SharePoint Conference 2011 – Day Three Wrapup

Welcome to Day Three of the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011.   This continues to be a “stealth” Project and SQL conference – there’s been a lot of attention to Project Server, and to the new functions of the “Denali” 2011 release (self-service BI with Crescent, etc.)  For more on Project Server, stay tuned to Microsoft’s Project Conference in March 2012 - http://www.msprojectconference.com/Pages/default.aspx

Here’s a public domain picture of Denali, in Alaska, just to give you something to see.

• My favorite question of the day was to Christophe Fiessinger from Microsoft.  When asked to comment on the timing of Project Server 2010 support for SQL 2011 Denali -- "You know I'm being recorded?"

(Full disclosure, this is being posted from 35,000 feet.  Today’s soundtrack – Cliff Martinez and the Drive soundtrack.)

The Disneyland Park was a great treat for conference attendees, but on to a few session highlights. 

SharePoint Performance Tuning

Eric Shupps – the SharePoint cowboy – led a large group through his favorite tips and tricks, including:

• Page customization takes the whole page out of the faster file system and puts it into the database, including CSS, master page, etc.  So, turn off Designer for at least 30% performance boost! [APPLAUSE!]
• Branding – suggestions include start with minimal master page, minimize linked files, and use image stitching of small elements to reduce request counts,
• Put files in physical system, get resources in physical system (/_layouts) not virtual (libraries, etc.),   [Ed note = layouts – GOOD, libraries = BAD.]
• CSS files are usually too big.  Clean them up by removing redundant styles.
• For lists, just because you can doesn’t mean you should put millions of items in them.  Folders improve view performance but not query performance – ALL CONTENT IN ALL LISTS IN A SITE COLLECTION IS IN A SINGLE TABLE. 
• RBS doesn’t increase query performance.  Nope.
• Use Developer Dashboard by putting code in SPMonitoredScope code block (OK, that’s my note on HOW to do it, but Eric did mention its importance as a diagnostic!)  Wictor Wilen published a feature to enable and configure Developer Dashboard in Central Admin - http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/SharePoint-2010-Developer-Dashboard-configuration-feature.aspx

PowerPivot v2 Engineering

Dave Wickert, Microsoft, ran through scaling and engineering for PowerPivot v2.  PowerPivot is the tool that adds the ability to work with huge and/or external datasets, through Excel, and in SharePoint.  PowerPivot v2 is shipping as part of “Denali” – SQL Server 2011.  The big server changes are in administration and installation support.  Key talking points:

• Claims to Windows Token Service (CWTS) is the MOST important component of PowerPivot communications.
• $Embedded$ is the magic data source connection to point to the workbook itself for the AS cube
• PowerPivot itself doesn’t need Kerberos, since PowerPivot & Cat’s live on the same machine in same farm – no hop
• Microsoft ships an HP jointly developed,  1U preconfigured BI appliance, 8X300GB disk, etc. SQL onboard
• V2 adds support for minidump files of the database cube,  logs, state snapshot in PPDP files for troubleshooting.
• New PowerPivot Configuration Tool Wizard builds installation PowerShell scripts
• SharePoint SP1 is REQUIRED for CTP3 and RTM of Denali PowerPivot – upgrade is blocked without SP1
• Denali engine will support v1 and v2 workbooks, and there is a direct server in pace upgrade path
• Most functional changes are on Excel user side

SQL Denali Alerting

Lukasz Pawlowski walked through a deep overview on SSRS Alerts in Denali. 

Simply, this adds a rules engine to SharePoint integrated reports based on live reports – so the user can set up a SharePoint alert is the sales figure in a report ever drops below a threshold, etc.  This is conceived as a daily process – not a real-time minute by minute check.

These changes  mean SSRS is, at long last, ,installed directly into SharePoint as a Shared Service Application, using configuration databases as part of the SharePoint farm.  At last!

Reporting Services isn’t cross farm, puts GUIDs in the database names (God kills TWO kittens, according to Todd Klindt), so it has some tradeoffs on the server architecture. But it’s the right direction.

SharePoint Project Server Best Practices Deployment

Christophe Fiessinger from Microsoft ran users through best pradtices in server design and deployment for Project Server integrated into SharePoint.  More fun facts:

• There are a lot of Project Server 2007 users still around!
• You can use the super fun Pivot Viewer to browse technical documents on Project and Project Server  at http://t.co/kb1iWDHw
• The size of the pool of managed resources is probably the biggest factor to integrate or split Project Server PWA instances
• Project Server doesn’t support multitenancy.  The Project SSA can’t be run cross farm – you need to install Project Server on all web and app servers in the farm.
• As of Service Pack 1,  Project Server 2010 SP1 supports IE7/8/9 Firefox Chrome and Safari, in case you hadn’t heard the worldwide applause in June 2012.

Content Query Web Part

Noted community speaker Christina Wheeler ran through the CQWP.  One quick tip - CQWP requires the publishing features activated (site collection and site feature level).

Day Four is soon to come!

Comments

[Cfiessinger]

Merci :)