Its been over a month since the release of SharePoint 2010 SP 1 and since the list of known issues has not grown, I have the confidence to recommend the installation of Service Pack 1. It was only two days ago when I installed SP1. Generally I recommend Admins to wait a while before installing into their Production servers.

Download it here:

SharePoint 2010 Foundation SP1:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2460058

SharePoint Server 2010 SP1:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2460045

The install process:

1. Run the exe to extract and install the binaries
Running the exe (installing the binaries) will take 15-25 minutes.
This can be run concurrently on all SharePoint Servers.
2. Ensure that you have ran the exe on all servers in the SharePoint farm.
3. Run the SharePoint Products Config Wizard on all servers in the SharePoint Farm.
The SharePoint Products Config Wizard would take about 5-10 minutes.
This step cannot be run before the previous steps.
This step cannot be run concurrently on other servers in the same farm.
4. Reboot.
Reboot is a requirement as it is listed in the ‘Known issues’ of SP1
5. Restart the User Profile Sync Service (through SharePoint). This can take about 10 minutes.
This is a known issue with SP1.

Some other points:

I had to install the Office Web Apps SP 1 first before I did the SharePoint 2010 SP1.

Since I run SharePoint 2010 Enterprise, I did not install the SharePoint Foundation SP1 – because I extracted the exe and compared it with the SharePoint Server SP1 and all the files have been included.
So, save time and just install the SharePoint Server SP1 and not the SharePoint Foundation SP1 if you run SharePoint Server Standard or Enterprise.

Some Features of the SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1:

• Support for the next version of SQL Server Code Name “Denali”
• Shallow copy functionality allows you to move Site Collections from one Content Database to another Content Database without touching the underlying blob (unstructured) data. Only the pointers are updated. Functionality is provided in the Move-SPSite cmd in PowerShell.
• Site-level recycle bin allows administrators to recover Site Collections and sites that have been accidentally deleted by the owners.
• Improvements to storage management (StorMan.aspx)
SP1 introduces an improved StorMan.aspx, enabling users to better understand what is using up their quota and to act upon that information in order to reduce the size of their sites.
• Cascading filters for Performance Point services
New cascading filter support enables you to pass the value of one filter to another.
• Additional browser support
SP1 provides support for Internet Explorer 9 in Internet Explorer 8 Standards Mode and also provides support for the Google Chrome browser.

Cumulative Updates in SharePoint SP 1:

SP 1 includes all SharePoint 2010 updates upto and including April 2011 CU. It does not include the June 2011 CU. You must apply that separately. I encourage you not to rush and install the June 2011 yet. Only apply it if it fixes a specific issue you are experiencing.

SharePoint 2010 SP 1 also provides a number of fixes to improve the user experience.

IPv6 is becoming an issue and I hear more techs talking about it now than 5 or 10 years ago. I first learned about IPv6 and the IPv4 depletion issues about 10 years ago when I used to play with my own Cisco lab at home and aspire to be a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert – CCIE .

Now, as I have been working full time with SharePoint for years, I thought its a good time to pull out a little bit about SharePoint with IPv6 from the net…

Some things I picked up from reading on the net which may be important to you are:

• Windows Server 2003: By default, the IPv6 protocol is not installed. However, it can be added.
• Windows Server 2008: By default, the IPv6 protocol and the IPv4 protocol are both installed and enabled. When both IPv4 and IPv6 are enabled, IPv6 is given preference over IPv4.
• Microsoft provides supported IPv6 implementations for Windows Server 2003, Windows XP with SP1 or later, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 or later.
• When Windows is configured with IPv6, SQL 2005, 2008 and 2008 R2 Server components automatically recognize the existence of IPv6. No special SQL Server configuration is necessary.
• The SQL Server Database Engine and the other server components can listen on both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses at the same time. When both IPv4 and IPv6 are present, you can use SQL Server Configuration Manager to configure the Database Engine to listen only on IPv4 addresses or only on IPv6 addresses.
• When the SQL Server Browser service running on a machine that supports both IPv4 and IPv6 is queried on an IPv4 address, it responds with an IPv4 address and the first IPv4 TCP port in its list. When queried on an IPv6 address, it responds with an IPv6 address and the first IPv6 TCP port in its list. To avoid inconsistency, Microsoft recommends that the IPv4 and IPv6 listeners be configured to listen to the same port.
• Tools such as SQL Server Management Studio and SQL Server Configuration Manager accept both IPv4 and IPv6 formats for IP addresses. In most cases, the connection string does not need to be modified if the <computer_name>\<instance_name> is specified using server hostname or fully qualified domain name (FQDN).
• In SQL Server R2, Native Client attempts to establish connections using these IP addresses in the order received from TCP/IP and uses the first connection that succeeds. Because the order cannot be predicted by SQL Server Native Client, this should be regarded as random order. IPv4 addresses are attempted first if both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are present. This logic is transparent to the users of ODBC, OLE DB, or ADO.NET.
• All versions of Microsoft SQL Server supported for SharePoint 2010 Products also support IPv6.
• In SharePoint 2010, when using IPv6 protocol, all end-user Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) must be based on DNS names with AAAA records.
• Browsing to SharePoint URLs that use IPv6 literal addresses is not supported.
• SharePoint 2010 Products support entering IPv6 literal addresses for certain farm administration functionality, such as entering the server name when creating or attaching databases. For server names that use a literal address format, you must enclose the literal address within square brackets. An example of a literal address URL is http://[2002:db8:85a2:8d4:1219:8b2e:370:7424]

