SharePoint Yearns for Some of SQL Server 2008
September 27, 2009
I am interested in how the Microsoft teams create interesting puzzles for me to solve. Example: Install SharePoint and then figure out which pieces of SQL Server are really needed. If you are interested in this type of problem and its answer, then you will want to read “How SQL Server 2008 Components Impact SharePoint Implementation”. The title promises more than the article delivers, but what it does provide was useful to me. Ross Mistry lists the four components of SharePoint that SharePoint absolutely, positively needs tonight. The list triggered a question in my addled goose brain, “Why not deliver SharePoint to a client with the requisite components in one package?” Nah, that would be too complicated. Now about that search system without the 50 million document ceiling? Free extra or for fee standalone component? I don’t know the answer.
Stephen Arnold, September 27, 2009
Scaling SharePoint Could Be Easy
September 24, 2009
Back in the wonderful city of Washington, DC. I participated in a news briefing at the National Press Club today (September 23, 2009). The video summary of the presentations will be online next week. During the post briefing discussion, the topic of scaling SharePoint came up. The person with whom I was speaking sent me a link when she returned to her office. I read “Plan for Software Boundaries (Office SharePoint Server)” and realized that this Microsoft Certified Professional was jumping through hoops created by careless system design. I don’t think the Google enterprise applications are perfect, but Google has eliminated the egregious engineering calisthenics that Microsoft SharePoint delivers as part of the standard software.
I can deal with procedures. What made me uncomfortable right off the bat was this segment in the TechNet document:
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- In most circumstances, to enhance the performance of Office SharePoint Server 2007, we discourage the use of content databases larger than 100 GB. If your design requires a database larger than 100 GB, follow the guidance below:
- Use a single site collection for the data.
- Use a differential backup solution, such as SQL Server 2005 or Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager, rather than the built-in backup and recovery tools.
- Test the server running SQL Server 2005 and the I/O subsystem before moving to a solution that depends on a 100 GB content database.
- Whenever possible, we strongly advise that you split content from a site collection that is approaching 100 GB into a new site collection in a separate content database to avoid performance or manageability issues.
- In most circumstances, to enhance the performance of Office SharePoint Server 2007, we discourage the use of content databases larger than 100 GB. If your design requires a database larger than 100 GB, follow the guidance below:
Why did I react strongly to these dot points? Easy. Most of the datasets with which we wrestle are big, orders of magnitude larger than 100 Gb. Heck, this cheap net book I am using to write this essay has a 120 Gb solid state drive. My test corpus on my desktop computer weighs in at 500 Gb. Creating 100 Gb subsets is not hard, but in today’s petascale data environment, these chunks seem to reflect what I would call architectural limitations.
As I worked my way through the write up, I found numerous references to hard limits. One example was this statement from a table:
Office SharePoint Server 2007 supports 50 million documents per index server. This could be divided up into multiple content indexes based on the number of SSPs associated with an index server.
I like the “could be.” That type of guidance is useful, but my question is, “Why not address the problem instead of giving me the old “could be”? We have found limits in the Google Search Appliance, but the fix is pretty easy and does not require any “could be” engineering. Just license another GSA and the system has been scaled. No caveats.
I hope that the Fast ESP enterprise search system tackles engineering issues, not interface (what Microsoft calls user experience). In order to provide information access, the system has to be able to process the data the organization needs to index. Asking my team to work around what seem to be low ceilings is extra work for us. The search system needs to make it easy to deliver what the users require. This document makes clear that the burden of making SharePoint search falls on me and my team. Wrong. I want the system to lighten my load, not increase it with “could be” solutions.
Stephen Arnold, September 24, 2009
SharePoint Expert Wants End Users to Change
September 21, 2009
Update: September 24, 2009. I found this article about users’ hatred of change germane to my September 21, 2009, article. Microsoft must have its own research to prove that users indeed love change and that end users think that learning new ways to do old tasks is the cat’s pajamas. See http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-09-24-n85.html.
Original post
I found “A Brief History of SharePoint (From a Relative Newcomer’s Perspective)” an amazing document. I think it provides considerable insight into how Microsoft Certified Professionals perceive the people in organizations—large and small. Google is an arrogant company, but the company does not do much more than put goodies in the wild. If people figure out how to use the technology, that’s fine. If the user doesn’t figure out Google technology, the company just goes about its business. Infuriating? Yes. Logical. Absolutely.
Read the “Brief History” and pay particular attention to this passage:
I think that SP 2010 is going to change the game a bit and it’s going to play out differently and in slow motion as companies roll out their SP 2010 solutions over 2010 and beyond. In order to succeed, End Users will need to transform themselves and get a little IT religion. They’ll need to learn a little bit about proper requirements analysis. They will need some design documentation that clearly identifies business process workflow, for instance. They need to understand fundamental concepts like CRUD (create, update and delete), dev/test/qa/prod environments and how to use that infrastructure to properly deploy solutions that live a nice long time and bend (not break) in response to changes in an organization.
