Event Type: Error
Event Source: Windows SharePoint Services 3
Event Category: (964)
Event ID: 6398
Date: <DATE>
Time: <TIME>
PM User: N/A
Computer: <SERVERNAME>
Description:
The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.ApplicationServerAdministrationServiceJob
(ID GUID) threw an exception. More information is included below.

Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.

You may also get just a blank page when you try to manage IIS

Solution/Recommendation

Check for the hotfix at https://support.microsoft.com/?id=946517

Commentary

SP1 seems to help a bit, but the hotfix closes the loop

Failed to connect to the database server or the database name does not exist. Ensure the database server is a SQL server, and that you have appropriate permissions to access the database server. To Diagnose the problem, review the extended error information located at c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\logs\PSCDiagnostics <DATETIME>.log. Please consult the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizards for help or additional information regarding the databse server security configuration and network access.

When you look at the log you will probably see some kind of timeout exception at the bottom, right before it all exploded.

LOTS of things could be causing this.  Below is a list of item that I have seen in my travels.

SQL Server Problems

1. SQL Server was OFF,
2. the SQL Server service was stopped,
3. the remote TCP/IP connections were not configured for SQL 2005
4. SQL was sysprepped and the name was changed and it was just generally messed up and had to be rebuilt (Life Lesson: Just install SQL normally, perhaps record an unattended, but don't bring an image of a Sysprepped SQL and try to rename the computer [regardless if it has domain membership] )

Network/Security Problems

1. Router was melted,
2. firewall was blocking access,
3. logged in account really did not have the right permissions on the SQL server (see technet for details of required access),
4. Cluster name was wrong
5. Cluster was offline
6. Account was local (not domain)
7. Recent DNS/IP change, needed to flushdns on SharePoint server
8. Admin password was changed while logged on, needed AD refresh between DCs

This is not likely a bad username/password problem. You will see a different message for that.

Technet Snippit

Important

The server farm account is used to access your configuration database. It also acts as the application pool identity for the SharePoint Central Administration application pool, and it is the account under which the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service runs. The SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard adds this account to the SQL Server Logins, the SQL Server Database Creator server role, and the SQL Server Security Administrators server role. The user account that you specify as the service account must be a domain user account, but it does not need to be a member of any specific security group on your Web servers or your back-end database servers. We recommend that you follow the principle of least privilege, and specify a user account that is not a member of the Administrators group on your Web servers or your back-end servers.

Try this to help diagnose

1. Ping SQL/Cluster name
2. Browse to \\ClusterName\C$ (this will tell you if your logged in account has admin permissions on that box)
3. If SQL is a cluster, be sure which node is active
4. Open the SQL server in SQL Management Studio
5. Check for AV or firewall software on SQL server blocking the access
6. Try user name as domain\username (NOT username@domain)
7. Check the lists of all the stuff that can go wrong (above) and be sure you are not having those problems.
8. If all else fails, just call PSS or your Microsoft Technical Account Manager (if you have one)

This is the first of many rants on Governance.  I'm definitely trying to socialize many facets of Governance with Customers and Partners.  It is essential to success and (evidently) easily overlooked.

What is Governance?
Structured Control.

What if you don't have any Governance?
You don't have control.

Do you need Governance for a successful SharePoint installation?
YES!

What should be in a Governance Plan? (minimal list)

1. Hosting model - Central IT or delegated to business units?
2. Service model - Central service owners or delegated to business units?
3. Taxonomy - What is the structure of the systems that SharePoint will implement? (formal division sites, mysites, collaboration spaces?)
4. Architecture- Sizing, Capacity, Growth Strategy, Logical Architecture
5. Operations - Who runs the infrastructure and what tools/processes to they have? What standards to they have to meet?
6. Availability, DR, and Business Continuity -
7. Service Management - SLA's, monitoring, uptime, service tiers (commodity vs. customized applications)
8. Provisioning - Central vs. Self Service. What can users do on their own? How can you create big picture policies while still allowing freedom and removing strain on IT departments and help desks?
9. Information management policies - Retention, Disposal, Labeling, Bar coding, Auditing, Records Management, Rights Management
10. Security Policies - Authentication providers, Remote users, External Users, etc.
11. Finance Policies - Do you have a chargeback model? How is cost distributed
12. Users - How do you support them? How do your garner adoption?
13. Communication plan - What do you tell the organization? and when?

What if you don't Govern?

1. Site sprawl - sites proliferate like wildfire and you will be without ways to reign them in without upsetting users (who thought they had unlimited storage forever)
2. Technology proliferation - Users don't know where to put content so it ends up replicated all over file shares, public folders, etc.
3. Server Proliferation - Groups are unwilling to consume centralized service so they install their own SharePoint (and probably do it poorly due to lack of budget/mandate/experience)
4. Waste - Content and systems overlap and are needlessly redundant or repetitious wasting tons of money on hardware and software.
5. Inconsistent - Everybody does things differently so everything from backups to site branding is all over the map. Creating a poor and ill managed user experience.
6. Damage - "Home grown" SharePoint installations often lack the rigor of setting up data recovery or other essential items.  This often leads to data loss or compromise
7. Poor user adoption - If you don't articulate how they should use it and how you will support them, user adoption will suffer.

