharepoint Designer 2013

Garbage Collection an sweeper in SharePoint 2010

2012-09-07T01:26:00.001-07:00

Hi All,

Below is my finding on Garbage collection (GC). I hope it will help you all to understand in depth the SharePoint performance and memory leakage cleanup.

Enumerate all BLOB files in the EBS Provider namespace that corresponds to a given SPSite identifier. Add these BLOB files to a hash table.

String dirName = Utility.DirFromSiteId(site.ID);
FileInfo[] files = Directory.GetFiles(dirName);
foreach (FileInfo file in files)
{
    ht.Add(file.Name, file);
}

Locate all documents in the content database that corresponds to the SPSite identifier. Remove these entries from the hash table.

foreach (SPExternalBinaryId blobid in site.ExternalBinaryIds)
  {
    String fileName = Utility.FileFromBlobid(blobid);
        if (ht.Contains(fileName))
        {
            ht.Remove(fileName);
        }
  }

Entries that remain in the hash table are files in the external BLOB store that do not have corresponding files in the content database. These are orphan files, and you can delete them.
foreach (FileInfo file in ht.Values) { file.Delete(); }

People search not working

2012-05-03T05:17:00.002-07:00

When they try to do people search from their site http://server1 they do not get any results.

Cause:

---------------------------------

There was an user added to the UPA Administrators group which was deleted from AD. Later when we tried to add the default content access account to the UPA Administrators we used to get an error stating cannot find user. Additionally, the crawl rule was not taking in effect and was crawling using spssearch account.

---------------------------------

Resolution:

---------------------------------

Removed the problematic user from the UPA Administrators.

Added the default content access account user to the UPA Administrators with permission to retrieve and crawl people data.

Removed the crawl rule.

Tried crawl, it was successful. The issue is resolved.

SP Calendar List web part shown error Unable to display this Web Part

2012-05-03T05:03:00.001-07:00

Unable to display this Web Part. To troubleshoot the problem, open this Web page in a Microsoft SharePoint Foundation-compatible HTML editor such as Microsoft SharePoint Designer. If the problem persists, contact your Web server administrator.

Correlation ID:

Resolution: Fixed by adding NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users with Read permission on the site collection page as well as in the Style Resource Readers Group

Disaster Recovery (DR) Plan

2012-04-26T04:24:00.003-07:00

Disaster Recovery

• No single feature provides disaster recovery within a SharePoint Server 2010 environment

• Few Approaches to make Application available when a data center goes offline, including the following:

• Cold DR - Offsite storage of backups, both within and outside your region.

• Warm DR - Shipping images of servers to offsite locations after certain Interval.

• Hot DR - Running multiple data centers, but serving data only through one, keeping the others available on standby

System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 – Tool for Backup/Recovery

Recovery of SharePoint sites, document libraries, lists and documents to either the original server location or an alternate SharePoint farm.
Unified Protection for Disk, Tape, and Cloud
Item level recovery for SharePoint 2010 without a SharePoint recovery farm
Automatic detection of deleted content databases from a protected SharePoint farm
Support for moving content databases between instances
Auto-Heal and Retry for Failed Backups
DPM 2010 seamlessly interacts with the SharePoint and SQL Server Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) writers so that DPM captures consistent versions of a SharePoint deployment without interrupting client access to SharePoint content
Recovery of SharePoint content stored on SharePoint 2010 farms without requiring the use of a recovery farm

Recommendations – Backup Strategy

Scheduling Backups

For Ad hoc changes backup whenever modified

Storage – SAN, SATA, Tape drive
Backup of Virtual images of Servers - Monthly

Recovery Strategy – 1 (using SharePoint)

Restore from a farm backup that was created by using built-in tools, or restore from the backup of a component taken by using the farm backup system.
Restore from a site collection backup.
Connect to a content database by using the unattached content database feature, back up or export data from it, and then restore or import the data
Restore Customizations (http://technet.microsoft.com/hi-in/library/ee748613(en-us).aspx)

Recovery Strategy – 2 (using System Center DPM 2010)

System Requirements

In an ideal scenario, the failover components and systems match the primary components and systems in all ways:

Platform, hardware, and number of servers.

At a minimum, the failover environment must be able to handle the traffic that you expect during a failover.

Keep in mind that only a subset of users may be served by the failover site.

The systems must match in at least the following:

Operating system version and all updates
SQL Server versions and all updates
SharePoint 2010 Products versions and all updates

The system uptime will also be affected by the other components in the system. In particular, make sure that you do the following:

Ensure that infrastructure dependencies such as power, cooling, network, directory, and SMTP are fully redundant.
Choose a switching mechanism, whether DNS or hardware load balancing, that meets your needs.

References:

•http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/fact_sheets/b-be2010_agent_sharepoint_solution_brief.en-us.pdf

•http://symcdata.info/vmworld/assets/BE-2010-R2.pdf

•http://www.edugeek.net/blogs/zag/455-microsoft-dpm-2010-vs-symantec-backup-exec-2010.html

Windows scheduling a PowerShell Script

2012-04-20T03:51:00.002-07:00

Task Scheduling a powershell script

This section describes the steps to schedule the power shell script.

Note: Script should be stored locally on server

Step 1: Go to Startè Administrative tools è Task schedulerè Right click on Task Scheduler libraryè Create task

Step 2: Type the necessary fields as per below screenshot

Step 3: Click on next tab (Triggers) and click on New

Step 4: Under settings click on Monthly and select all

Step 5: Under days click on 15 and 30 and click ok

Step 6: Click on action tab and then on new action and browse to the PowerShell client app on below location

Program/script: C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe

Add argument (optional): -Command "& Path of the script -url URL of script -List List name"

Once the above entries are done click on ok

PowerShell Scripting

2012-04-20T03:31:00.001-07:00

PowerShell Script for a SharePoint calendar list. The scripts adds data from to SharePoint calendar list. The calendar data will be populated from a database of any application. A power shell script will be task scheduled to run in the interval of every 15 days and update the SP calendar list fetching the data from the database view of clarity. Every time the calendar will be deleted and recreated using a template file before loading the data.