I am not sure how end users in government agencies, non profit, mom and pop, consultancies, and other organizations are going to react to “need”, “learn”, and “properly deploy” computer solutions. In my opinion, the view is not arrogance. The impression I carry from this article is a weird inability to understand the reality of folks who have to use SharePoint. I do like the acronym CRUD. I could have used it as an adjective to describe the passage above. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, September 21, 2009
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Interse Bought by ScanJour
September 18, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to a PDF file with a date of December 2008. Interse was, according to a ScanJour news release, purchased by Scan Jour A/S. The Ibox search technology developed by Interse will be used in Scan Jour products. The description of Interse in the release was:
“Ibox technology is a well-proven, metadata-driven search solution used by leading organizations worldwide since 2005.” says Chief Marketing Officer Jakob Brix at Scan·Jour. “We’ve been watching IBox develop for some time, and jumped at the opportunity to acquire this technology for the benefit of our public customers and other customers in regulated
industries.”
Scan Jour’s description of itself uses the phrase “case management”. I don’t know what that phrase means. I will update the European search vendor table to reflect this buy out. Clicking through the Interse Web site, I found little information about the deal. The Scan Jour Web site did not provide much information either. On the surface, it appears that Interse’s SharePoint centric engine is available from the Interse team. Scan Jour appears to have included the Interse system in its other information management products. Some investigation lies in the future.
Stephen Arnold, September 17, 2009
European Search Vendor Table Update 1
September 16, 2009
I received a number of emails this morning, and I want to update the European search vendor league table. Omissions obviously are my fault. I will try to make adjustments going forward, putting the updates into the base table in my Web log. I have added the following entries to the table that appears at this location in Beyond Search. This series is in reverse alphabetical order as a consequence of my cutting and pasting from the master table.
| Vendor | Function | Opinion |
| Lumur Consulting | Flax is a robust enterprise search system | I have written positively about this system. Continues to improve with each release of the open source engine. |
| Interse | SharePoint metatag plug in | Based in Copenhagen, the Interse system adds useful access functions to SharePoint |
| InfoFinder | Full featured enterprise search system | My contact in Europe reports that this is a European technology. Listed customers are mostly in Norway. |
Of this group, I want to point out that I was favorably impressed with the FLAX system. I arranged with Incisive, the owner of the December international online show, to get Lemur Consulting on the program of this year’s show. The talk will be an important one, and if you are attending the show in December 2009, be sure to catch the Lemur Consulting session. The company is profitable and growing using an open source business model.
Interse is another player in the very crowded SharePoint metatagging sector. What’s interesting is that Copenhagen is home to two companies which offer products that, on the surface, share some similarities: Interse and the puzzling SurfRay. It will be interesting to see which Danish horse wins the Copenhagen SharePoint Derby. I met the management team of Interse several years ago, and that group struck me as quite adept and gifted with a laser focus. I have a contact now with InfoFinder, and I will endeavor to get more information.
One person who contacted me wanted me to include Google’s European research centers. Another wanted me to list Israeli companies. For my purposes, Hungary is about as far east as I want to go with this first list.
If a reader knows of any other systems I have inadvertently overlooked, please, write me at seaky2000 at yahoo dot com or use the comments section of this Web log. If a reader or readers want to work with me to build a more extensive list of European search and content processing vendors, please, contact me. I will post the master list in the Web log so we have a single place to see what is underway outside the myopic vision of the azure chip consulting crowd in the US.
Stephen Arnold, September 16, 2009
SharePoint Search Architecture
September 16, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to a site called SharePointSearch.com. I explored a few of the many interesting links. The article that jumped out at me was “SharePoint 2007 Enterprise Search Information”, which contained this interesting diagram.
I also found a link to a July 13, 2009, article by Natalya Voskresenskaya interesting in EndUserSharePoint.com. Its title was “SharePoint and the FAST Enterprise Search Platform”. My recollection was that I had seen a similar article by her elsewhere, but I found the information useful. You may want to bookmark both sites. Will the architecture change with the roll out of the Fast ESP solution? We will know soon.