What are the Goals of Governance? (no particular order)

1. Drive Consistency
2. Assigning responsibility to qualified parties (IT, Service Owner, etc.)
3. Operational Excellence
4. Mitigate conflict and provide a framework for Decision making
5. Manage hardware and software assets strategically
6. Set clear expectations of service with users
7. Lower costs
8. Reduce Risk
9. Provide "Roadmap" for approach to intentionally and deliberately plan rollouts

Some Resources

• Governance TechNet Landing Page -
  https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb507202.aspx
  • See this site for links to tools, third parties, community resources etc.
• Governance Tools - https://www.codeplex.com/governance

I promise, this technology does actually work, but if you deviate from the standard build (see list item 3 below for "standard build" as defined by me) you will fall off a cliff unless really understand what you are doing.

I'm not an exchange guru, just a humble BizTalk/Moss guy.

Don't just do this trial and error and play with settings until it works. It won't work. Be deliberate and intentional, setup the standard way and then slowly change things, each time checking to see if the forwarding still works.

This is where I recommend you start, read all this stuff first, before you race off back to your Virtual Machines.

1. Plan incoming e-mail (Office SharePoint Server) <link updated - August 2009>
2. Configure incoming e-mail settings (Office SharePoint Server)<link updated - August 2009>
3. In addition to the technet site, a very good place to start is
1. How to configure email enabled lists in Moss2007 using Exchange 2003
2. How to configure email enabled lists in Moss2007 using Exchange 2007
4. Read these documents and set it up in a lab exactly as described until it works
5. Now introduce incremental changes to the infrastructure and after each one, verify that email is still getting through, or not.

Gotchas and Advice

1. Trust me, for the first run, just make the FQDN of the moss server (SMTP server) the same as the @domain that you are trying to send to
   
   Clarification
   AD domain = example.com,
   moss server name = MOSS2K7
   moss FQDN = MOSS2K7.example.com
   email domain = MOSS2K7.example.com
   example address = myemail@moss2k7.example.com
   
   
   
2. Trust me, for the first run, start off by actually allowing MOSS to own an OU and manage it's own contacts, don't be a cowboy and hope to configure them manually on the first try.
3. Just do everything the default way the first time, use a lab environment if you have to
4. Use the OWA website on your lab email server (or a local instance of Outlook conntected to that server)  to send emails around, don't try to hook-up external MX-Records and send from external emails.
5. Keep and eye out for .eml files showing up in the Queue folder on the MOSS box. This is a sign that the SMTP server is forwarding them elsewhere and that is a sign that there is a fundamental problem with the email coming in.  Most likely the SMTP sever does not recognize that it is the utlimate destination for emails with that @domainname address.

If you try to read from the SMTP queue on the MOSS server, you will get

A critical error occurred while processing the incoming e-mail file C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Queue\NTFS_cab371a601c8166600000011.EML. The error was: The process cannot access the file 'C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Queue\NTFS_cab371a601c8166600000011.EML' because it is being used by another process..

The solution to this is "DON'T READ FROM THE QUEUE". If the emails are in the SMTP queue on your Moss server then your email/smtp settings are probably messed up.  (Perhaps you did not take my advice on keeping the FQDN of the MOSS server the same as the @domain name that you are sending mail to?)

______________________

If you try to "drag and drop" from queue to the drop folder manually, you will get

A critical error occurred while processing the incoming e-mail file C:\Inetpub\mailroot\drop\NTFS_db489bee01c8166600000012.EML. The error was: Bad senders or recipients..

Don't tell me, let me guess.  You copied the .eml files from the Queue folder to the Drop folder and then saw sharepoint delete them. Same point as above, If the emails are in the SMTP queue on your Moss server then your email/smtp settings are probably messed up.  (Perhaps you did not take my advice on keeping the FQDN of the MOSS server the same as the @domain name that you are sending mail to?)

_______________________

Obligatory Introduction

BAM is such a good name for this technology for a few reasons. The first is that it reminds me of the kid Bambam on the Flinstones (You know, the baby with the club that had a thing for Pebbles). Very powerful and very cool.  Also because "BAM" is the sound my forehead makes while it collides with the palm of my hand as I discover I could have simply used BAM instead of writing a custom reporting app.

