Naruto's Chakra

SharePoint Storage

Hussein Ahmad — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 08:09:00 GMT

for years we have relied on SQL server as our main storage for SharePoint. but after releasing WSS SP1 we supported External BLOB Storage EBS.

EBS is a provider based model to decouple SharePoint from its SQL Storage. which means that we can now use any storage as SharePoint backend. we can discuss the pros and cons of this scneario in pages but i just would like to the factors that should impact your deicision :

1- Federated Content Management : imagine if we can storge a certain taxonomy of documents on SharePoint and others on EMC or others so we can leverage current investment for customers and use those other backend stores.

2- Complying with Customers' standards : alot of customer have their standards to save for example : well delivery documents on filenet while other legal documents on EMC and active departmental docs on SharePoint. now we can be open and comply to those.

3- Complying with Customers' policies for documents : retention period and auditing, etc.. can now be applies directly from the storage system

4- Operation : we have to assess the operation cost of saving in external BLOB as file shares (file streams) as opposed to saving in SQL

5- Disaster Recovery : Backup/Restore is no more the same. so using EMC Networker or DPM would haev to be tuned a little bit to now backup/restore BLOB stores. in the grand picture we have data splitted into 2 storage systems: SQL and EBS. so restoring data can generate inconsistencies. this has to reaslly be planned thouroughly.

6- high frequency of document updates : as a result of EBS there are alot of orphans which has to be claned using a custom written GC as described in MS article. but as we all know , this is an expensive operation so it has to be scheduled in non-peak periods.

7- Maintaining Security across 2 layers:SharePoint and EBS. if a sharepoint group has access to a certain file, how are we going to enforce this on the BLOB store ?

The other solution to have an external storage is using RBS (Remote BLOB Storage). this is a SQL 2008 feature that can be leverage from SQL server. there were alot of enhancements, bug fixes, new features in R2. so basically now you can save any BLOB object outside SQL. SharePoint 2010 is using this feature to enable saving BLOBs outside SharePoint. actuallt most of the software boundaries os MOSS before were because of BLOB limitations in SQL. EBS is till working in SharePoint 2010 but RBS will take over in next versions.

DA in Windows 7

Hussein Ahmad — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:45:00 GMT

Direct Access feature in windows 7 is an incredible feature where you can connect to your organization intranet without having to VPN or RAS..

i am currently using the feature. ehenever i have an internet connection , i get a notification icon asking me about whether to connect to DA or not ? then it asks for my smart card password. that' all , then i am in.

drawbacks:

=========

1- cannot control which traffic goes to my intranet and which goes to internet ?so for example www.abc.com i dont know whether this goes to DA ot to normal internet DNS

2- cannot start and stop it explicitly, it is not an NT service or a program i can start and stop

3- at some customer sites , i cannot connect for no reasons although port 443 is open

Naruto Shippuden (Jiraya and Orochimaro)

Hussein Ahmad — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:30:00 GMT

did Jiraya really die ? it didnt look like he died , i am not sure.

and what happened to Orochimaro's power that transfered to Kabuto ?

why the loose ends ?

to me Orochimaro and Jiraya are still alive . but i am not sure why they left it to interpretations like that

The Bedouin goes home

Hussein Ahmad — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:18:00 GMT

I never liked the wind, the cold or the sonw

i've had enough and it's time for me to go

i will miss you where ever you may be

but i can't take any more - please set me free

i am a desert man with a camel, a tent and a goat

dip plates, a Merc and a mansion mean nothng to me

green oasis my love i and a palm tree

close to nature, yes heaven where i long to be

stars and moon in the night and the morning blue sea

oh how i miss hom - please set me free

Booting Windows 7 or 2008 from a vhd on a USB drive

Hussein Ahmad — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:50:00 GMT

after struggling for a week i managed to boot my machine from a vhd located on an external USB drive.

steps:

=====

1- prepare a vhd file that has windows 7 or windows 2008 (there are thousands of blogs on how to do this step)

2- copy the vhd to the local hard drive in any parition that has enugh space for the vhd to expand

3- boot from your normal windows (not the vhd that we just prepared)

4- right click my computer and select manage then go to disk management

3- attach the vhd after which it will appear as a normal disk drive volume

4- go to http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=6851 and download pwboot then copy it inside the vhd drive

5- shut down the current windows and boot your machine into the vhd (again there are many blogs explaining how)

6- run the pwboot (FROM WITHIN THE VHD IMAGE)

7- use bcdboot to copy the system files from the vhd to the physical USB drive

8- restart your machine

9- select boot from USB drive

Black Hole Method - Delete folders that are deeper than MAX_PATH characters

Hussein Ahmad — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:49:00 GMT

hohaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

after searching all THE INTERNET FOR A SOLUTION I DIDNT FIND ANY.

here is one that i invented :

Concept:

========

1- create a vhd file using disk management. we will call that vhd a black hole vhd.

2- use robocopy to move the entire long path folder to the black hole

3- delete the black hole

Steps:

=====

1- right click my computer

2- choose manage

3- select disk management

4- from "more actions" menu on the right

5- choose create vhd and put it anywhere

6- go down to the disk and right click and choose initialize then format

6- use robocopy with the /move switch

example : robocopy C:\users\[userx]\AppData H:\blackhole.vhd /s /move

7- after robocopy completes

8- goto disk management

9-right click the disk and choose detach vhd

10- goto the vhd and delete it

Configuring FBA might generates "Unknown Error"

Hussein Ahmad — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 11:38:00 GMT

After configuring FBA for an extranet site. I always get “Unknownerror” when I try to sing in. the steps followed are described here :

http://devcow.com/blogs/jdattis/archive/2007/02/23/Office_SharePoint_Server_2007_Forms_Based_Authentication_FBA_Walkthrough_Part_1.aspx

solution :

1- check for the application poolidentity that host the extranet site.

