What you need to develop in SharePoint June 16, 2008

Updated: 2009-05-22

I will stop updating this post dirrectly. I have created a separate page for this tools and I am keeping that updated instead.

For the latest update follow: http://fmuntean.wordpress.com/sp-dev/

Updated: 2009-04-30

The problem with SharePoint is that you will need to develop everything on a SharePoint server.

Everybody now uses virtual PCs for SharePoint development.

One of the questions that I get is what do I need to install in that VPC ?

So you will need to arm yourself with all this:

- Windows Server 2003 R2 or Windows Server 2008

- SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition or SQL Server 2005 Express

- Microsoft .NET 3.5 Framework (minimum .NET 3.0)

- WSS with SP2, MOSS with SP1 or Search Express 2008

- Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 with SP1

- WSS SDK v1.5 or MOSS SDK v1.5

- Visual Studio 2008

- VS extensions for SharePoint v1.2 for some projects and WSP builder for the rest.

- Fire Fox

- Fiddler

- .NET Reflector and Resourcer

- IE Developer Toolbar

- SharePoint Manager 2007

- U2U CAML Builder

Install all these on a VPC and Happy Coding!

Monitor your SharePoint Farm June 12, 2008

So you have installed SharePoint inside your organization. Now they asked you to maintain it.

The SharePoint Farm is made by many pieces and each of them have Log files that are stored into separate files and different formats.

To fully monitor your SharePoint Farm you would need to monitor all the pieces:

- Windows 2003 Event Logs

- SQL Server Log files

- IIS Log files

- SharePoint ULS Log files

- SharePoint Usage Logs if enabled

- SharePoint Indexing Logs.

 

There are two ways to monitor all this: Microsoft System Center

Operation Manager 2007 or by using the LogParser, a free tool from Microsoft, and a lot of scripting.

 

 

System Center Operation Manager 2007:

- Offers Management Packs for: Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server, SharePoint, IIS, ForeFront Security, Computer Hardware.

- For a more detailed list of Management Packs available for S.C.O.M 2007 read here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/scp/catalog.aspx

- If you want a headache free and supported solution the use SCOM 2007.

 

Log Parser:

- If you are on a tight budget or for a DIY administrator this is the alternative.

- Is a free utility from Microsoft that allows parsing and reporting of event logs and log files using a SQL like query language from command prompt.

- It is available for download at: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=890cd06b-abf8-4c25-91b2-f8d975cf8c07&displaylang=en

- By using this tool you can get most of the information necessary to investigate any issue into the SharePoint Farm and create reports and charts for monitoring the health of your Farm.

- You can monitor all the servers event logs, SQL server error logs, SharePoint Logs and IIS Logs and generate reports in an html format.