Introduction to IPv6
Microsoft Technology Position Paper
Microsoft's Objectives for IP Version 6
Migrating IPv6.exe Commands to Netsh Command
IPv6 Transition Technologies
IPv6 Security Considerations and Recommendations
Using Windows Tools to Obtain IPv6 Configuration Information

When you install a new farm, you might be curious to find out what the Health Analyzer results are. Instead of waiting for the checks to happen (basically timer jobs scheduled at different intervals), you could force them to run all at one go, so you can review the results and address them.

You can easily run this in PowerShell. All it does is start all the timer jobs with ‘Health’ in its name. That fires off all SharePoint 2010 Health Analyzer jobs for your new farm in one go.

# Check to ensure Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell is loaded
$snapin = Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell'}
if ($snapin -eq $null) {
  Write-Host "Loading SharePoint Powershell Snapin"
  Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell"
}
Get-SPTimerJob | Where {$_.Name -like "*Health*" -and $_.Name -like "*-all-*"} | Start-SPTimerJob

Ever wondered if there is a formula for calculating content database sizes? Want to have a start into learning more about SQL design and database capacity planning for SharePoint 2010?

Luckily, there is an awesome Technet document on SQL server design and capacity planning and it covers some great points to consider when planning your storage with SharePoint 2010.

Microsoft has done some tests on a live environment and revealed database sizes, multipliers and other IOPS (Input/Output per second) stats on SharePoint 2010 databases.

It also talks about disk selection and prioritising your data among different type of disks.

I liked reading about the SQL counters to monitor too.. helps SharePoint Admins learn to communicate better with their DBAs!

Heres the article:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc298801.aspx

Hey!

I got a few requests to have this available online.. its a presentation file I put together on SharePoint 2010 High Availability options with SQL.

Here is a link as promised to my presentation (pptx) on SharePoint 2010 High Availability Options.
It covers some basics on Disaster Recovery, SQL database mirroring, log shipping and clustering with SharePoint with some Technet links.
SharePoint 2010 HA Options

If you can contribute to the links to this file or initiate a discussion, send me an email or comment here.
Appreciate your feedback!

I was looking at what hardware and software requirements Microsoft had to say for FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint.

There are a few things to note:
RAM:
Minimum – 4GB RAM
Recommended – 16GB RAM

CPU:
Minimum – 4 CPU cores, 2.0GHz CPU
Recommended - 8 CPU cores, 2.0GHz CPU

Hard Disk:
Minimum – 50GB disk
Recommended – 1TB disk

Operating System:
1. Windows Server 2008 SP2 x64. All regular Standard/Enterprise/Datacenter versions are supported.
2. Windows Server 2008 R2 x64

Some additional points:

1. The server must be fully updated with the Service Pack and updates and restarted before you install FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint.
2. Do not install FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint on a server that runs a Domain Controller.
3. Use the server for FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint only. Do not install FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint on the same server as SharePoint Server 2010.
4. Make sure that the FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint server name is not more than 15 characters long.
5. .NET Framework version 4 is not supported. Only .NET Framework version 3.5 SP1.
6. Ensure that the user who runs the installer is a member of the Administrators group.
7. Do not run FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint as a local administrator or a domain administrator.
8. Plan to install Windows updates after a controlled shutdown of FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint.
9. Exclude the FASTSearch folder from anti-virus scanning to prevent the anti-virus software from falsely identifying FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint data files as malware.
10. If you are using a proxy server and wanting to use FAST across multiple SharePoint farms, there are additional steps you need to perform.
11. If your anti-virus software allows it, it is recommend that you exclude the following FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint processes from scanning:

• cobra.exe
• contentdistributor.exe
• create_attribute_files.exe
• docexport.exe
• FASTSearch.exe
• FASTSearchExec.exe
• fdispatch.exe
• fdmworker.exe
• fixmlindex.exe
• fsearch.exe
• fsearchctrl.exe
• ifilter2html.exe
• indexer.exe
• indexingdispatcher.exe
• jsort2.exe
• make_pu_diff.exe
• MonitoringService.exe
• pdftotext.exe
• procserver.exe
• qrserver.exe
• spelltuner.exe
• truncate_anchorinfo.exe
• walinkstorerreceiver.exe
• walookupdb.exe
• webanalyzer.exe

Read more here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381239.aspx

This is a GREAT document if you want to look at capacity planning for FAST Search Server 2010.
If you have a multi-server SharePoint 2010 farm running on the Enterprise license with a dedicated Search Server, then your FAST Search Server 2010 would be of no extra licensing cost to you.
(Enterprise license is per server. Each FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint 2010 consumes one enterprise server license.  Disclaimer: please consult a Microsoft licensing specialist ).

