Alert Face Off: Google vs Microsoft SharePoint
April 5, 2009
I am not a big fan of search. The main reason is that most users want an information access system to think for the user. The user thrives on alerts, suggested queries, and automatic displays like those generated by Congoo.com. Not me. I like to craft multi term queries, use Boolean operators, and have the luxury of search set querying in order to narrow results. I like other old fashioned search methods, but forward truncation and on the fly set deduplication is not cocktail party chit chat.
The alert method for Google is easy. Navigate to Google News. Run a query. At the bottom of the results page, click the alert link and you are done.
How can one do this in SharePoint? Navigate here and download the code and explanation. The how to was the work of Erwin who explains his method in “How To Create Alerts Programmatically. I know there are other ways around the barn, but I want to contrast the differences between Google and Microsoft. To business: In order to set up an alert, a developer is going to have to do the job. For example, get ready to set switches like this:
Google makes an alert a mouse click and an email address. Microsoft SharePoint requires a script, figuring out a workaround, and insertion of the script into the SharePoint environment.
I am all for keeping developers employed, but what about users? Make work is frustrating to an addled goose like me, annoying to end users who just want an alert which can be turned on and then killed with a click, and to the developers who have to navigate around issues.
Stephen Arnold, April 5, 2009
SharePoint Online
April 5, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to Tobias Zimmergren’s SharePoint Online—A First Look” here. On premises SharePoint installations are tar balls that become tar pits. The hapless information technology dinosaurs caught in these traps will struggle and probably die. Uncontrollable costs pull down even the brightest SharePoint wizards in a lousy economic climate.
Mr. Zimmergren’s article makes a very strong case for hosted SharePoint or what the trophy generation consultants call cloud based SharePoint. The idea is solid. Let experts figure out how to make SharePoint behave and maybe perform some useful content related tricks. The users access the needed SharePoint services via a broadband connection.
He does not talk about finding information in the SharePoint system, which is a major weakness of hosted SharePoint. If you can live with the limitations of Microsoft’s approach to indexing, then you are going to be happy. If not, you will have to pursue some other options.
I urge you to read Mr. Zimmergren’s write up. He explains how cloud based SharePoint works and provides useful information to those who may be singing the on premises SharePoint blues.
Stephen Arnold, April 5, 2009
Hiding SharePoint Sins
April 5, 2009
Satan may be in the room, but I just learned I can make him invisible with plumbing. Read Robert Bogue’s “Using Infrastructure to Hide All Sins” here and learn how yourself. The core of the idea is that SharePoint will misbehave; that is, sin. To absolve the software of its misdeeds, the savvy SharePoint wizard will use hardware to hide the problem. Mr. Bogue wrote:
You see, I architected the system to account for a fairly high probability that the developer code would randomly and inexplicitly cause a server to crash, run out of memory, blue screen, or just generally go dark from time-to-time. With that in mind, we put two servers in that should be able to cope with the load from everyone. The third server in the farm was just there to be the token server that was in the process of crashing and coming back. Load balancing can hide almost any server stability sin that you can come up with. Simple Network Load Balancing (NLB) included in Microsoft Windows Server operating systems can hide problems. Tools like F5‘s BigIP can hide them better.
If this approach makes sense to you, then Mr. Bogue’s write up is just what the witch doctor ordered. For my money, I prefer appropriate infrastructure (low cost, reliable, scalable) and solid code. Call me old fashioned but I think at Judgment Day throwing hardware at a SharePoint problem won’t gain admission to digital heaven.
Stephen Arnold, April 5, 2009
Microsoft Search Community Toolkit
March 31, 2009
SharePoint search is like Baskin-Robbins. Lots of flavors. To create the ice cream treat that suits your taste, you need a selection of toppings. A reader sent me a link to a list of code snippets contributed by SharePoint faithful. You may want to click here and peruse what’s available. Some of the choices:
- SharePoint WildCard Search Web Part http://www.codeplex.com/WildcardSearch
- Faceted Search V2 – http://www.codeplex.com/FacetedSearch
- Smart Search for SharePoint – http://www.codeplex.com/smartsearch
Not an April 1, 2009, spoof.
Stephen Arnold, April 1, 2009
SharePoint and Indexing a Business Data Catalog
March 27, 2009
SharePoint user? If so, you may want to read and save “Business Data Catalog (BDC) incremental Crawls and How to Test” here. The article understates the performance issues but provides some useful tips. For me, the most important comment was:
But how does the indexer know which BDC records have changed? For it to know this we have to implement a property in our Entity called the __BdcLastModifiedTimestamp. Nice name huh! Now a small admission also. Whenever we describe the IdEnumerator method we always say that it only returns the primary key fields for an entity. This is generally true – except for when you want to implement an incremental crawl. If you want to do this, your IdEnumerator method must also return a DateTime field that will indicate to the indexer when it was last modified. The indexer can then compare this to the previous LastModified value it holds and if it is different, it can index the entire row of data.
If this seems like a bit of extra work for a routine task your are correct. Updating an index should be a click or two, then the system happily ensures that the index is fresh. SharePoint is a work in progress. I assume that when Fast ESP is available, these strange manual workarounds will no longer be needed. One can hope for the basics.
