Joel Oleson's Blog - SharePoint Land

TechEd SEA Day 1

The keynote kicked off a great event.  The highlight from my perspective was the Malaysian dancers and the guy dressed up as a peacock, but as far as keynote speakers go, the intro by Chris Atkinson was awesome with a lot of tie ins from The World is Flat book.  Ironically I've been reading it, I still have a few chapters to go, but I think it was perfect for the audience.  I think he could have tied his conclusions to SharePoint a bit more, since that is the software that takes the world flattening to the next level.

Lutz Ziob, General Manager, Microsoft Learning talked about the Microsoft Learning certifications and how all that stuff is now so much better designed for both hiring and for the professionals.  They used SharePoint Server, Configuring as an example.  On how you can show breadth and depth.  I does fit a lot better than the MCSE cookie cutter exams from before.  Seemed before like it would prepare someone to be an IT person, now it shows what you know, not just general knowledge.  I would like to see SharePoint skills at a level where those who know SharePoint are certified, and people that are looking for SharePoint people can ask for the cert to narrow down the field.  Partners looking for SharePoint people today can ask for SharePoint MVPs, but beyond that what do you do?  I think the certification will help, and is likely already starting to help. 

I do recommend looking again at these certifications.  They are looking for attractive and more clearly laid out.

Technology Specialist: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Configuration

Steve Gugenheim, did an excellent job talking about Silverlight (which has been announced formally).  The demos were awesome.  I can see this stuff really taking off.  The virtualization stuff they showed were good demos of application virtualization showing Office 2007.  I just made the connection with this.  Those that are shy to roll out Office 2007 should look at Windows 2008 virtualization to application host Office 2007 for those that need it now, where it could co-exist without issue and with a zero footprint on the client.  I haven't seen anyone take this angle, but I'll have to mention it to the Office folks as something to look at as a deployment strategy to help people get ramped up prior to rollout, even.

Tyson Dowd came out at the end of the keynote in Malaysian garb.  I met up with him in the speaker room and he mentioned that they used my name in the press. I found my name in the star-techcentral.com article on the conference. 

There are 2400+ attendees.  Not bad.  In my first session which just completed there were around 200+ attendees.  Again, not shabby.  I asked how many were involved in upgrades and there were at least 70.  The fundamentals session seemed to be accepted fairly well with a lot of interest in deeper topics and support and customization scenarios.  The 2 gotchas that I mentioned, the web front end vs. complete install.  Nearly always you should install complete since web front end does NOT include query (which almost always will need to be run on that role.  The other that someone mentioned that they were currently having a problem with is 3 server farm of MOSS.  1 WFE is WFE/Query, 1 WFE is Query/Index, and the third is SQL.  What's the issue?  They say they have issues with search.  If you read my blog you know that WFE/Query/Index server will not propegate the index.  The other thing that came up that I'm sure you know more than me.  Backup/Restore needs more content.  A guy was saying he was using restore in the GUI and I had to flinch.  I realize the restore process is not as clear as it should be.  People using the GUI to restore a portal not having done it before is sad.  Another was saying his box crashed and only comes up in safe mode and what should he do.  He has no backups.  That statement is way too common.  I had to ask him if he could get to his databases and if there was a way to get the databases to another server.  The databases are KING.  The other stuff, there are ways to recreate or redeploy, definitely a per environment answer when it comes to that stuff, but that's another reason our docs aren't as good as they should be.  Too many variables.

The backpacks, I know there are backpack followers out there, have K2 (SharePoint Workflow partner) on the top of the bag along with the TechEd SEA logo.

Stanley Tan's write up, must have happened real time.  He's got greater detal on the keynote.

Tonight is the kick off attendee party.

I made my third trip to Batu Caves, my favorite place on the planet (outside of LDS temples), last night.  I found another 2 caves while there.  One has an adventure with a 2-3 hour exploration.  I may have to go back again.  Unfortunately the monkeys were asleep when I got there. :(

I did find one big monkey

One question I need to do some research on is, one that I got about SQL Reporting Services in SharePoint mode.  The attendee was saying that he's getting error messages when he creates his second web app and tries to access reports.  He says he hears it only supports one web application and something about default zone.  I know there is a good whitepaper on setting up SQL reporting services on WSS in SharePoint mode now, but I don't know about multiple web apps with SQL reporting services in SharePoint mode.