April, 2008

Un-related to EPM :) but very cool: http://www.robochamps.com

Today Microsoft unveils RoboChamps (www.robochamps.com), a simulated robotics league that is open to academics, hobbyists and developers from around the world, that demonstrates the power of the Microsoft platform to enable a broad range of developers to explore new ways to use .NET for robotics programming.

RoboChamps is built on top of the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio(MSRDS) 2008 CTP, and uses that product’s robust, physics enabled simulation environment to remove the barriers of entry that exist for many today. This simulated league provides individuals with immersive 3-d environments, simulated versions of robots, and compelling scenario-specific challenges where they can win real robots.  Environments range from a maze to the surface of the planet Mars to downtown driving to robot rescue to soccer.  The top four finalists will be flown to PDC, where the competition moves to the real world and participants apply their code to real robots.

More information:

• Website – www.RoboChamps.com
• Channel 9 video – http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=399952
• .NET Rocks Podcast – http://perseus.franklins.net/dotnetrocks_0336_marc_mercuri.wma
• On10.net video – http://www.on10.net/blogs/tina/Robo-Champs-My-robot-is-bigger-then-your-robot/

 Ryan Korock from F5 has shared the following suggestions when discussing load balancing for Project Server:

• Load Balancing Method - Because of the nature of HTTP, any of the load balancing methods will work fairly well (this is not always true for other protocols). I suggest using least connections or predictive, as they start to take into account system performance when determining where to send the next connection.
• Persistence – Although most Project Server deployments do not require persistence (aka stickyness), there is a small benefit of enabling it. A SharePoint server does build a small cache, and so getting sent to the same server as before may generate a small performance gain. I recommend using ‘cookie’ persistence, which will persist a user based upon http cookies. BIG-IP allows you to create a ‘backup’ method of source IP based persistence, which is also recommended.
• Health Monitoring – I always recommend monitoring the servers at an ‘application layer’. This means building an http based monitor for the Project Server, which can give us more insight into the server health, beyond just a ping or tcp port check.

If you are using F5 hardware for load balancing the following are  recommended by Ryan:

• Cookie persistence is a great way to make sure http users are resuming their sessions on the same front end they were originally sent to
• Least Connection load balancing is also great option for sending new users to the currently least utilized servers

Last but not least F5 and HP have also published a recent study that could be of interest depending on your deployment topology: Deploying F5 Networks BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager with WebAccelerator for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Another great tool from Mike Shughrue has been published on CodePlex: http://www.codeplex.com/PS2007ADResSync

From the documentation contained in the utility (zip file):

Overview
The out of the box active directory sync for Project Server 2007 only moves a fixed set of fields from AD to Project Server.  In some cases, additional AD fields need to be mapped to resource custom fields.  The ResourceSync service can be run after the out of the box AD sync to move the additional AD fields.

Source Code
The source code is contained in a solution called ResourceSync in these 5 projects:

1. ADReader – class library that abstracts reading values from active directory.
2. PSReader – class library that abstracts reading and writing values to and from resource custom fields in Project Server2007.
3. ResourceSync – An NT service that performs the syncing once a day.
4. TestApp – A WinForms application that implements the same functionality as ResourceSync but is intended to help debug problems.
5. Setup – Builds an .msi installer package that installs the ResourceSync service with the desired user account.

Please find below an inventory of tools that can be used to perform the following tests:

• Capacity Planning & Scalability Tests & Performance Tests
• Testing & stress testing customizations (event handlers, COM add-in …)

Do not use these tools in a Production environment.

On a weekly basis I always check this two great source of information on TechNet (ideally I��d love to be able to have an RSS subscription to these pages):

• Newly published content for Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Newly published content for Office Project Server 2007

The April 14, 2008 release contains a lot of very useful white papers as listed below, (it’s the end of week so plenty of time to read during the week-end!):

• White paper: Office SharePoint Server farm architecture   This white paper describes how to plan server farms for reliability and scalability, and how to deploy Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on a server farm.
• White paper: Configuring server farms   This white paper describes configuration steps that are needed for server farms after deployment. There is also a link to streaming video of a related lecture.
• White paper: Securing server farms   This white paper describes how to help control access to information and how to help protect deployments from malicious users. There is also a link to streaming video of a related lecture.
• White paper: Backing up, restoring, high availability, and disaster recovery for Office SharePoint Server farms   This white paper describes how to back up and recover Office SharePoint Server 2007 server farms. There is also a link to streaming video of a related lecture.
• White paper: Backing up Office SharePoint Server Search by using System Center Data Protection Manager   Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 (DPM) is a server software application that enables data protection and recovery for protected computers within Active Directory domains. With DPM, an administrator can back up farms. As a part of a farm backup with DPM, the configurations and site collections stored in the configuration and content databases are backed up, but not the search database and index To back up and recover search, the procedures and scripts are provided in this white paper.
• White paper: Operations and management   This white paper provides information about common operations and management tasks. There is also a link to streaming video of a related lecture.
• White paper: Capacity planning   This white paper describes how to determine requirements to support your capacity requirements. There is also a link to streaming video of a related lecture.
• White paper: Search architecture and configuration   This white paper describes how to plan for and configure search for Office SharePoint Server. There is also a link to streaming video of a related lecture.
• Monitoring usage data for personalization   Administrators can monitor usage data for personalized sites and content, and search queries for people and personalized content. These articles describe how to view and respond to usage data during ongoing operations .
• White paper: Advantages of Deploying SharePoint Products and Technologies with Windows Server 2008 (Office SharePoint Server 2007)   This paper describes how the new features in Windows Server 2008 address important issues that face organizations that deploy Web solutions with SharePoint Products and Technologies.
• White papers: Master data management   This series of white papers discusses a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data and hierarchies.
• Troubleshooting for Office SharePoint Server 2007   This chapter provides troubleshooting steps for common issues in Office SharePoint Server 2007. As new solutions become available, they will be added to this section.