Stephen Arnold, September 16, 2009
SurfRay Reloaded
September 14, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to the news about the reappearance of SurfRay, a company that dropped off my radar. The firm has announced via PR Newswire a new version of Ontolica. You can read the news release at the PR Newswire Web site. Note that PR Newswire links can go dark, so if this SharePoint compatible product interests you, you may want to do some sleuthing. Asserted in “SurfRay Announces Availability of Ontolica 4.0 for SharePoint, With New Reporting and Analytics Module” are analytics features. Furthermore, existing customers can upgrade for free through October 20, 2009. The Beyond Search team has not had an opportunity to kick the tires of this product although we did request information when rumors of the release reached us in Harrod’s Creek. You can get more information about the company at its Web site or by running this Devilfinder metasearch string. The product appears to compete in the same sector as Interse (also based in Denmark) and BA Insight (US). Some of the functionality asserted by SurfRay may be found in Coveo’s and Exalead’s SharePoint compatible systems. Adhere Solutions (owned by a Beyond Search gosling) offers software that makes it possible to use the Google Search Appliance to search, slice, and dice SharePoint content. With important announcements about Fast ESP (Microsoft’s enterprise search solution for large scale SharePoint installations), organizations with SharePoint have a large number of options to consider. The question that continues to flap around the goose pond is, “How can an organization determine which SharePoint solution is the appropriate one for that particular organization?” Marketing, not technology, seems to be the knife edge at the present time. Little wonder the geese at Beyond Search are addled. What a cornucopia of choices exist for the 100 million happy SharePoint license holders (if we accept the broad market size rumors bruited at conferences).
Stephen Arnold, September 14, 2009
Improving SharePoint Search Relevance
September 13, 2009
If you need some tips about ways to improve the relevance of SharePoint search, you will want to download Robert Mixon’s free “SharePoint Search Improving the Relevancy of Search Results”. This is a PDF file. The paper starts by explaining the difference between an Internet search and an Intranet search. You then learn about Microsoft “search scopes.” To be truthful, I don’t understand the terminology but I am strongly resistant to the invention of new search buzzwords. You get an example of slicing and dicing search results. We have struggled with some interesting challenges with Microsoft search systems. This white paper will provide some basic information. You will need to do further digging – probably quite a bit in my opinion — to find ways to tame the unruly tigers that prowl the SharePoint jungle.
Stephen Arnold, September 13, 2009
SharePoint Search and Twitter
September 7, 2009
End User SharePoint has provided a means to search Tweets within SharePoint. You may first want to read these two articles by following the two links below:
- Search Federation with SharePoint – Part 1
- Search Federation Part 2 – Customizing Results with SharePoint Designer
Then you will want to navigate to EUSP’s “Binary Free SharePoint Twitter Search Web Part”. EUSP has provided screen shots and a walk through of the method. For me the most interesting comment in the write up was:
Remove the web part connection created in the previous exercise before exporting!
Useful tip which can obviate the need for hours of hair pulling and Red Bull guzzling. Set aside an hour, maybe two, and then you will have Tweets in SharePoint. A happy quack to Woody Windischman who posts to The Sanity Point Web log.
Stephen Arnold, September 7, 2009
SharePoint Shake with Facets
August 30, 2009
SharePoint. SharePoint. SharePoint. We have had a flurry of questions from organizations about the system, search, metadata, and facets. For a product that has been around in one form or another for years, the last week in August has been a SharePoint festival.
We did some digging for one client with a broken SharePoint search system. The question was, “Is there an easy way to add facets to our plain vanilla SharePoint search system?” The short answer is, No. The reason is that any Microsoft-provided component like the facet component, version 2.0, 2.5, or 3.0 requires dozens and dozens of manual steps. Get one wrong and you can create even more SharePoint shakes. We know when this happens because the certified SharePoint administrator has consumed so much coffee that her hands tremble from the combination of fatigue and caffeine. Ergo, SharePoint shakes.
This particular client did not want to buy or license a third party product. That is okay with us, but these tools from a wide range of vendors work pretty well. But the client is right.
We provided the client with several links. You may want to note these down because Microsoft does not keep its chickens in one coop and its cows in a field. The chickens and cows are mixed up and allowed to wander.
The free facet component is called MOSS Faceted Search. You can download it from Codeplex. Next you will need to documentation. We located what looked quite complete at another Codeplex page. The 3.0 version of the faceted search components are still in beta. If you have a copy of the 2.5 version, you may want to keep that handy in case the beta 3.0 goes south. You can restore your SharePoint and give 2.5 a whirl.
The documentation is detailed. It consists of:
- An installation guide
- A configuration guide
- A search style guide
- A short file with column schema information
- A quick start guide which hits the high points but jumps over important details
You will need your arsenal of Microsoft tools in order to get the beta into gear.
We found Bob Mixon’s “SharePoint Search: Improving the Relevancy of Search Results” useful. The discussion of search scopes and metadata is useful. The observation I would offer is that Microsoft makes no real effort to deliver a finished product. Manual work is required. By way of contrast, a number of vendors offer a snap in solution for search that keeps these manual tasks to a minimum. A beta is a beta so be prepared for some excitement.
Stephen Arnold, August 30, 2009
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