Sample to Whet the Appetite

Here is a fictitious BAM portal Aggregation for one of my lab projects

The Basics

This article will be a fairly unstructured summary of my experiences with BAM under BTS 2006.  If there is interest, I will create some more in-depth posts on the topic. I'll be brief here because most of you know this already. The basic way BAM works is the following:

1. Create a Business Activity showing the LOGICAL progression and points of interest in a process (using Excel, or Visio ODBA)
2. Deploy that Activity (as .xls or .xml to the biztalk server) using BM.exe
3. Associate low level technical events (i.e. hitting a shape in an orch or a method in a .net class) with items you defined in the activity (using the BAM API  or the Tracking Profile Editor (TPE)

The end result of this is that you can take the mess of code, orchestrations etc and transform it back into a logical/business view that a CEO could understand.  All in all, very cool.

Some Pragmatic Advice

"DO" List

1. Try both ODBA and Excel for creating activities (I like excel better, but hey, who cares?)
2. Become familiar with the BM.exe utility. You really only need the "deploy-all" and "remove-all" commands to start with
3. Keep your activity files versioned! If you deploy an activity, then change the activity file, then try to undeploy you may have problems. Then you have to undeploy by manually deleting tables and rows in the BAMPrimaryImport table.
4. I recommend that you manipulate your activity definition in Excel. When you are ready to deploy it, export it to xml and then deploy the xml. That way if you fiddle with the Excel file, you can still undeploy the activity using the same xml you used to deploy it.
5. Before you re-export your activity to XML, undeploy the activity. Or even better export your Activity to a new version of the xml (i.e. with a version number in the file name
6. Start with the tracking profile editor, master it, then move onto the BAM API calls.

"DON'T" List

1. Don't try to map milestones from Message Constructs or Loops (or other special cases). That is advanced and you may need to use the BAM API call to make that work as you would expect
2. Don't put spaces or special characters in your Activity Names. It can lead to problems later where the Event Log will say that "stored procedure does not exist" and your BAM Aggregation will not work.
3. Don't have a group shape as the last shape in the orchestration you are tracking in TPE. For some reason it won't work. Just add any shape (i.e. Expression) after the group to fix the issue.

Continuations & Relationships

I can't do these justice in this entry so this will be a bit shallow. I will probably blog on this separately. The more comments i see below requesting this, the sooner I will get around to it.

Continuations allow a single activity defintion to span muliple orchestrations or even other classes/systems seamlessly. It can also allow you to use different unique identifiers accross those systems to  When using TPE to create a continuation. Create a continuation and name it, then create a continuationID and name it the exact same thing.  Map some kind of ID value (PO ID, RequestID, etc.) from a messaging shape (receive, construct, send as described in the above DO List) in the first orchestration to the continuation. Then in the second orchestration map that same ID value to the continuationId. The idea is that the engine will recognize that those to values match and will correlate them so that both instances can contribute data to the same Activity instance

Use Continuations when the Relationship is 1:1
Use Relationships when the Relationship is 1:Many

Real-Time vs. Scheduled Aggregations

There is a little button in the Excel view (if you have installed the BAM addon) that will mark the aggregation as RealTime or Scheduled.  Again, this is complex so I will summarize below.

	RealTime	Scheduled
Maintenance	Low maintencance - The data is kept in the relational tables and periodically cleaned. All you have to do is set the TimeSlice and TimeWindow values to determine the trimming behavior	High Maintenance - This data is kept in cubes so you need to have Analisys server setup, schedule the packages, and make sure they execute as expected
Amount of Data	Small Amount of Data - Because this is kept in the relational tables the volume of data has to be kept rather trim	Large Amount of Data - Because this is kept in cubes you can have almost unlimited amount of data
Accuracy of Data	Very Accurate - This provides up to the second view of data and can show in progress activities	The data you have is correct, but you will be missing any data collected since the last execution of the packages
Comprehensive Measures	Limited - You can not use MIN,MAX, and apparently AVG functions in RTA	Unlimited - You can use any type of measure in scheduled packages
Performance	This does contend with SQL and BizTalk for resources on the production box.	This is presumably a separate machine serving as a DataWarehouse so it should not contend with the production server for resources. (except to execute the packages)

BAM Alerts

For the most part, real time data is better for driving alerts, as they are usually time sensitive.

Common Problems & Solutions

Problem: The BAM Activity and the Tracking Profile have been deployed, the process has been run, but there is no data displayed for the activity in the BAM portal or LiveData Excel sheet.

Solution: When you deploy a non-Real Time Aggregation (this is default) while using SQL 2005. It will create the <package>_DM and <package>_AN packages. These packages need to be run to populate the BAM tables and get you the BAM Data.  To run these packages you should select "Integration Services" in the SQL Management Console (not database engine). Once you have found them, run them. Hopefully, you're data will appear.

Problem: The BAM portal or LiveData Excel sheet shows "BLANK" for one column and one row in the Aggregation display. It seems like the measures, and the milestones are not being combined into the same activity. Also, the data shows up in two rows (or more) in the BAMPrimaryImport.dbo.bam_<ActivityName_Completed table.