#---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#Created By: Nitin Tiwari
#Created Date: 6/3/2012
#Discription:
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#-------Deleting the List From Existing site---------#
param([string]$url, [string]$List)
[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")

function Get-SPSite([string]$url) {

New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite($url)
}
$url= 'http://servername:11/'
$List= 'Name of Calendar'
function Get-SPWeb([string]$url) {

$SPSite = Get-SPSite $url
return $SPSite.OpenWeb()
$SPSite.Dispose()
}

function Remove-SPField([string]$url, [string]$List) {

$OpenWeb = Get-SPWeb $url
$OpenList = $OpenWeb.Lists[$List]

if($openList -eq $null)
{

}
else
{

$OpenList.Delete()
}
$OpenWeb.Dispose()
}

if($url -AND $List) { Remove-SPField -url $url -List $List }

#-----Creating the Lsit from Template-------#
# Specify your Site collection URL
#set-variable -option constant -name url -value $url
$site = Get-SPSite($url)
$web = $site.OpenWeb()
$listTemplates = $site.GetCustomListTemplates($web)
$web.Lists.Add("Calendar", "Calendar", $listTemplates["Calendar"])
$site.Dispose
Echo Finish
#----Establishing the database connection and reading the data count----#
#add-pssnapin sqlserverprovidersnapin100
#add-pssnapin sqlservercmdletsnapin100
$SqlConnection = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection
$SqlConnection.ConnectionString = "Server=WIN-9VAS57CM29D\KMPDEVELOPMENT;Database=ABC_Calendar;Integrated Security=True"
$SqlCmd = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand
$SqlCmd.CommandText = "select * from V_DeploymentCalendar"
$SqlCmd.Connection = $SqlConnection
$SqlAdapter = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter
$SqlAdapter.SelectCommand = $SqlCmd
$DataSet = New-Object System.Data.DataSet
$SqlAdapter.Fill($DataSet)
$SqlConnection.Close()
#$DataSet.Tables[0]
Write-output "Database is " $DataSet.Tables[0].Rows.Count
#-----Reading the data and updating the field--------#

$SPSite=New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite($url)

$OpenList = $SPSite.OpenWeb().Lists[$List]

function is-null($value){
return [System.DBNull]::Value.Equals($value)
}

foreach ($Row in $DataSet.Tables[0].Rows)
{
$NewItem = $OpenList.Items.Add()
if(is-null $Row.ProjectName)
{
$NewItem["Title"]=''
}
else
{
$NewItem["Title"] = $Row.ProjectName
}

if(is-null $Row.DeploymentActualStartDate)
{
#$NewItem["Deployment Date"]=''
}
else
{
$NewItem["Deployment Date"]= [DateTime]$Row.DeploymentActualStartDate
}

if(is-null $Row.ProjectName)
{
$NewItem["Name of Project"]=''
}
else
{
$NewItem["Name of Project"] = $Row.ProjectName
}

if(is-null $Row.ProjectManager)
{
$NewItem["Name of Project Manager"]=''
}
else
{
$NewItem["Name of Project Manager"] = $Row.ProjectName
}

if(is-null $Row.TechnicalLead)
{
$NewItem["Change Owner"]=''
}
else
{
$NewItem["Change Owner"] = $Row.ProjectName
}

if(is-null $Row.SystemsImpacted)
{
$NewItem["Impacted Application"]=''
}
else
{
$NewItem["Impacted Application"] = $Row.ProjectName
}

if(is-null $Row.Location)
{
$NewItem["Location"]=''
}
else
{
$NewItem["Location"] = $Row.ProjectName
}
$NewItem.Update()

}

$SPSite.Dispose()

Dos and Don’ts for Backup/Restore (SP2010)

2012-04-20T02:44:00.001-07:00

Dos and Don’ts for Backup/Restore

If a WSP needs to be installed it requires a iis reset before testing

Always use PowerShell command for backup/restore process

If a WSP is updated incrementally use update wsp command. It is not recommended to uninstalled the older and then reinstall the new always use update for incremental wsp deployment

Note restoration of a site collection all ways overwrites the existing one

Every site collecting is attached with a content database so always use the below referred command for restoration

Before creating a new site collection create a content database for attaching the site collection

Always install WSP before restoring site

Security group should be complying and in sync with production to restore it to any environment other than prod. Restoration will fail and give permission issue if not in sync or comply

Backup/Restore Command in SharePoint 2010

2012-04-20T02:42:00.004-07:00

1.1.1 Backup Command

Backup-SPSite “<Site url>” –Path “<Path of drive on which the backup needs to be placed followed by backup name.bak>” (For e.g. Backup-SPSite "http://servername/site" -Path "\\servername\r$\MSSQL10_50.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Backup\BackUPSiteCollection\Wed\ABC.bak")

1.1.2 Restore Command

Restore-SPSite “<Site url>” -path “<Path of drive on which backup is placed >” -Force -DatabaseServer <Name of the database instance> -DatabaseName <Name of the content database need to be attached with> (For e.g. Restore-SPSite " http://servername/site " -path "E:\WSP, document and Termstore\VMNew_bkp.bak" -Force -DatabaseServer servername\named -DatabaseName WSS_Content_80)

Note: The above scripts and commands can be executed from any box with respect to the environment in the SharePoint farm.

Change Password Process for Managed Service Accounts in SharePoint 2010

2012-04-20T02:39:00.001-07:00

The process of changing the password can be categorized in two sections

The default content access account password change (for e.g. prodfarmadmin or spsfarmadmin)
All other registered managed service account for other operations in farm

The steps for default content access account password change are as follows

To change the password for the default content access account

Go to Security –> Configure managed accounts
You can edit the settings for any managed account by simply clicking the edit icon associated with the account you wish to modify.

3. Then on Managed Account page click check radio button Change password now

Once the new password entered click on ok

Then click on Application Management on left navigation of CA

On Application Management page click on Managed Service Application and on Managed service application page click on Prod Search Service Application for which you want to change the default content access account.
In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.
On the Manage Service Applications page, click the Search service application for which you want to change the default content access account.
On the Search Service Application: Search Administration page, in the System Status section, locate the default content access account, which is in the form Domain\UserName.
Click the default content access account name. The Default Content Access Account dialog box appears.
Type the new password in the Password box, and then click OK.

The process for changing password for all other registered managed service account for other operations in farm is same as above just repeat from step 1 to 4 for all account.

Note: Once the operation is performed it requires 10 minutes of down time as require doing iisreset.