When you read this document, you will understand how to:

• Define performance and capacity targets for your environment
• Plan the hardware required to support the number and type of users, and the features you intend to deploy
• Design your physical and logical topology for optimum reliability and efficiency
• Test, validate and scale your environment to achieve performance and capacity targets
• Monitor your environment for key indicators

I enjoyed this and I thought I would share this with you..

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=65b799e3-825c-4398-8cd7-3311d3297997&displaylang=en

I was at a session by Maurice Prather on Secure Coding for the Administrator at the Australian SharePoint Conference 2011. It was a good session and there was a mention of the risks of PDF handling in the browser.

I did some more reading and found that Maurice had written an article which explains the risks of PDF (Pretty Dangerous Files) well.
In short.. you can embed javascript in a PDF document. Java script can be used to also delete/modify a wide variety of things in a SharePoint side through the client object model.

I thought this will be useful to make note of it in my blog. Here is a link to Maurice Prathers article on PDF (Pretty Dangerous Files):
http://www.bluedoglimited.com/SharePointThoughts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=328

You enjoy..

I have been living and breathing SharePoint 2010 PowerShell the past two months.
During this time, I have created PowerShell scripts to prepare the farm, install SharePoint 2010, install and provision all service applications with their custom database names solely with PowerShell. This is on a multi-server SharePoint 2010 environment. So my scripts had to be able to create and join servers to the farm, start relevant services on App servers. No more stsadm for me!

The crawl server (index) was the most interesting as my script creates the Search SA and then modifies it with the specific database names that your variables you provide.

There were some (many) lessons learned and I will write more on that later.
I would like to show you how the SharePoint Products and Technologies Wizard works underneath and then marry those steps with equivalent PowerShell commands….

Here are the steps the SharePoint Products and Technologies Wizard (sometimes referred to the grey wizard) takes to create a new farm:

1. Initializing SharePoint Products configuration…

2. Initiating install check…

3. Installing help collections…

4. Securing the SharePoint resources…

5. Registering SharePoint services…

6. Registering SharePoint features…

7. Provisioning the SharePoint Central Administration  web Application…

8. Installing the application content files…

9. Finalizing the Sharepoint products configuration…

Ok, here are the equivalent commands in PowerShell. Be sure to run them in this order otherwise you may have issues deploying your Search Service Application.
1. Initializing SharePoint Products configuration…

2. Initiating install check…

New-SPConfigurationDatabase -DatabaseName DatabaseName –AdministrationContentDatabaseName AdministrationContentDatabaseName –DatabaseServer SQLServerName -Passphrase Passphrase -FarmCredentials (get-credential)

3. Installing help collections…

Install-SPHelpCollection –All
4. Securing the SharePoint resources…

Initialize-SPResourceSecurity
5. Registering SharePoint services…

Install-SPService
6. Registering SharePoint features…

Install-SPFeature –AllExistingFeatures
7. Provisioning the SharePoint Central Administration  web Application…

New-SPCentralAdministration -Port 44444 -WindowsAuthProvider “ntlm”

8. Installing the application content files…

Install-SPApplicationContent

9. Finalizing the Sharepoint products configuration…
(No equivalent PowerShell cmd)

If you need more help with PowerShell, contact me. My colleague and I have put together a simple GUI tool to build your entire SharePoint 2010 multiserver (or single server) farm! This tool works with the PowerShell scripts I created. If you think your organisation needs an easy PowerShell deployment GUI tool for SharePoint 2010 which runs these PowerShell scripts, please contact me.

For those wanting to dig deeper into SharePoint 2010 products performance and Capacity planning, Microsoft has published some very good documents on performance tests, results and recommendations. Again, this is for those Admins who want to dig deeper into SharePoint 2010. It could help if you are creating design documents or archtecture for SharePoint 2010 for your organisation.

Even if you arent looking yet, I suggest you book mark this page. One day you may need it! I know I have and would like to share it with you!

These documents contain scenario based testing of various SharePoint 2010 Service Applications and features. They discuss recommendations by Microsoft on hardware resources, architecture and configuration to maximise and enhance the SharePoint 2010 experience.
AccessServicesCapacityPlanningDoc.docx
BCSCapacityPlanningDoc.docx
DesigningLargeListsMaximizingListPerformance.docx
ExcelServicesCapacityPlanningDoc.docx
InfoPath2010CapacityPlanningDoc.docx
LargeScaleDocRepositoryCapacityPlanningDoc.docx
MySitesSocialComputingCapacityPlanningDoc.docx
OfficeWebAppsCapacityPlanningDoc.docx
SearchforSPServer2010CapacityPlanningDoc.docx
SharePointServerCachesPerformance.docx
VisioServicesCapacityPlanningDoc.docx
WASCapacityPlanningDoc.docx
WCMCapacityPlanningDoc.docx
WebAnalyticsCapacityPlanningDoc.docx
WorkflowCapacityPlanningDoc.docx

Here is the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=fd1eac86-ad47-4865-9378-80040d08ac55&displaylang=en