Solution: This could be a number of things, but if it was the same problem that I had the solution is the following. When you are in the TPE and you are associating data from the message, be sure to use the orchestration schedule.  Right click on your receive, Message Construct, or Send shape and select Message Payload and map the items from there. Many people go to the "Select Event Source" and use the "Messaging Payload" from there. YOU ONLY WANT TO DO THAT IF YOU ARE JUST USING SEND RECEIVE PORTS TO MOVE MESSAGES. If you are using an orchestration, map everything from the orchestration schedule. 

Problem: Your BAM aggregation is not working and you see "Could not find stored procedure" in your event log.

Solution: This is probably caused becaues you have a "space" or some other bad character in your Activity Name. Undeploy your activity, rename it so it does not have the space. Redeploy it. Adjust your TPE (if required). This should fix the problem.

Wish List

1. Not being able to have spaces in the Activity Name AND not being warned about it is a serious limitation
2. The length of Activity Names and Item names is too short. I wish for longer names.
3. Measures using Average also seem to not show for RealTime Aggregations (at least they did not in mine).
4. I would like to see this integrated with the Visual Studio Environment to a much greater degree. My vision is that we use Office and VS and nothing else.
5. I also want to be able to deploy BAM stuff with MSI easier

Training Material Roadmap

Author: Neil Thompson (neilth@microsoft.com)
Site: Neil’s MSDN Blog page
Date: September 2007

Click here for the word document version of this document.

Abstract

This document provides an extensive series of links to publicly available reference material for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 ® and Office SharePoint Server 2007®.  The intention of this document is to accelerate the process of familiarizing Technical Staff members with the features and characteristics of these products.

Audience

This document provides is intended for IT Administrators, Developers, and Architects who are planning to implement solutions based on Window SharePoint Services 3.0® or SharePoint Portal Server 2007®.  This document addresses all phases of the solution lifecycle.

Using This Guide

This document contains a number of links to online resources.  It is recommended that you follow the links to the external resources to ensure that you are accessing the latest content.  For your convenience, several items have been included as part of this content release on the accompanying DVD.

Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.

This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.

Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.

Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property.

Unless otherwise noted, the example companies, organizations, products, domain names, e-mail addresses, logos, people, places and events depicted herein are fictitious, and no association with any real company, organization, product, domain name, e-mail address, logo, person, place or event is intended or should be inferred.

© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Microsoft, Access, Active Directory, Excel, Groove, InfoPath, Internet Explorer, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, SharePoint, SQL Server, Visio, Windows, Windows Server, and Windows Vista are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Contents

Training Material References Roadmap. 1

Abstract. 1

Audience. 1

Using This Guide. 1

Getting Started. 4

Online Reading. 5

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Technical Library. 5

SharePoint Server 2007 Technical Library. 5

Downloadable Books. 7

Downloadable Books for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. 7

Downloadable Books for SharePoint Server 2007. 7

MOSS 2007 - Getting started. 7

MOSS 2007 - Planning. 7

MOSS 2007 - Deployment. 8

Operations. 8

MOSS 2007 - Security. 8

MOSS 2007 - Solutions. 8

Virtual Labs. 10

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. 10

SharePoint Server 2007. 10

Webcasts. 12

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. 12

Office SharePoint Server 2007. 13

Enterprise Search. 13

Enterprise Content Management. 14

Excel Services & Business Intelligence. 15

Workflow.. 16

Communication & Collaboration. 17

DVD Content. 18

Downloadable Books. 18

MP3 PodCasts. 18

Miscellaneous Content. 20

The material in the “Getting Started” section will give you a basic grounding in SharePoint technologies with a minimum amount of time and effort. Once you have finished all of the content in this section, you will be better prepared to explore the other sections that have greater depth of information.

Office SharePoint Product Page – This webpage provides basic links and articles to familiarize yourself with Office SharePoint Server and download evaluation editions. Key items include:

·         Top 10 Benefits

·         Virtual Demonstration Environment

·         Free Trial Editions

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Evaluation Guide - This Evaluation Guide is designed to give you a solid understanding of the design goals and feature set for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and a familiarity with the implementation of this technology in Windows Server 2003. It provides an overview of the solutions and benefits enabled by Windows SharePoint Services as well as descriptions of new and improved features.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Technical Library

Representative subjects are listed under each library category below; in each category you’ll find documentation and additional resources.

SharePoint Server 2007 Technical Library

Representative subjects are listed under each library category below; in each category you’ll find documentation and additional resources.

The downloadable books are included on the accompanying DVD.