SharePoint 2010 Statistic and Web Analytics

2012-04-20T02:32:00.000-07:00

The Web Analytics feature in SharePoint 2010 allows you to get some insights on how your users behave whether it's an Intranet, Extranet or a public facing web site. By default data collection runs daily which you can adjust by changing the schedule of the timer job

1. From the Central Administration navigate to Monitoring

2. Click Review job definitions

3. Find the definition called Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Processing (timer job reference here)

4. Adjust the time to your liking or run the data collection.

After you let the job running for a while you can navigate to the analytics reports in your site to see results:

Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Site Web Analytics reports

If you ran the timer job after you used the site for a while – you will get usage data displayed. Although the UI displaying report and a graph is a web part – this web part cannot be extended or configured or even placed on another page without custom code. However, there is another web part – which you can add to any zone of the page: Content Rollup -> Web Analytics Web Part.

For more details on Viewing and analytically different reports and log refer to the following technet article

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff463595.aspx

Site Administration DO's and Dont's (SharePoint 2010)

2012-04-19T23:10:00.000-07:00

Issues and resolution in SP2010

2012-04-19T23:03:00.003-07:00

PLANNING FOR DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

2010-05-11T00:06:00.000-07:00

The planning process
The document management planning process consists of the following major steps:
Identify document management roles Ensure that your plans incorporate the feedback of your organization's key stakeholders, that you have the right team in place to implement the solution, and that you know who will participate in document management processes
Analyze document usage After you identify who works on documents, determine the types of documents they work on and how they will be used. For more information.
Plan the organization of documents You can organize documents in libraries, team sites, and portal sites. Office SharePoint Server 2007 offers a range of document organizing and storing features, from specialized sites such as the Records Repository to free-form document libraries for ad-hoc document creation and collaboration. Within a library, you can further organize content into folders and subfolders. For more information.
Plan how content moves between locations It may be necessary to move or copy a document from one site or library to another at different stages of its life cycle. For example, the publishing process may include moving a document from a staging site to a public Internet site. If content needs to be converted from one format to another as it moves from site to site, you will also want to plan content conversions. For more information.
Plan content types Use content types to organize information about types of documents, such as metadata, document templates, policies, and workflow processes. This is an essential step to help you organize your documents and enforce consistency across your organization. For more information.
Plan content control You can plan the appropriate degree of control for each content type and storage location. For example, for a document library you can plan to require check-in and check-out and to protect documents from unauthorized distribution by using Information Rights Management. For more information.
Plan workflows By planning workflows for your organization, you can control and track how documents move from one team member to another as each participant collaborates in a document's life cycle. Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes workflows for common team tasks such as reviewing and approving documents. Office SharePoint Server 2007 also supports creating and installing custom workflows. For more information.
Plan policies For each content type, plan information management policies to ensure that documents are properly audited, retained, labeled, and otherwise handled according to your organization's institutional and legal requirements. Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes policies that implement auditing, document retention, labeling, and barcodes (to ensure that printed content can be correlated with corresponding versions in document libraries).

DMS Optimization
Document Management system optimizes the use of documents within an organization
independent of any publishing medium (for example, the Web). It provides a document
repository coupled with robust metadata to describe the content it contains. The system
tracks the editorial history of each document and its relationships with other documents.
A variety of search and navigation methods are available to make document retrieval
easy. A DMS will be suitable for the pharmaceutical documentation which has highly
structured and regulated content.

The Document management system will be a web based application developed using
ASP.NET and C# running in IIS web server. The DMS mainly constitutes of the
Document Management, Work Flow, Subscription, Security and User Management. The
proposed solution utilizes the WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning)
protocol, which is an extension of the HTTP, for manipulating the contents of a
document management system via the Web. The DAV Server is the core engine of the
DMS. This server manages the document locking, storage of metadata and search of
documents based on the metadata.
WebDAV has seven additional methods over the HTTP protocol:
MOVE (to move a resource from one URL to another)
COPY (to copy a resource from one URL to another)
MKCOL (to create a new collection of resources -- like a directory or folder)
PROPPATCH (to add properties to a resource or collection)
PROPFIND (to get properties from a resource or collection)
LOCK (to lock a file so that no one else can change it while you're working on it)
UNLOCK (to unlock the file)
PROPPATCH (to add properties to a resource or collection)
For user authentication, the system will interact with Microsoft Active Directory services
through an API. Active Directory provides the ability to authenticate and authorize the
users from a centralized location, so that users do not need to login to different
applications. The application data will be stored in a central server, which holds all
document related data like the version info, full text indexes etc. The documents are
stored centrally in the Document Library, so that any user, having proper access rights
can manipulate these documents. The Financial and HR systems communicate with the
DAV Server with the help of web services.

Document Storage and Retrieval
This module will handle the storage, versioning, linking and retrieval of documents.
Storage and Retrieval
Users can add documents to different document groups based on the permissions
through a user friendly web-based interface. The document formats that can be
added are:
· Word
· PDF
· PPT
· Scans as OCR files
· Fax
· Email
-While adding, user will have to specify the document type and the metadata fields
like document author, relevant department etc. Documents can also be added via an
email to a specific address. These documents can be checked out and modified by
authorized users. Users can also print, fax or email these documents from the
system.
- Versioning
History of all modifications done for a document will be logged for future reference.
Users can also compare two versions of a document and view the differences and
can retrieve the older version of the document if required.
- Linking
Administrator will have the facility to define Document link types such as “associated
with”, “duplicated by” etc. therefore while adding, the user can specify the link type
if any for the document.

Security and User Management
Authentication
The system will be integrated with Microsoft Active Directory to support Single Sign
On.
User Management
This module facilitates adding users to the system and assigning them to different
groups. This group and role based security model allows for document access and
action control management. Permissions are used to control access to content in the
repository, and will be set up by group and by role and by document group. Sub
groups by default will inherit the permissions of the parent. This can be overridden
by the user. The permissions in the system will be –
Read: can view the document and its metadata, but the user is not allowed to
change the document.

Write: can change the contents of a document, as well as its metadata.

Add Document group: can create and edit sub-groups if the user has the
required permissions to do so in the parent group.

Manage Permissions: can edit permissions for the document group where the
user has this permission.

Delete: can delete documents and sub-groups in a parent group where the
user has this permission.