Stephen Arnold, March 27, 2009
SharePoint Trojan Horsed
March 26, 2009
The article “Where Worlds Collide – and Then There’s SharePoint” her by Oliver Marks gave me a view of SharePoint I had not previously considered. Here is the passage that I found notable:
SharePoint is often Trojan horsed in ‘free’ with other Microsoft products and can be used as a shared drive document repository by end users with no financial impact. The vaunted collaboration components in the current iteration are rudimentary, and a partner ecosphere has grown up to essentially use SharePoint as a database foundation. Going forward SharePoint is everywhere, and as future iterations of a cloud oriented Microsoft Office hook into the next iterations of SharePoint, it seems likely an extensive new walled garden will emerge. How and if this Microsoft ecosphere will allow interoperability with the open source world is a loaded question.
I have highlighted the hook that snagged me. SharePoint is often a bargain. If Microsoft tosses in more robust search, then the magnetic pull of SharePoint gets stronger. I quite like the phrase “Trojan horsed”’
Stephen Arnold, March 26, 2009
Microsoft Fast Strategy Shift
March 26, 2009
I have been puzzled by magazines with the word “Redmond” in the title. I get a couple of these publications in the mail, and I find the stories interesting. “Microsoft’s FAST Strategy Shift” by Stephen Swoyer here stopped me in my tracks. The story reported that the roadmap outlined at the Fast Forward 2009 conference a few weeks ago shifted. I had locked in my thinking on the Fast Forward 2009 announcements and was waiting for some concrete deliverables to arrive. Mr. Swoyer wrote:
"[Search Server Express] is offered for free to capture the attention of workers developing low-volume, limited-value projects. Microsoft will incorporate the FAST technology into the search products elsewhere in the Office family as of its next…release date," Andrews said. "For now, Microsoft sells a more independent product, FAST ESP for SharePoint, which it will transform into the FAST Search for SharePoint product when the latter becomes available. Greater scale and functional flexibility are key elements of the FAST product."
I interpreted this comment to mean that integration is in the undefined future. In my opinion, the roadmap is a broad guideline. The product integration is mostly a Web part and manual job. If this is the case, Microsoft will face considerable pressure from third party vendors who offer a “snap in solution”; that is, one that either requires zero new code or minimal tweaking of proven scripts.
I thought Redmond publications were pro Microsoft. If my assumption is correct, this story is softening some hard facts about the Microsoft purchase of Fast Search & Transfer for $1.2 billion about one year ago. Not only does Microsoft have its own SharePoint search solutions, a number of vendors offer very good search solutions that are essentially plug and play. More problematic is the Fast Search & Transfer technology. Perhaps it was once “best of breed”, but now the Fast ESP (enterprise search platform) has become more complex with the addition of new home grown functions, components obtained via licenses or open source, and the integration of sophisticated third party functions from other vendors. The police action remains an issue. On the LinkedIn enterprise search forum, I wrote about a flurry of job openings posted by Microsoft executives. These were blatant appeals for enterprise search professionals. I thought these blandishments were noteworthy. Where there is smoke there is fire in my neck of the Harrods’s Creek woods.
I will continue to monitor this SharePoint Fast integration project.
Stephen Arnold, March 26, 2009
Microsoft Load Balancing: All or Nothing
March 24, 2009
I found this technical tip quite interesting. I am not a fan of either – or approaches. Your mileage may vary. Click here to read “Windows Network Load Balancing – Don’t run with the defaults!” from the At Scale Web log. The topic is an important one, load balancing. The tip is to disable the affinity mode, which is the default. At Scale recommends that we “set every single one of your servers in the NLB cluster to non-affinity mode and you are golden.” Either – or. Let me know if it works. I prefer a different architecture with good old dedicated load balancers, but I am an addled goose with little tolerance for some of the Microsoft software load balancing excitement.
Stephen Arnold, March 25, 2009
SharePoint Incremental Update Slow Down
March 23, 2009
Microsoft SharePoint is an interesting system. Originally a content management lash up, the product now offers a wide range of features. There are various flavors of search and dozens of vendors who offer snap in components to address shortcomings in the core product. If you have a vanilla SharePoint, you will want to scan “SharePoint Incremental Crawl Taking a Long Time after Adding or Removing a User” here. There is no direct fix for incremental indexing slow downs when a SharePoint installation has user additions or deletes. If a reader knows of a fix for this issue, please, use the comments section of this Web log to post the remediating method. Interesting issue which strikes me as a significant problem in organizations where new users come and go in a SharePoint centric organization.
Stephen Arnold, March 23, 2009
Microsoft Pricing
March 15, 2009
If this Web log post is accurate, the “new” FrontPage—now called SharePoint Designer—will be free starting on April 1, 2009. Has Bill Simser unearthed a free program, or is he reporting an April fool joke? He wrote:
I caught a couple of blog posts from here and here that had to make me do a double take. I’m not one for relaying gossip, but this information seems to be legit. As of April 1, 2009 SharePoint Designer will be free. Now if you go to the “official” site there’s no mention of it however I’m hearing through the grapevine it’s true. The official site even has a “buy it today” option, so you might want to hold off on that.
Microsoft seems to be working on several fronts to keep the gates shut to its walled garden. Free software and discounts are like grocery store incentives. Even if SharePoint Designer is free, you still need Visual Studio to accomplish serious work foe SharePoint. Send your price war items via the comments section of this blog.
Stephen Arnold, March 15, 2009
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