Downloadable Books for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Downloadable Books for SharePoint Server 2007

MOSS 2007 - Getting started

MOSS 2007 - Planning

MOSS 2007 - Deployment

Operations

MOSS 2007 - Security

MOSS 2007 - Solutions

Virtual labs are web accessible servers that allow you to immediately interact with the software, without having to setup any infrastructure or install any software.  These labs are free and immensely valuable for quickly getting hands on experience.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

1.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Using Microsoft Windows PowerShell for Administration and Customization of Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

2.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Enterprise Search Protocol Handlers (Lab 8 of 8)

3.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Installation and Configuration

4.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Customizing Enterprise Search (Lab 3 of 8)

5.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Enterprise Search Security and Compliance (Lab 2 of 8)

6.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Creating Workflows for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

7.       TechNet Virtual Lab: What's New in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Feature Walkthrough

8.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Introducing Content Types for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

9.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Installation and Configuration

SharePoint Server 2007

1.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Search Administration and Customization in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

2.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Installation and Configuration

3.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Enterprise Search Protocol Handlers (Lab 8 of 8)

4.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Business Data Catalog in Enterprise Search (Lab 7 of 8)

5.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Configuring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for Enterprise Search (Lab 5 of 8)

6.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Enterprise Search Overview (Lab 1 of 8)

7.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Forefront Security for SharePoint

8.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Getting Started with the Business Data Catalog in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

9.       TechNet Virtual Lab: Synchronizing data between SharePoint 2007 and Groove 2007

10.    TechNet Virtual Lab: Synchronizing data between SharePoint 2007 and Groove 2007

11.    TechNet Virtual Lab: What's New in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

12.    TechNet Virtual Lab: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Records Management Deployment and Configuration

13.    TechNet Virtual Lab: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Features Administration

The webcasts listed below are simply a representative sample from a much larger list of valuable webcasts. After watching the webcasts below, please go to https://msevents.microsoft.com for further webcasts.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Office SharePoint Server 2007

Click here for WebCasts targeted to Business and Technical Decision makers.

Enterprise Content Management

Excel Services & Business Intelligence

Workflow

Communication & Collaboration

DVD Content

This section provides a summary of the materials available on the accompanying DVD.

Downloadable Books

All of the books listed in the “Downloadable Books” section are also available on the DVD. Alternatively, you may follow the links from the same section and download them directly.

MP3 PodCasts

You may also download this content by typing in the 10-digit number at the end of the filename in the https://msevents.microsoft.com search page, and selecting the MP3 or WMA (audio only format).  You may also choose to view the webcast and (if available) download the PowerPoint Deck

1.       Accelerate Desktop Deployment with the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 1032322632.mp3

2.       Compliance and Records Management with Office SharePoint Server 2007 1032326663.mp3

3.       Deploying the 2007 Office System with the Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment 2007 1032322630.mp3

4.       How Microsoft IT Deployed Office Groove 2007 1032321925.mp3

5.       How Microsoft IT Deployed the 2007 Office System 1032321921.mp3

6.       How Microsoft IT Manages the World's Largest Windows SharePoint Services Deployment 1032324073.mp3

7.       Integrating the Business Data Catalog (BDC) and Applications Using Office SharePoint Server 2007 1032326648.mp3

8.       Microsoft Office Webcast An In-Depth Look at SharePoint Server 2007 Search Technology (Level 200) 1032305441.mp3

9.       Microsoft Office Webcast Benefits of Deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office System (Level 100) 1032298453.mp3

10.    Microsoft Office Webcast Compliance and Records Management with Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032305464.mp3

11.    Microsoft Office Webcast Deploying the 2007 Version of the Microsoft Office System Client (Level 200) 1032298455.mp3

12.    Microsoft Office Webcast Deploying Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System with Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) Vista (Part 1) (Level 300) 1032301258.mp3

13.    Microsoft Office Webcast Disaster Recovery Planning for Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032305452.mp3

14.    Microsoft Office Webcast Introducing New Document Analysis and Migration Tools for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (Level 300) 1032306849.mp3

15.    Microsoft Office Webcast Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Overview and What's New (Level 200) 1032298079.mp3

16.    Microsoft Office Webcast Office SharePoint Server 2007 Functional and Architectural Overview (Level 200) 1032305064.mp3

17.    Microsoft Office Webcast Overview of Server Components in the 2007 Microsoft Office System (Level 200) 1032298360.mp3

18.    Microsoft Webcast Enterprise Search at Microsoft with Office SharePoint Server 2007 1032323829.mp3

19.    Microsoft Webcast Optimizing Your Infrastructure with Windows Vista, Exchange Server 2007, and the 2007 Microsoft Office System (Level 100) 1032312813.mp3

20.    Microsoft Webcast Using the 2007 Office System for Business Intelligence 1032319723.mp3

21.    New Microsoft Webcast Improve Productivity and Communication Using Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 100) 1032325174.mp3