Indexing and Search
The system will provide two types of searching:
Full text indexing technology allowing search within document contents. While
adding a document to the system, a separate thread will run to perform a full
text indexing of the document. The search results will be stored in the text
storage unit. Therefore when the user searches for a document using the
keywords, results will be taken from the pre-searched results.
Metadata search, is based on the metadata information added for the document
by the user.

Archiving
Documents can be archived by the creator or the administrator. These archived
documents will be stored separately and only administrator has access and unarchieve
permission. Users will be able to request the administrator to unarchieve a specific
document.

Work Flow
This module manages the workflow of the documents and the various states and
transitions these documents undergo with in the organization. There will be facility to
define the rules for the workflow while adding a document to the system. This module
will have the following sub modules –

Define Document types: There will be facility to define document types like
Manufacturing Orders, Receipts etc.

Define State and Transitions: Facility to add state (Draft, Final, etc) and
Transitions (Under Review, Forwarded for approval, etc) will be available.

Define workflow: Facility will be provided to set the start and destination
state for each transition in the workflow and the permissions for each role.
Notifications can be set for each transition for each role.

Subscription
There will be facility for the user to mark a document or folder for attention. There will
be two types of notifications-

Subscription alerts: informs the user when a document or a folder that the
user has marked is checked out, or deleted, or if it is modified by any other
user.
Workflow alerts: informs the user when a workflow that user is involved with
has reached a certain state. Notifications can also be triggered when user is
assigned a Role for the next step in the workflow.

Reports
This module allows the administrator to track the user activity in the system. Full login
history of all users will be available to the administrator. Date wise search will be
provided to get a custom report for the user activity.

Introduction to Document Management System (DMS)

2010-05-10T23:26:00.000-07:00

The elements of a document management system
Introduction to project modules

Document management controls the life cycle of documents in your organization — how they are created, reviewed, published, and consumed, and how they are ultimately disposed of or retained. Although the term "management" implies top-down control of information, an effective document management system should reflect the culture of the organization using it. The tools you use for document management should be flexible, allowing you to tightly control documents' life cycles if that fits your enterprise's culture and goals, but also letting you implement a more loosely structured system if that better suits your enterprise.
A well-designed document management system promotes finding and sharing information easily. It organizes content in a logical way, and makes it easy to standardize content creation and presentation across an enterprise. It promotes knowledge management and information mining. It helps your organization meet its legal responsibilities. It provides features at each stage of a document's life cycle, from template creation to document authoring, reviewing, publishing, auditing, and ultimately destroying or archiving.
The Elements of a Document Management System
An effective document management solution specifies:

What types of documents and other content can be created within an organization.
What templates to use for each type of document.
What metadata to provide for each type of document.
Where to store documents at each stage of a document's life cycle.
How to control access to a document at each stage of its life cycle.
How to move documents within the organization as team members contribute to the documents' creation, review, approval, publication, and disposition.
What policies to apply to documents so that document-related actions are audited, documents are retained or disposed of properly, and content important to the organization is protected.
How documents are converted as they transition from one stage to another during their life cycles.
How documents are treated as corporate records, which must be retained according to legal requirements and corporate guidelines.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes features that implement all of these aspects of document management. To ensure that information workers can easily take advantage of these capabilities without having to depart from their day-to-day operations and familiar tools, applications in the Microsoft Office 2007 system — such as Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Word — also include features that support each stage in a document's life cycle.

New for IT Professionals in Office SharePoint Server 2007

2010-05-10T23:14:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has many new features and enhancements that can help IT professionals deploy and maintain Office SharePoint Server 2007 solutions. Together, these new features and enhancements provide IT organizations with better control over information resources; individually these new features and enhancements provide functional benefits that help reduce administrative overhead and help IT administrators work more efficiently and effectively. The changes that impact IT organizations and IT professionals the most include:

An improved administration model that centralizes configuration and management tasks, and helps IT organizations delineate and delegate administrative roles.
New and improved compliance features and capabilities that help organizations secure resources and manage business-critical processes.
New and improved operational tools and capabilities that drive down the total cost of ownership (TCO).
Improved support for network configuration.
Improved extensibility of the object model that makes custom applications and components are easier to deploy and manage.

Three-tier Administration Model
Architecturally, Office SharePoint Server 2007 now has a three-tier administration model that makes it easier for IT organizations to differentiate administrative roles and assign administrative responsibilities.
Tier 1 Encompasses all of the administrative features and functionality for centrally managing the server farm. Tier 1 administrative tasks are typically performed by an organization's IT administrators and can include a wide range of tasks such as farm-level resource management tasks, farm-level status checks and monitoring, and farm-level security configuration. For example, a tier 1 administrator might be responsible for creating new Web applications and site collections, managing incoming and outgoing e-mail settings for the farm, and managing server farm topology.
Tier 2 Encompasses all of the administrative features and functionality for managing shared services across a server farm. Tier 2 administrative tasks are typically performed by a business unit IT administrator and can include a wide range of management tasks at the service level such as configuring search, indexing, or usage reporting. Tier 2 is relevant only if you are running Office SharePoint Server 2007.
Tier 3 Encompasses all of the administrative features and functionality for managing sites within a server farm. Tier 3 administrative tasks are typically performed by a business unit site administrator and can include a wide range of site-specific management tasks such as Web part management, access management, and content management. For example, a tier 3 administrator might be responsible for creating a new list on a site, configuring access permissions for users, and modifying site hierarchy.
New and Improved Compliance Features and Capabilities
Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes new and enhanced features that provide IT organizations with better control over information resources. These new and enhanced compliance features include:
Policy management
You can now configure policies for Web applications based on the domain or the server authentication zone. For example, you can create intranet and extranet authentication zones to restrict access to information based on how users access information. You can also use authentication zones to create access control lists (ACLs) that include a group of users from different authentication providers.
Auditing and logging
Auditing and logging can now be configured for all actions on sites, content, and workflows.
Item-level access control
Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides item-level access control and security settings that allow site administrators and IT administrators to control which people or groups have access to sites, document libraries, lists, folders, documents, and list items. In addition to controlling access to Web page content, item-level access also allows administrators to control which user interface (UI) elements are visible or actionable. This feature, known as UI trimming, also reduces Web page clutter and makes Web pages easier to navigate.
Document life-cycle management
Using Office SharePoint Server 2007, you can take advantage of a stable, scalable, and efficient document management system that includes: a specialized Records Repository site template; a records vault with capabilities that help ensure the integrity of the files stored in the repository; information management policies that consistently and uniformly enforce the labelling, auditing, and expiration of records; hold capabilities that make it possible for IT, lawyers, and records managers to apply one or more holds that suspend the records management policies on items to help ensure that they remain unchanged during litigation, audits, or other investigations; records Collection Interface that helps people and automated systems easily submit content to a records repository—supporting "write only" access without requiring direct access to the records in the repository; record routing that enables automated routing of content to its proper location within the records management system, based on its content type.
Administrator access control
Office SharePoint Server 2007 now prohibits IT administrators from viewing site content unless the IT administrator is granted site collection administrator privileges. In addition, an event is written to the Event Viewer application log whenever an IT administrator changes site collection administrator privileges.
Extensibility enhancements
Office SharePoint Server 2007 has several extensibility enhancements that make it easier to create custom applications that are well integrated with Office SharePoint Server 2007 features, functionality, and user interface elements.
Site definitions have been enhanced so that sites are no longer locked or bound to your original template choice. For example, you can now enhance a document workspace site by using features from a team site.
Administration tasks and functionality can be extended to custom applications. For example, if you create a custom database by extending a database that was created by Office SharePoint Server 2007, you can have the custom database automatically appear in the backup and restore user interface.
Enhancements to the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service make it easier to create and manage timer jobs that control custom services.
In addition, Office SharePoint Server 2007 hosts the Windows Workflow Foundation, which allows the creation of customized workflow solutions and the use of structured workflows on document library and list items. In conjunction with the Office SharePoint Server 2007 application templates, the Windows Workflow Foundation allows you to create robust workflow-enabled business applications.

