Instant (almost) SharePoint 2013 Farm in Azure!

 

Microsoft Azure has had a pre-configured SharePoint 2013 image for quite a while, but you still had to create a SQL Server image to make it work and then run the SharePoint wizard to create the farm. Now they have a wizard approach to quickly create a ready to use three server basic farm or a nine server high-availability farm. Just click, click, click, wait a while and start playing with SharePoint! Just the thing for evaluations, demos and development.

The three server farm includes a SQL server, a DC server and a SharePoint server. The high-availability farm includes two DC servers, three SQL server servers, two application servers and two SharePoint web servers. (This one should drain your Azure budget! Remember to turn these off when not in use.)

Details on both configurations can be found here: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-sharepoint-farm-config-azure-preview/

Here's the steps to create your Azure SharePoint 2013 farm: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-sharepoint-farm-azure-preview/

 

A few observations:

• SharePoint Version: 15.0.4571.1502  (Service Pack 1 (revised))
• License: SharePoint Server Trial with Enterprise Client Access License
• An initial web application and site collection have been created, but you will be asked to pick the template for the top level site on the first visit.
• None of the services applications have been installed. User Profiles, Search, etc.
• The VMs are available via Remote Desktop.
• SharePoint is accessible from the web, so you can test from your local PC.
• Outgoing and incoming email has not been configured.
• Does not include Office Web Apps server.

 

Things you will need to do to have a complete SharePoint:

• Configure the services
• Configure email options
• Add one more server VM for Office Web apps

 

Now all we need is a volunteer to create the PowerShell scripts to do the final work for us!

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SharePoint Dev Class 20488 in Two Weeks

 

I'll be presenting the 20488 Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Core Solutions class in two weeks, actually a week and a half (time flies!). February 16th, 2015. We've set up this class for both local and remote students. Online students will be able to view the class and have remote access to the lab computers.

Just as a little incentive, when you register enter my code of "TTN50" and get a $50 discount on the class.

Details here: http://www.maxtrain.com/Classes/ClassInfo.aspx?Id=101693

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MS-20488 Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Core Solutions

In this 5 day instructor-led course, students learn core skills that are common to almost all SharePoint development activities. These include working with the server-side and client-side object models, developing and deploying features, solutions, and apps, managing identity and permissions, querying and updating list data, managing taxonomy, using workflow to manage business processes, and customizing the user interface.

At Course Completion

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Design and manage features and solutions.
• Develop code for custom server-side components.
• Manage and customize authentication and authorization.
• Create custom sites and lists and manage the site lifecycle.
• Explain the capabilities and design choices for SharePoint apps.
• Use the client-side object model and the REST API.
• Develop provider-hosted and auto-hosted SharePoint apps.
• Distribute and deploy SharePoint apps.
• Create custom workflows to automate business processes.
• Use fields and content types to manage taxonomy.
• Customize the appearance and behavior of user interface elements.
• Customize navigation and site branding.

More details at http://www.maxtrain.com/Classes/ClassInfo.aspx?Id=101693

 

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A note to self-published book authors…

 

Actually a few notes…

 

I found two interesting SharePoint 2013 search books at Amazon and ordered them. I just received them… and I'm going to return both of them. This will be the first time I have ever returned a printed book!

 

Self-publishing is easy, fun and very rewarding. But…

Note 1: All printed technology books must have an index! Indexes are easy to create in Microsoft Word. You can either create a busy looking, but not too useful, index using the automatic features, or invest a couple hours and manually create a very useful one. In any case be forewarned, I do not buy technical books that do not have an index!

Note 2: Do not tell me in the book's intro that all of the content in the book is straight from your blog articles. Especially don't tell me that I could have gotten it all for free from the blog. (Boy, do I feel dumb paying for that book.) Don't just copy your blog articles and call it a book. Books that build on your blog articles can really be useful. Creating the book is your opportunity to expand on the topic and rewrite the quickly written text into nice complete articles. Fix up the screen captures. Fill in the gaps. Rewrite the hastefully written text. You know… create what you would have done in the blog if you had time to do it right the first time.

Note 3: Do not fill the pages with giant screen captures so there's an average of one screen capture and only one or two sentences per page. That works for a kid's picture book, but does not deliver much value as a technical book. In any case, please, please size and crop the screen captures so they are always readable and to the point.

Note 4: Pay somebody, anybody, to proofread the book. They don't have to know the technology. They just have to know some basic English and know enough to ask if all the code really should be underlined! If you want to really do it right, find someone who has heard of the Chicago Manual of Style, At a minimum buy yourself a copy of the Microsoft Manual of Style, and give a copy to your proofreader.

Note 5: Look at some of the tech books from the big publishers. I mean, open them, look at the details, note what is there and what is not. Note the use of "front matter". Note that page numbers go on the outside edges of pages, not in the gutter. Note the use of font size and the limited use of bold and italics.

 

</rant>

 

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PowerShell Sorting Tip for Enumerations

 

Do you ever have a PowerShell script that just won't sort right?

The problem? PowerShell makes assumptions, and not always the ones you would make. For example let's get a list of SharePoint lists and sort them by their BaseTemplate property:

    $mtg = Get-SPWeb http://maxsp2013wfe/sites/Meetings
    $mtg.Lists | Sort BaseTemplate | Select BaseTemplate, Title

Is the result you would expect?

Not what I first expected… but there's a hint hiding there though… Why is the BaseTemplate column right aligned as if was numeric?

If we take the above script and pipe it to Get-Member we find that BaseTemplate is not a string! It's an object of some kind. It's an SPListTemplateType object!

So let's see what that is… Doing a Bing on Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListTemplateType reveals that it is an enumeration, which internally is a number. If you look at the list in the MSDN article you will see both the text and numeric values of the base types.

What we need is the display text for the enumeration, and we can get that by using the ToString() method. As that would then be an expression, we need to add the annoying curly brackets and the $_. notation.

    $mtg.Lists | Sort { $_.BaseTemplate.ToString() } | Select BaseTemplate, Title

And now we get:

And that's more like it! (except for the right align stuff that going on)

Convert the column in the Select to a string and all's well!

    $mtg.Lists | Sort {$_.BaseTemplate.ToString()} | Select {$_.BaseTemplate.ToString()}, Title

 

So what were the PowerShell assumptions?

1. To display the text value of the enumeration, and align it as a number.
2. To sort on the numeric value of the enumeration.

(And you know what "assume" does, right?) 

 

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