22.    Office Groove 2007 Guided Hands-on Labcast 1032322913.mp3

23.    Planning for and Deploying Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Part 1 of 2) 1032322484.mp3

24.    Planning for and Deploying Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Part 2 of 2) 1032322486.mp3

25.    readme.txtTechNet Office Webcast Upgrading and Migrating to Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032306516.mp3

26.    TechNet Webcast  Data Mining Add-ins for the 2007 Office System 1032317015.mp3

27.    TechNet Webcast  How Microsoft IT Deployed and Architected SharePoint Server 2007 1032313966.mp3

28.    TechNet Webcast  SharePoint Security from Service Accounts to Item-Level Access 1032313269.mp3

29.    TechNet Webcast  Technical Overview of Office Groove 2007 1032316532.mp3

30.    TechNet Webcast  Upgrading and Migrating to Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032341241.mp3

31.    TechNet Webcast  Using SQL Server Analysis Services with the 2007 Microsoft Office System 1032317013.mp3

32.    TechNet Webcast An In-Depth Look at SharePoint Server 2007 Search Technology 1032309958.mp3

33.    TechNet Webcast An In-Depth Look at Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 1032312690.mp3

34.    TechNet Webcast Best Practices for Developing, Deploying, and Maintaining Forms Solutions 1032310392.mp3

35.    TechNet Webcast Business Intelligence Using the 2007 Microsoft Office System (Level 200) 1032327292.mp3

36.    TechNet Webcast Communicator Web Access for Communications Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032338342.mp3

37.    TechNet Webcast Compliance and Archival Capabilities in Communications Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032338850.mp3

38.    TechNet Webcast Controlling Your SharePoint Server 2007 Sites with IT Governance  (Level 200) 1032338674.mp3

39.    TechNet Webcast Delivering High-Quality VoIP Using Communications Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032337402.mp3

40.    TechNet Webcast Deploying and Managing Groove 2007 (Level 300) 1032330866.mp3

41.    TechNet Webcast Deploying Microsoft Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System Using Business Desktop Deployment 2007  (Level 200) 1032333548.mp3

42.    TechNet Webcast Deploying Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System Using BDD 2007 1032306976.mp3

43.    TechNet Webcast Deploying Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System Using Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 (Level 200) 1032324692.mp3

44.    TechNet Webcast Deploying Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System with Business Desktop Deployment 2007 (Level 200) 1032341234.mp3

45.    TechNet Webcast Disaster Recovery Planning for Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032326676.mp3

46.    TechNet Webcast Disaster Recovery Strategies for SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032334637.mp3

47.    TechNet Webcast Enabling External User Access in Communications Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032338345.mp3

48.    TechNet Webcast Extending Search Capabilities with Office SharePoint Server 2007  (Level 300) 1032325468.mp3

49.    TechNet Webcast How Microsoft IT Deploys Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging (Level 300) 1032337405.mp3

50.    TechNet Webcast Implementing Instant MessagingPresence and Conferencing in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032334975.mp3

51.    TechNet Webcast Integrating Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 Forms into Workflow Solutions and Business Processes1032310380.mp3

52.    TechNet Webcast Integrating the Business Data Catalog and Business Applications Using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 1032310385.mp3

53.    TechNet Webcast Microsoft Office Excel Services Technical Overview 1032309817.mp3

54.    TechNet Webcast Office Communicator 2007 Customization and Extensibility (Level 200) 1032338952.mp3

55.    TechNet Webcast Planning for and Deploying SharePoint Server 2007 (Part 2 of 2)  (Level 200) 1032330088.mp3

56.    TechNet Webcast Scaling Out Excel Calculations Using Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 (Part 1 of 2) (Level 200) 1032330860.mp3

57.    TechNet Webcast Scaling Out Excel Calculations Using Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 (Part 2 of 2) (Level 300) 1032331350.mp3

58.    TechNet Webcast Security for SharePoint Products and Technologies (Level 200) 1032330328.mp3

59.    TechNet Webcast SharePoint Products and Technologies Security from Service Accounts to Item-Level Access (Level 200) 1032338339.mp3

60.    TechNet Webcast SharePoint Server 2007 Search Technical Drilldown (Level 200) 1032330507.mp3

61.    TechNet Webcast Technical Overview of Excel Services  (Level 200) 1032326684.mp3

62.    TechNet Webcast Technical Overview of Excel Services  (Level 200) 1032330082.mp3

63.    TechNet Webcast Technical Overview of Forefront Security for SharePoint  (Level 200) 1032338140.mp3

64.    TechNet Webcast Understanding Call Routing in Office Communications Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032334981.mp3

65.    TechNet Webcast Upgrading and Migrating to Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 200) 1032335638.mp3

66.    TechNet Webcast Working with the Office Open XML Formats 1032310388.mp3

67.    TechNet WebcastBuild Great Looking Sites Using Web Content Management Features in Office SharePoint Server 2007 1032311865.mp3