MOSS 2007

2010-05-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

Introduction to Getting Started for Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a rich server application for the enterprise that facilitates collaboration, provides full content management features, implements business processes, and provides access to information essential to organizational goals and processes. It provides an integrated platform to plan, deploy, and manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across and beyond the enterprise.

SQL Server 2008 R2 New Features

2010-05-07T02:08:00.000-07:00

With SQL Server 2008 R2, Microsoft continues to be the value leader, offering rich functionality to support OLTP and BI workloads out of the box at a low cost of ownership relative to competitors. With increasing hardware innovations, SQL Server continues to be the only major database vendor who does not price per core for multi-core processors.
What’s New in SQL Server 2008 R2 Editions
Built on SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2 delivers higher mission-critical scale, more efficient IT, and expanded reporting and analytics through self-service business intelligence. SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces two new premium editions to meet the needs of large scale datacenters and data warehouses.
• SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter
• SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse

New Premium Editions
Datacenter
Built on SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter is designed to deliver a high-performing data platform that provides the highest levels of scalability for large application workloads, virtualization and consolidation, and management for an organization’s database infrastructure. Datacenter helps enable organizations to cost effectively scale their mission-critical environment.
Key features new to Datacenter:
• Application and Multi-Server Management for enrolling, gaining insights and managing over 25 instances
• Highest virtualization support for maximum ROI on consolidation and virtualization
• High-scale complex event processing with SQL Server StreamInsight™
• Supports more than 8 processors and up to 256 logical processors for highest levels of scale
• Supports memory limits up to OS maximum

Parallel Data Warehouse
SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse is a highly scalable data warehouse appliance-based solution. Parallel Data Warehouse delivers performance at low cost through a massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture and compatibility with hardware partners – scale your data warehouse to tens and hundreds of terabytes.
Key features new to Parallel Data Warehouse:
• 10s to 100s TBs enabled by MPP architecture
• Advanced data warehousing capabilities like Star Join Queries and Change Data Capture
• Integration with SSIS, SSRS, and SSAS
• Supports industry standard data warehousing hub and spoke architecture and parallel database copy

Investments in Core Editions
SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise delivers a comprehensive data platform that provides built-in security, availability, and scale coupled with robust business intelligence offerings—helping enable the highest service levels for mission-critical workloads.
The following capabilities are new to Enterprise:
• PowerPivot for SharePoint to support the hosting and management of PowerPivot applications in SharePoint
• Application and Multi-Server Management for enrolling, gaining insights and managing up to 25 instances
• Master Data Services for data consistency across heterogeneous systems
• Data Compression now enabled with UCS-2 Unicode support
• High-scale complex event processing with SQL Server StreamInsight™

SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard
SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard delivers a complete data management and business intelligence platform for departments and small organizations to run their applications—helping enable effective database management with minimal IT resources.
The following capabilities are new to Standard:
• Backup Compression to reduce data backups by up to 60% and help reduce time spent on backups *
• Can be managed instance for Application and Multi-Server Management capabilities
• High-scale complex event processing with SQL Server StreamInsight™
* Source: Technet
SQL Server 2008 R2 Edition Pricing
Editions Per Processor Pricing
Retail ** Per Server Plus CAL Pricing
Retail **
Parallel Data Warehouse $57,498 Not offered via Server CAL
Datacenter $57,498 Not offered via Server CAL
Enterprise $28,749 $13,969 with 25 CALs
Standard $7,499 $1,849 with 5 CALs
** Full Packaged Product (FPP) Pricing. Prices on this page are stated in U.S. dollars and reflect pricing for purchases within the United States and Canada. The prices listed are estimated prices; reseller pricing may vary.

Memory Scale

2010-05-07T00:52:00.000-07:00

Memory Scale
Physical memory scale and support is important when hosting a large number of sizeable content databases, particularly where performing upgrade and patching operations that are often resource intensive and depend heavily on both physical memory and TempDb. SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise can support up to 2 terabytes of physical memory to address today’s most demanding SharePoint deployments. High volume records management scenarios can be further supported by SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition in which physical memory is limited only by the operating system on which SQL Server resides.

