Announcing the SharePoint Utility Suite Release 2 and SPSiteManager 1.1 Now available live at http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/downloads/components/detail.asp?a=724

This release also contains an update to the SPUserUtil tools (SPSUserUtil and WSSUserUtil) with a couple of really good additions.

The SharePoint Utility Suite

Release: 2.0

Introduction

The purpose of the SharePoint Utility Suite is to provide a packaged collection of Tools and Utilities showcasing the rich Object Model that is delivered with the SharePoint Product and Technologies SDK (which includes Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003).  This package includes code and tool examples that SharePoint Developers and SharePoint Administrators might find useful.

The second release of this package contains the following utilities:

There are two main folders for the utilities (WSS and SPS).  The SPS Folder contains source code for tools that require SharePoint Portal Server 2003 in order to compile and run.  The WSS Folder contains source code for tools that only require Windows SharePoint Services in order to compile and run, but may also be run against SharePoint Portal Server sites and areas.

SPSiteManager

Release: 1.1

The purpose of the SharePoint Site Manager (SPSiteManager) is to assist customers with performing SharePoint Site Collection maintenance activities for SharePoint Products and Technologies (which includes Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003).  This sample source can be compiled to produce a tool that will allow you to Repartition or Level sites across content databases, and perform batch backups, restores, and deletes of site collections.

We also wanted to use the tool set to show off the rich object model that the product provides, thus the source code for the tool is included.  In fact, you’ll find there is no binary in this tool set, only the source and instructions to build.

Automates site collection repartitions rather than using STSADM for each site.

In order to repartition Site Collections in and out of content databases you have to use the following steps:

1. If you have not done so already:
   1. Create a new content database to place the backed up site into.
2. STSADM –o backup (to backup the site collection to disk)
3. STSADM –o deletesite (To delete the site from the current content database)
4. Visit the Content Database management page from the Windows SharePoint Services Central Admin pages.
   1. Select the First content database and either: 
      1. Set it’s status to Offline or
      2. Set it’s max-sites and warning-sites counts to that equal to the number of current sites in the content database (Be sure to have a notebook handy to write down all of the original values so that you can re-set them in a later step.)
   2. Repeat step 4.a for each content database EXCEPT the one you are restoring to (This prevents the WSS Logic from load balancing the existing content databases, to determine which content database to restore the site in)
5. STSADM –o restore (restore the site into the new targeted database)
6. Visit the Content Database management page from the Windows SharePoint Services Central Admin pages.
   1. Select the First content database and either: 
      1.  Set it’s status back to Online (If it was online to begin with) or
      2. Set it’s max-sites and warning-sites counts to their previous values (refer to the notes taken in Step 4.a.2)
   2. Repeat step 6.a for each content database
7. Repeat steps 2-6 (unless you need to create more content databases, in which case you restart at step 1). 

As you can see this is a very labor intensive and time consuming process.  If you had to do this for many sites, although you could be smart, and handle a batch of sites steps 2, 3 and 5, it becomes impractical to do all of this manually.

SPSiteManager automates the entire process for you for each site.

New and Improved Features

Common use scenarios

• Automate reporting of your current site distributions to look for trends, such as:
  • Number of unique users whom have visited each site. (Not anonymous users)
  • Track site usage over time, then re-partition easily to avoid over-taxing a content database, or complete content database server
• Re-partition thousands of sites via a single command line, without the need to manually run STSADM backup/restores manually.
• Use the analysis features to determine needs for restructuring SharePoint content and sites and perform Site Leveling.

 The package is delivered in AS-IS source on the SharePoint Products and Technologies Web Component Directory at the following location:

http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/downloads/components/detail.asp?a=724