68.    Upgrading and Migrating to Office SharePoint Server 2007 1032321929.mp3

Miscellaneous Content

1.       32 and 64 bit versions of WSS 3.0

2.       WSS 3.0 Evaluation Guide

This are excerpts from webcasts available at msevents.microsoft.com.   These are best for Technical Decision Makers, Business Decisions Makers and Architects...or developers and IT Pros who have to explain this stuff to BDMs,TDMs, or Architects :)

These webcasts cover:

1. Productivity and Communication
2. Enterprise Search
3. Records Management
4. Enterprise Content Management
5. Business Intelligence

Microsoft Webcast: Improve Productivity and Communication Using Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Level 100)

Have you ever thought about how much time is lost by your employees because of miscommunication or by the learning curve for a new product, environment, or policy? Join this webcast to get a better understanding of how Microsoft IT is attacking this problem head-on with the built-in features in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.We describe using a programmatic approach to improving the quality, effectiveness, and timeliness of the communications and content sent to employees. We also examine how tools, support, availability of critical patches, and access to user education resources can help you boost productivity and communication. 2/22/2007 7:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 2/21/2009 12:00 AM | Duration:52 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Technology Decision Maker

Microsoft Webcast: Enterprise Search at Microsoft with Office SharePoint Server 2007

Like most large companies, Microsoft’s intranet contains terabytes of structured and unstructured content that employees need to find and use on a daily basis. In the past, it has been difficult to bring such diverse content sets together in a single search-center experience. Join this webcast to see how the recent release of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 makes it possible for users to search different content repositories with just a few clicks. We explore how Microsoft manages its internal search experience built on SharePoint Server 2007, both on the central corporate portal site and as a search service used by more than 75,000 employees worldwide.2/15/2007 7:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)- 2/14/2009 12:00 AM | Duration:69 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Technology Decision Maker

A Web Seminar with AIIM and Microsoft: Records Management in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a comprehensive Business Productivity platform, offering a rich set of capabilities including Enterprise Content Management. Following an introduction to the principles of electronic records management by Marc Fresko of Cornwell Management Consultants, Rob Gray, Microsoft UK Product Marketing Manager for SharePoint and ECM, will take a closer look at the Records Management capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

11/10/2006 6:00 PM GMT, London- 11/9/2008 12:00 AM | Duration:74 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Technology Decision Maker

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032316620&culture=en-US

A Web Seminar with AIIM and Microsoft: Web Content Management using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft and AIIM present Web Content Management using Office SharePoint Server 2007: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes many features that are useful for designing, deploying, and managing enterprise intranet portals, corporate Internet presence Web sites, and divisional portal sites. These features enable you to author and publish Web content in a timely manner and can ultimately reduce the cost and overhead of managing multiple sites. Microsoft partner cScape deployed the world’s first web content management system on Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Ministry of Sound label HedKandi. Ben Robb, Lead Technical Architect at cScape and James Bacchus, CIO at Ministry of Sound will talk about the choice of SharePoint as a WCM platform and their plans for the future.

1/19/2007 8:00 PM GMT, London- 1/18/2009 12:00 AM | Duration:57 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Technology Decision Maker

Microsoft Business Intelligence Solutions Demonstration

Demonstration of Business Intelligence Using Sharepoint Server, Office Excel 2007 and SQL Server 2005

8/23/2007 10:30 PM Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore- 8/22/2009 12:00 AM | Duration:25 Minutes

Primary Language:   English

Primary Target Audience:   Business PC User

This blog posting is a page designed to support basic feedback and management for the Training Material Roadmap that I created for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007).

(Oct 16 2007) - Training Document Now Released!
Word Document Version - Click Here
WebPage Version (Limited Formatting) - Click Here

You may use this page to:

1. Obtain a copy of the roadmap document (not the accompanying DVD) - click here for doc version!
2. Request additional references for particular topics
3. Get links to supplemental blog postings
1. Click here for webcasts for Business Decision Makers, Technical Decision Makers, and Architects
4. Provide feedback or suggestions regarding future iterations of the roadmap

I welcome your feedback and criticism for how the materials have been organized in the roadmap.  I would like to help you navigate the massive topic of SharePoint 2007 technologies and nobody can give me more insight into your training and rampup needs than you.

Roadmap.doc

Also, I would like to have a link to send people, just so that I don't have to have the conversation again :)

The Summary

1. The SQL servers hosting the BizTalk databases can be clustered for high availability.
2. The Enterprise Single-Sign On Master Secret Service (MSS) can be clustered for high availability.
3. The BizTalk hosts can be clustered for the following reasons:
   1. They are hosting something (i.e. Receive Port) that has to be single instance, but still highly available.
   2. If you have BizTalk instances running on the same nodes that are running a clustered instance of the MSS.