2010-05-07T00:10:00.000-07:00

Scale to Meet the Most Demanding Workloads
SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition enables several dimensions on which it can scale, enabling even the most demanding SharePoint Server 2010 deployments. For example, rapidly growing Enterprise Content Management (ECM) or Web Content Management (WCM) workloads may often require compute resources beyond those associated with traditional collaboration scenarios. SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise can support this scenario through a number of improvements, by enabling greater processor scale, the ability to address more physical memory on 64-bit hardware, and hot-add hardware support.
Processor Scale
When used as an ECM platform, SharePoint Server 2010 can become resource intensive and place heavy demands on the system as transactions are processed. The improved CPU support in SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise allows it to scale CPUs up to eight processors with no limitation on the number of cores, to more efficiently sustain and balance load under these and other demanding workload conditions.
Memory Scale
Physical memory scale and support is important when hosting a large number of sizeable content databases, particularly where performing upgrade and patching operations that are often resource intensive and depend heavily on both physical memory and TempDb. SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise can support up to 2 terabytes of physical memory to address today’s most demanding SharePoint deployments. High volume records management scenarios can be further supported by SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition in which physical memory is limited only by the operating system on which SQL Server resides.
Hot-Add Hardware Support
When considering virtualized topologies, you can further benefit from SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with hot-add hardware support. Hot-add hardware support enables administrators to dynamically add CPUs and physical memory to a live system, without having to stop database services. This support enables SQL Server 2008 R2 to scale seamlessly and minimize downtime when additional resources are required to support ever changing business requirements. As SharePoint Server 2010 becomes a mission critical application for both ECM and WCM workloads, scheduling downtime to add hardware or scale up can be difficult.
Resource Governor and Performance Data Collector
To more efficiently monitor and control the consumption of resources, SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition provides the Resource Governor. It enables administrators to gain control of the workload environment by defining workload prioritization, more granularly control inefficient queries, and allocate resources to the workloads where they are most required. SQL Server 2008 provides the Performance Data Collector, which enables an administrator to gather performance data from performance counters, dynamic management views, SQL Trace, and other sources.
To learn more about SQL Server 2008 performance and scalability, see SQL Server: Performance and Scalability (http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/performance-scale.aspx).
Table Partitioning Improvements
The new Usage and Health Data Collection logging and Web Analytics reporting databases contain large tables. When SQL Server Enterprise Edition is installed, the large tables are partitioned onto separate file groups in order to improve performance and query efficiency. SQL Server 2008 improved how partitions are queried, so that you can expect fast and consistent query execution, no matter how many partitions are queried. SQL Server 2008 also provides the ability to escalate to a partition lock, which minimizes the impact of lock escalation without affecting queries on other partitions, thereby reducing downtime, and further optimizing performance.
Note: Table partitioning is only supported for the Web Analytics reporting databases.
To learn more about partitioning in SQL Server 2008, see Partitioned Table and Index Concepts (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190787.aspx).
To learn more about performance and scale in SQL Server 2008, see SQL Server: Performance and Scalability (http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/performance-scale.aspx).

2010-05-07T00:08:00.000-07:00

Introduction
The adoption of Microsoft® SharePoint® Server 2010 can grow exponentially across an organization quickly gaining momentum and taking root as a critical part of an organization’s ecosystem. To help protect data, ensure availability, and keep costs down, we recommend that customers choose Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition during initial deployment.
Choosing an edition of SQL Server 2008 R2 is an important step when planning your SharePoint Server 2010 deployment, from understanding which features are important to your deployment needs, to enhancing security, or designing topologies that enable seamless scale.
To understand which features are right for your deployment you should first understand and prioritize your organization's underlying business requirements. For example, you may need to support a rich media management solution or government regulations that require you to deploy a high level of data protection to meet strict compliance rules.. In either scenario, SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition offers dimensions of scale and a rich feature set to support a variety of workloads.Note: Some of the features discussed in this paper span SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 editions and are annotated where appropriate.

2010-05-07T00:07:00.000-07:00

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
Better Together
Contents

Introduction.. 4
Scale to Meet the Most Demanding Workloads.. 4
Processor Scale. 4
Memory Scale. 4
Hot-Add Hardware Support 5
Resource Governor and Performance Data Collector 5
Table Partitioning Improvements. 5
Meet Complex Compliance Requirements.. 6
Transparent Data Encryption. 6
SQL Server Audit 6
Reduce Cost with Storage Efficiencies.. 7
Backup Compression. 7
Remote Blob Storage. 7
Enable Effective Business Continuity Management.. 8
Database Mirroring. 8
Failover Clustering. 9
Log Shipping. 9
Fast Recovery. 9
Database Snapshots. 10
Develop Rich Business Insight Capabilities.. 11
SQL Server Reporting Services. 11
PowerPivot 11
Summary.. 11
Additional Resources.. 12
Feedback.. 12