2- Goto SQL Server to your FBAdatabase created

3- Give put the app pool identityaccount in dbo role. Make sure to put there. It is not enough to map it to dboschema as a default schema

You can detect this error in MOSS logs under : C:\ProgramFiles\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\LOGS

Microsoft Enterprise Search Server 2008

Hussein Ahmad — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:26:33 GMT

Search doesn't have to be complicated. You can deliverSearch to your organization quickly and easily with Microsoft Search Server2008

http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch/default.aspx

smime.p7s

Guidance Explorer

Hussein Ahmad — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:06:39 GMT

Microsoft Patterns and Practices team has built a tool to check your system against coding best practices. The tool can be used when :

1- designing systems

2- tuning performance

3- THREAT analysis

4- Health check

5- Guidance and How Tos

http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=guidanceExplorer

Offline SharePoint Client

Hussein Ahmad — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 03:10:35 GMT

I don’t commercialize for Partner solutions , but thissoftware directly address a lot of requirements that we challenge today formobile users.

http://www.colligo.com/products/sharepoint/contributor_home.asp

for remote/satellite resources that work offline , there wasalways a requirement to work on SharePoint offline. Now with these types ofoffline SharePoint clients like the above link, this requirement is achieved.

another scenario would be , due to a bad link or bandwidth ,users cannot work online on SharePoint all the time. They can be within thesame network or a trusted partner (Extranet Scenarios) .

Lotus notes supports the feature of offline synchronization aspart of their database replication. SharePoint has a request to support thisfeature in next version 14. Until they implement the feature this solution canaddress the challenge.

pdf IFilter for windows 64 bit

Hussein Ahmad — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:23:28 GMT

Released (not by Microsoft or Adobe J , yes none of them) by FoxIt. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/ifilter/

It supports x64 only . they are developing a new one forIA64 .

I am running Vita 64 bit, and I was really waiting for thatrelease . now I can index a whole new set of articles and documents

Last .NET Show

Hussein Ahmad — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 06:39:48 GMT

This is the Last .NET show L

The show will end with Silverlight episode . http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/episode.aspx?xml=theshow/en/episode063/manifest.xml

Host your WF inside BizTalk

Hussein Ahmad — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 23:09:55 GMT

I am very excited to see the next step of process modelingsystems. It is just a middle step till we get the next version of BizTalk wherewe will have Orchestrations built directly on top of WF.

This is a video for how + Requirements to host your WF in BizTalk: http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/e/4/3e4e9f14-1f9d-4e03-a86a-03955aaff73c/biztalkhosting.wmv

And this is the SDK that allows you do that: https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=437

So are we unifying all workflows in one place in BizTalk now? NOOOOOO

So what are our options for hosting workflows at the moment?

Any host system for WF has to provide an implementation forthe following services:

a. Transaction

b. Persistence

c. Scheduler

d. Tracking

1- BizTalk Orchestrations will be one type ofimplementation for this framework hosting the workflows and providingimplementations for THE 4 services

2- SharePoint is another type of implementation of thoseservices.

3- K2.NET Server for hosting our WF Workflows is anothergreat example

So thequestion is not anymore : where do I host my workflows ?

the questionis : what type of services my workflow requires ?

Issue : what happens if my workflow needs diverse services from different hostingsystems ? example : BizTalk (Scalability and TPM) and collaboration platform inMOSS ?

More requirements might be:

is it a system process, is it a human workflow interactionprocess, scalability, analysis/BI on tracked data ,Trading Partner Support,rich Collaboration support, SMTP support, event system , etc……

and the answer will decide which server we are going to usefor hosting.

This solution scenario from my point of view will be theultimate:

1- One Server (MS WF Host Server) for hosting, executingany WF built on WF

2- Using adapter/provider pattern to provide services fromdifferent platforms and products to these workflows. Example: I need oneworkflow that requires BizTalk scalability and SharePoint collaborationfeatures. So the “MS WF Host Server” will only provide abstractAPIs and the actual implementation is left for the providers like BTS and MOSS.

How To Trim the extra data that CCF2.6 injects into the query string

Hussein Ahmad — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 21:12:00 GMT

1- Writing a web adapter

public override bool DoAction(Microsoft.Ccf.Csr.HostedWebApplication.WebAction action,ref string data)

{

data = System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlEncode(data);

return base.DoAction (action, ref data);

}

2- In the agent desktop config file : <addkey=”EmptyParamData” value=”true” />

If you want to know all the parameters of the Agent Desktop please have a look on app.config.localfor example

Transactional registry and Transactional NTFS

Hussein Ahmad — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:36:00 GMT

Yes we have TXs over file system and Registry starting windowsvista. This is all doable now . thanks for Kernel TransactionManager

I can now save images or log files on NTFS and put it in thesame TX with saving data in DB. The excellent part is , until the TX iscommitted the windows explorer cannot see the files.

All the TXR and TXF can be done by win32 API calls. Yes I knownobody like that . so here is the good news :

Managed wrapper: http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/07/NTFS/

And there will be more managed wrappers until Post-Orcas tillTXR and TXF got their managed APIs