Last week I announced the release of a new solution starter on CodePlex: Persist SQL Server Analysis Services Roles settings Solution Starter on CodePlex, one of the great hidden treasure of that code sample is an automatic installer that deploys the custom event handler created. Mike Shughrue and Steven Haden have written this piece of code. I encourage to reuse it in all your custom Project Server Events to ease the deployment (there is also this great tool to manage events once they are deployed).

The installation performs the following steps (configuration screen below):

1. The event handler DLL is installed into the Global Assembly Cache.
2. It registers the event handlers in the Project Server server-side events for the PWA URL specified
3. It updates the events service configuration file with parameters required by the event handler

Following this post (New SQL Reporting Services Sample Reports for Project Server), please find below the list of Excel Services (samples attached) reports included in the newly released demo VPC.

If you want to learn more about Excel Services (requires SharePoint Server) two new great books have been published on the subject:

• Wrox Press: Beginning Excel Services
• Wrox Press: Professional Excel Services

Business Alignment Analysis		Governance Phase Analysis
Investment Analysis		Resource Capacity
Resource Capacity By Role		Project Work Heat Map By Role

A week ago I pointed to a sample piece of code to retrieve Project Server Settings, today I came across this excellent post from Roger Lamb: SharePoint 2007 and WSS 3.0 Dispose Patterns by Example. If you are using SharePoint objects don’t forget to dispose them!

In the code sample mentioned earlier that is why the “using” directive is used since in C# objects are disposed when it leaves the scope:

using (SPSite sspSite = new SPSite(sspGuid))
{
    if (sspSSL)
        _sspURL = string.Format("https://{0}:56738/{1}", sspSite.HostName, sspName);
    else
        _sspURL = string.Format("http://{0}:56737/{1}", sspSite.HostName, sspName);
}

Two must read MSDN articles on the same subject:

• Best Practices: Using Disposable Windows SharePoint Services Objects
• Best Practices: Common Coding Issues When Using the SharePoint Object Model

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;950816

As mentioned before the best way to stay up to date with hotfix/KB articles and be proactive, is to subscribe to the following RSS feeds:

• Project Server 2007
• Project 2007 (desktop)
• Project Portfolio Server 2007

A new solution starter that demonstrates how to persist SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) Roles settings in the Project Server OLAP database was released today on CodePlex.

For instance you might require to create specific Roles in your OLAP database if you have non Project Server users that need to access the database, for instance PerformancePoint users.

During the standard Cube Building process in Project Server 2007, any manually added OLAP Roles in an OLAP database are deleted. The Cube building process creates a default Role ProjectServerViewOlapDataRole that automatically adds all the Project Server users to this Role. This customization saves the configuration of the existing OLAP Roles (except for ProjectServerViewOlapDataRole) in a text file, before they are deleted but the standard cube building process, using the OnCubeBuilding event. The saved configuration (for the OLAP Roles) is then restored using the following event OnCubeProcessed.
The following configuration is saved, for each Role:

• The list of Members
• The database permissions of the Role
• The dimensions permissions of the Role
• The cubes permissions of the Role

This solution starter requires Project Server 2007, SQL Analysis Services 2005, and Visual Studio 2005.

Thank you to Steven Haden (WW EPM COE, MCS France) for building/testing and sharing this solution starter.

About CodePlex

CodePlex is Microsoft's open source project hosting web site. You can use CodePlex to create new projects to share with the world, join others who have already started their own projects, or use the applications on this site and provide feedback. A word about Microsoft’s role: Microsoft does not control, review, revise, endorse or distribute the third party projects on this site. Microsoft is hosting the CodePlex site solely as a web storage site as a service to the developer community.

Q&A

Q: Is the tool supported?
A: There is no support in terms of CSS/PSS. We expect the support being a CodePlex community effort. Please note that the customization code uses standard supported web service calls available out of the box in EPM2007.
Q: Is the Project free?
A: Yes.
Q: Can I distribute the tool and the source code to customers and partners?
A: Customers and Partners can use both. Please point them to CodePlex as they have to agree on the license terms
Q: Can a partner distribute the tool and code as is?
A: No, but he can point his customer to the website to download it, so he makes sure that the customer agrees with the license terms.
Q: Can a customer install the customization and use it?
A: Yes the customer can, but he/she is responsible for testing it and running it.
Q: Can I suggest changes to it?
A: Yes, join the CodePlex community or send us an email: epmssdev@microsoft.com
Q: Will this tool be distributed in other ways (i.e. DVDs)?
A: No.
Q: What skills do I need to modify or change the tool?
A: C#, Project Server Interface, and a good understanding of the EPM 2007 data schema.
Q: I’m trying to modify the code and do have questions. Who do I ask?
A: Go to the Discussions forums on CodePlex.
Q: What are all the EPM projects released on CodePlex?
A. Check this: http://www.codeplex.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?ProjectSearchText=epm