Introduction
The adoption of Microsoft® SharePoint® Server 2010 can grow exponentially across an organization quickly gaining momentum and taking root as a critical part of an organization’s ecosystem. To help protect data, ensure availability, and keep costs down, we recommend that customers choose Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition during initial deployment.
Choosing an edition of SQL Server 2008 R2 is an important step when planning your SharePoint Server 2010 deployment, from understanding which features are important to your deployment needs, to enhancing security, or designing topologies that enable seamless scale.
To understand which features are right for your deployment you should first understand and prioritize your organization's underlying business requirements. For example, you may need to support a rich media management solution or government regulations that require you to deploy a high level of data protection to meet strict compliance rules.. In either scenario, SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition offers dimensions of scale and a rich feature set to support a variety of workloads.
Note: Some of the features discussed in this paper span SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 editions and are annotated where appropriate.
Scale to Meet the Most Demanding Workloads
SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition enables several dimensions on which it can scale, enabling even the most demanding SharePoint Server 2010 deployments. For example, rapidly growing Enterprise Content Management (ECM) or Web Content Management (WCM) workloads may often require compute resources beyond those associated with traditional collaboration scenarios. SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise can support this scenario through a number of improvements, by enabling greater processor scale, the ability to address more physical memory on 64-bit hardware, and hot-add hardware support.
Processor Scale
When used as an ECM platform, SharePoint Server 2010 can become resource intensive and place heavy demands on the system as transactions are processed. The improved CPU support in SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise allows it to scale CPUs up to eight processors with no limitation on the number of cores, to more efficiently sustain and balance load under these and other demanding workload conditions.
Memory Scale
Physical memory scale and support is important when hosting a large number of sizeable content databases, particularly where performing upgrade and patching operations that are often resource intensive and depend heavily on both physical memory and TempDb. SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise can support up to 2 terabytes of physical memory to address today’s most demanding SharePoint deployments. High volume records management scenarios can be further supported by SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition in which physical memory is limited only by the operating system on which SQL Server resides.
Hot-Add Hardware Support
When considering virtualized topologies, you can further benefit from SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise with hot-add hardware support. Hot-add hardware support enables administrators to dynamically add CPUs and physical memory to a live system, without having to stop database services. This support enables SQL Server 2008 R2 to scale seamlessly and minimize downtime when additional resources are required to support ever changing business requirements. As SharePoint Server 2010 becomes a mission critical application for both ECM and WCM workloads, scheduling downtime to add hardware or scale up can be difficult.
Resource Governor and Performance Data Collector
To more efficiently monitor and control the consumption of resources, SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition provides the Resource Governor. It enables administrators to gain control of the workload environment by defining workload prioritization, more granularly control inefficient queries, and allocate resources to the workloads where they are most required. SQL Server 2008 provides the Performance Data Collector, which enables an administrator to gather performance data from performance counters, dynamic management views, SQL Trace, and other sources.
To learn more about SQL Server 2008 performance and scalability, see SQL Server: Performance and Scalability (http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/performance-scale.aspx).
Table Partitioning Improvements
The new Usage and Health Data Collection logging and Web Analytics reporting databases contain large tables. When SQL Server Enterprise Edition is installed, the large tables are partitioned onto separate file groups in order to improve performance and query efficiency. SQL Server 2008 improved how partitions are queried, so that you can expect fast and consistent query execution, no matter how many partitions are queried. SQL Server 2008 also provides the ability to escalate to a partition lock, which minimizes the impact of lock escalation without affecting queries on other partitions, thereby reducing downtime, and further optimizing performance.
Note: Table partitioning is only supported for the Web Analytics reporting databases.
To learn more about partitioning in SQL Server 2008, see Partitioned Table and Index Concepts (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190787.aspx).
To learn more about performance and scale in SQL Server 2008, see SQL Server: Performance and Scalability (http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/performance-scale.aspx).
Meet Complex Compliance Requirements
Whether required to meet U.S. Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS), U.S. Health and Human Services HIPAA, or Federal Drug Administration 21 CFR 11 regulatory codes with your SharePoint Server 2010 deployment, SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise is designed with the highest levels of security in mind through both a robust authentication and authorization model and improvements in data encryption.
Transparent Data Encryption
Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) is a feature added in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise that performs real time I/O encryption and decryption of data and log files without requiring unsupported modification of the underlying table schema or increasing the size of the database—that means no changes to SharePoint to enable TDE. Transparent Data Encryption offers the next level of data protection beyond securing the communication channel, by protecting the physical media in the event it is lost or stolen. Transparent Data Encryption is performed at the page level—encryption is performed before the pages are written to disk, and decryption is performed when pages are read into memory. To learn more about Transparent Data Encryption, see Understanding Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb934049.aspx) in SQL Server Books Online.
Transparent Data Encryption is available in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition and SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition and Datacenter Editions.
SQL Server Audit
In many scenarios encryption is often combined with auditing to meet government or standards requirements such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition addresses these scenarios through SQL Server Audit, which enables tracking and logging events that occur on the system, for example detecting changes or modifications to database objects/stored procedures, surfacing changes to server configuration settings, or detecting changes to audit configuration settings.
To learn more about SQL Server Audit, see Understanding SQL Server Audit (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc280386.aspx).
SQL Audit is available in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition and SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and Datacenter Editions.
Reduce Cost with Storage Efficiencies
Hosting vast quantities of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 data can become costly over time as data continues to grow exponentially. These costs can rise exponentially due to data retention policies, or when digital media assets comprise the information corpus. SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition provides a broad array of features to address storage concerns and minimize the data storage footprint in a cost effective manner with little operational and administrative overhead.
Backup Compression
Backup Compression can help reduce the amount of I/O required in writing backups to the backup device, significant improvements can be expected in the speed of the backup, as well as providing greater storage efficiency for your SharePoint backup sets and as a result reducing the overall storage costs associated with data protection.
Consider the following common scenario; an organization is required to adhere to a recovery service level agreement (SLA) which requires that data lost or removed from a system can be requested to be restored up to 14 days following the initial date of deletion or loss, and within 24 hours of the request. In order to effectively support such an SLA, the organization will typically need to maintain 21 days of backup data on disk, in most cases, provided through 3 full and 18 differential backups. Assuming the total amount of data hosted on the SQL Server instance is 5 terabytes and the compression ratio achieved is 3:1, the amount of disk space required in this scenario becomes clear. Backup compression can provide a solution to mitigate the impact of the both short term and long term data retention and allow the organization to meet the desired SLA while reducing the overall storage costs associated.
To learn more about Backup Compression in SQL Server 2008, see Backup Compression (SQL Server) (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb964719.aspx).
Backup Compression is available in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition and SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter Editions.
Remote Blob Storage
Remote Blob Storage integration with SharePoint Server 2010 in SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise enables an administrator to externalize SharePoint binary large object (BLOB) data by hosting it on less expensive, commodity hardware solutions and managing it with SQL Server through the same data management techniques they use today. Remote Blob Storage can be an integral component in the most stringent compliance scenarios by enabling third-party technologies to implement solutions such as expunge on the server(s) hosting the externalized BLOBs. For additional information on Remote Blob Storage availability, see Table 1 below.
Table 1 Remote Blob Storage Licensing Matrix
Configuration
SQL SKU for SharePoint
SQL SKU for BLOB Store
SQL RBS + SQL FILESTREAM Provider storing BLOBs locally in the same content DB
ALL

