System Reviews: A checkup for SharePoint

2010

Stephen WilsonSharePoint Engineer

2 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

Stephen Wilson• Blog:

• http://SharePointBitMe.com• Twitter:

• http://twitter.com/StephenTech911• Cincinnati, OH• Employed at Rackspace (formerly by

SharePoint911)

3 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

Contact Info

4 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

Housekeeping Please turn off all electronic devices or set them

to vibrate. If you must take a phone call, please do so in the

hall so as not to disturb others.

5 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

Agenda (Hint: There isn’t one)

Agenda (Hint: There isn’t one)

• Why System Reviews are a good idea. • When should System Reviews be done?• What is a SharePoint System Review?• How they are more than just maintenance?

6 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

If It Ain’t Broke…• You have just been lucky!

• SharePoint is not a Complainer• Just because you didn’t upgrade doesn’t

mean nothing has changed.• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/

ms11-074 (September 2011)

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms12-050 (July 2012)

7 | SharePoint Saturday St. Louis 2012

Service Packs and Cumulative Updates Service Packs

Should be a Goal. Repeat after me. We all have test Farms.

Cumulative Updates What’s in it for you? That being said: The sad truth about SharePoint

2010 SP1

8 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

It Works, but is it Right?• Service Accounts

• One is not enough • http://toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=23

7 • Service Applications

• They are there, but are they doing anything?• User Profile Service Application

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721049.aspx• http://www.harbar.net/articles/sp2010ups.aspx

• Search Crawls• Web Analytics

• http://technet.microsoft.com/library/gg266382%28office.14%29.aspx

• http://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=250

9 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

Is Your Farm Speaking to You?

• Incoming Mail and Outgoing mail• Incoming

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262947.aspx

• http://sharepointgeorge.com/2010/configuring-incoming-email-sharepoint-2010/

• Outgoing• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263462.as

px• http://sharepointgeorge.com/2010/configuring-outgoin

g-email-sharepoint-2010/

10 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

What is SharePoint Hiding?• Timer Jobs

• One piece of PowerShell• Get-SPTimerJob | select name | ForEach-Object

{Get-SPTimerJob $_.name} | ForEach-Object {$_.historyentries} | Where-Object {$_.status -eq "Failed"} | select JobDefinitionTitle, StartTime, ErrorMessage > c:\FailedTimerJobs.txt

• Some things that can go wrong in SharePoint will only show up here or in an exhaustive search of the logs.

11 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

Speaking of SharePoint Logs• C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web

Server Extensions\14\Logs• http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/ULSViewer/• http://sharepointlogviewer.codeplex.com/

• Correlation IDs• Google or Bing can’t help you• http://blogs.technet.com/b/wbaer/archive/2010/05/01/correlation

-ids-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx• Correlation IDs are UNDERRATED!

12 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

Event Logs

• Most of the Action is in the Application logs.• My lottery number is 6-39-8-55-86 (6398 5586)• The Security Log is especially important for

authentication• There is a lot of Stuff, what is really important?

• Errors and Warnings• Repetition and Timing• Event ID numbers are usually searchable, but don’t

forget the error messages.

13 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

Web ApplicationsSite Collections &Alternate Access Mappings

• Do you know what each one is? • Can any of them be eliminated (after a backup!) ?• Can, or should, any of your content be split up?

14 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

Back To SQL• Post service pack 1 the Content DB limit is 4TB (still

200GB for Collaboration)• Does that really help you?• Are SQL and SharePoint a good place for an archive?

• SQL Backups are King for keeping your content safe. Schedule them, use them, love them.

• Database Management• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc825329.aspx• Database types and management

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc678868.aspx

15 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

Why bother?• SharePoint does more than you can see at first

glance.• The Future is almost here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh973397.aspx• A well maintained Farm is much easier to

upgrade.• A small investment for what could be a big

return.

16 | SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2012

Final Thoughts• A System Review is about more than errors and

patches.• SharePoint, SharePoint Saturdays and the

Microsoft Community.

•Thank You!

17 | SharePoint Saturday St. Louis 2012

Questions?

Thank You to the Sponsors of SharePoint Saturday Bend!