FAQ

1. What parts should I cluster? 
   You should cluster the SQL instance(s) holding the biztalk databases, the ENTSSO Master Secret service, and the BizTalk Hosts that require on a single instance running at a time, but still needs to be highly available.
2. Is a non clustered-BizTalk host still Highly Available?
   If you have at least two host instances running in the same group for this host, then YES.  It behaves more like an NLB cluster than an MSCS service.

The Easy Part

I say that the SQL clustering is the "Easy Part" not because it is simple, but because I don't feel compelled to explain the nitty gritty details in this post. I will give some of the BizTalk specifics here, and dedicate the next post to SQL cluster configuration. For now, as a rule, go with SQL 2005 Active/Active/Passive.

1. Separate the MessageBox and Tracking Database among separate LUNs and separate SQL instances.
2. The "Other" databases can often be place on the same node running the tracking DB.  If you are heavy on BAM or BAS you might want to break off the respective databases to a separate instance.
3. All the databases should have at least 2 LUNS (data log), often they have more, but that gets into mount points and that is a tanget.

The Somewhat Easy Part

Clustering the ENTSSO MSS is pretty simple and the procedure is posted here. Basically, this is just a running service of the ENTSSO that also takes on the responsibility of distributing the Master Secret Key. This is the key that all the ENTSSO services running on other machines need to read the encrypted information in the SSO Database.

1. This should be clustered.  Unless you don't care about high availabilty. This can really mess up BizTalk if it goes down.
2. This is not really a resource intensive service (typically) so it often piggy-backs on the SQL server nodes runing the clustered instances of SQL Server.
3. You don't want this clustered on the BizTalk boxes as a rule of thumb. (reasons covered later in this post)

Ok, now the meat.

BizTalk hosts generally have instances on more than one box, as such they are already highly available. This means that clustering a BizTalk host is not generally necessary to ensure high availability. If one goes down the others will pick up the work, out-of-the-box standard config.  The problem comes in when you REALLY don't want to have mutliple instances of a host running at the same time.  The classic example of this is a receive port for an adapter that can not gracefully handle two threads reading it at the same time (i.e. FTP). It also happens when you need to be certain that all of the messages are picked up and processed sequentially and you don't want to code around the problem.

So you want an FTP port receive, but you can not affort duplicate message reads.  That means you can have only one instance of the host, but that kills the out-of-the-box high availability.  Now you need to cluster that host instance, that is the only way to ensure that exactly one instance of the host will be running (so long as at least one of the BizTalk app servers is running)

The Very Wierd Part

This is the one that people scratch their heads over.  It does not happen much, and its not really all that complex.  But it is not intutitive, so it messes with people's heads. 

For this to really make sense, I have to back up a step and explain how the ENTSSO service generally works in a mutli-box BizTalk installation.

1. All of the BizTalk App servers have an instance of the ENTSSO service running on the machine. It is this service that obtains the secret key from the ENTSSO Master Secret Server and then uses it to independently access the info in the SSO Database.
2. One of the ENTSSO servers is setup as the Master Secret Server. This means that it will distribute the secret key to the other ENTSSO service instances, in addition to being the standard ENTSSO service for the local box.  This is the service instances that needs to be configured for High Availablity because all of the other ENTSSO service instances depend on it.
3. The BizTalk host instances have a dependency on the ENTSSO Service running on the same box as them. This is because they need desperately need it to give them info from the SSO DB. This information is typically configurations for their ports that is stored in the SSO DB for safe keeping.

Figure 1 - Standard Multi-Box ENTSSO Strategy

Lets say that you have only 2 production servers. They will be running both SQL and BizTalk.  Like a good boy/girl you decide to cluster SQL and the ENTSSO MSS.

Now you try to configure BizTalk host instances, and you find that they don't want to work quite right. That is because they have a dependency on the ENTSSO service, they always need it.  Now that the ENTSSO service is clustered, only the host instances running on the active (ENTSSO) node actually have access to the service they need. All the other instances will fail based on dependencies.

Figure 2 - BizTalk Hosts with Broken Dependency

An an extra bonus you have messed up the High availability of the MSS as well. The clustering service detects that the host instances are depending on the ENTSSO MSS service and probably will not allow it to failover to other nodes.

...NICE...

Option 1 is to not cluster ENTSSO MSS in a 2 box scenario

Bottom line is that, if you have only budget for two prod boxes, you probably don't want to cluster the ENTSSO MSS. But this is really the only time I can think of that clustering that service is bad.  If it is not clustered you better be a "Johnny on the spot" with MOM and implement a way to have MOM do a poor man's failover when it detects that the ENTSSO MSS server is down.

Option 2 is to also cluster all BizTalk host instances that depend on a clustered ENTSSO service.

If you really do want to cluster the ENTSSO MSS, then you also have to cluster all of the BizTalk hosts as well. This ensures that as the ENTSSO Service "flips" from one box to the next, the Microsoft Clustering Service can ensure that the BizTalk host instances flip at the same time and don't come crashing down.