SQL RBS + SQL FILESTREAM provider storing BLOBs in a remote DB
SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition or above.
SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition or above.
SQL RBS + Third party provider
SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition or above.
N/A
Enable Effective Business Continuity Management
Business Continuity Management is a combination of high availability and disaster recovery. High availability ensures a certain absolute degree of operational continuity in the event one or more components fail in an isolated location. Availability requirements are defined by Operating and Service Level Agreements. Disaster recovery ensures a certain absolute degree of operational continuity in the event that all systems fail in one or more locations. Disaster recovery requirements are defined by Operating Level Agreements, Recovery Point, and Recovery Time Objectives.
SQL Server 2008 R2 provides a number of native capabilities to enable the design and deployment of a highly available SharePoint Server 2010 deployment including database mirroring, failover clustering, and log shipping.
Database Mirroring
New in SharePoint Server 2010 is native support for database mirroring across its database architecture. Database mirroring provides increased data protection with complete or almost complete redundancy of the data and increased availability of a database by quickly bringing a standby copy of the database online. Mirroring can improve the availability of the production database during upgrades by enabling sequential upgrade of the instances of SQL Server that are participating in the mirroring session.
First introduced in SQL Server 2005, database mirroring in SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise has been improved by reducing the overall recovery time in a failover event with log performance enhancements that include stream of data compression, write-ahead on the mirrored server, improved log caching, and page read-ahead during the undo phase. These improvements in performance are complimented with improvements in resiliency through the addition of Torn Page Repair which provides automatic recovery from corrupted pages where the unreadable page is automatically replaced by a copy if the request is successful.
To learn more about Database Mirroring in SQL Server 2008 R2, see Database Mirroring Overview (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189852.aspx).
To learn more about Database Mirroring performance available enhancements, see Availability Enhancements (Database Engine) (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645581.aspx).
Database mirroring is available in SQL Server 2008 Standard (Single Threaded, Safety Full Only) Enterprise Edition, and SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard (Single Threaded, Safety Full Only), Enterprise and Datacenter Editions.
Failover Clustering
Where database mirroring does not meet the needs for high availability or where an instance is shared across services, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 continues to provide support for failover clustering. Failover clustering enables seamless failover capabilities in the event of a CPU, memory, or other non-storage hardware failure by sharing disk access between nodes and restarting SQL Server on a working node in the event of a failure.
To learn more about Failover clustering in SQL Server 2008 R2, see Getting Started with SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189134.aspx).
Failover clustering is available in SQL Server 2008 Standard and Enterprise Editions, and SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter Editions.
Log Shipping
Log shipping enables administrators to automatically send transaction log backups from a primary database on a primary server instance to one or more secondary databases on separate secondary server instances. The second instances provide a standby copy of the data in the event the primary copy is compromised either through corruption, administrative error, or disaster. Log shipping can be combined seamlessly with database mirroring or failover clustering to provide a complete business continuity management solution.
To learn more about Log shipping, see Log Shipping Overview (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187103.aspx).
Fast Recovery
Fast Recovery enables optimizations for recovery after restoring from a backup.
To learn more about Fast Recovery, see Understanding Recovery Performance in SQL Server (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189262.aspx).
Log shipping is available to SQL Server 2008 Web, Workgroup, Standard, and Enterprise Editions and SQL Server 2008 R2 Web, Workgroup, Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter Editions. Fast Recovery is available to SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition and SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and Datacenter Editions.
Database Snapshots
Database snapshots are read-only, static views of a database. Each database snapshot is transactionally consistent with the source database as of the moment of the snapshot's creation. Snapshots can be used in the event of a user error on a source database, because an administrator can revert the source database to the state it was in when the snapshot was created. Data loss is confined to updates to the database since the snapshot's creation.
A new feature of content deployment that was added for SharePoint Server 2010 is the option to use SQL Server 2008 Enterprise database snapshots during export. If the database snapshots option is enabled, a snapshot of the source content database is created before the export phase of the content deployment job starts. The content deployment job then uses the database snapshot to perform the export, instead of exporting directly from the live content database. After the export has successfully completed, the snapshot is deleted. By using the database snapshot option, you eliminate any potential problems with users editing content in the content database while a content deployment job is running.
If you are using SQL Server Enterprise, you can also choose to use database snapshots when backing up a site collection or exporting a site by calling the appropriate Windows PowerShell® cmdlets with the -UseSqlSnapshot parameter. The snapshot is automatically removed when the backup or export operation is finished.
Database snapshots can also be used to maintain historical data for report generation by using points in time to capture historical data. When using database mirroring as a high availability solution, snapshots can optionally be taken against the mirror data to offload reporting and free up resources on the principal. Additionally database snapshots provide added resiliency to protect the environment from administrator error, user error, protecting the integrity of databases during routine update and patching, or using snapshots as a test database that can be called upon when running test protocols which require the same data to be present for each test scenario.
To learn more about database snapshots, see Database Snapshots (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175158.aspx).
Database Snapshots are available in SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition and SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and Datacenter Editions.
Develop Rich Business Insight Capabilities
Whether aggregating data from multiple sources or creating rich dashboards, SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise provides the tools and resources and delivers rich business intelligence solutions with familiar tools.
SQL Server Reporting Services
SharePoint Server 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise provide close business intelligence capabilities integration through SQL Server Reporting Services. Using SQL Server Reporting Services, administrators can configure reporting servers to enable real-time access to information and control who has access to that information. End users can benefit from this integration by publishing SQL Server reports directly to Document Libraries or by optionally embedding reports in pages hosted on one or more sites in a Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 deployment.
To learn more about Reporting Services in SQL Server 2008 see SQL Server Reporting Services (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159106.aspx).
PowerPivot
Microsoft PowerPivot for SharePoint is a data analysis add-in that provides users the ability to create compelling self-service BI solutions by facilitating sharing and collaboration on user-generated BI solutions in a Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 environment. It also enables IT organizations to increase operational efficiencies through SQL Server 2008 R2-based management tools.
PowerPivot for SharePoint gives users the ability to analyze massive quantities of data, and its seamless integration with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 helps IT departments monitor and manage how users collaborate.
To learn more about PowerPivot, see SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint: Deliver and Succeed with BI (http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/powerpivot.aspx).
Summary
In planning your SharePoint Server 2010 deployment you should carefully evaluate your SharePoint deployment needs and the features available in SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise for the following scenarios:
· Web Content Management scenarios where content deployment is used and in which you plan to rely on database snapshots.
· Regulated environments that require a high level of data security and compliance.
· Environments that support digital media archives that rely heavily on available storage.
· Large collaboration and Enterprise Content Management environments where write activity will exceed read activity.
· Mission-critical scenarios where high availability, disaster recovery, and minimal downtime are required.
· BI-driven deployments where data is made available to thousands of users.
Additional Resources
Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server 2008 R2 (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645993(SQL.105).aspx)

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Edition Feature Comparisons
(http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/editions-compare.aspx)
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