Business Data Catalog and MOSS

Business Data Catalog and MOSS

The Business Data Catalog is a very useful feature of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that provides a way of integration of business data from back-end server applications, like SAP or Siebel, with your corporate portal to provide rich solutions for end users without writing any code. You register business data exposed in databases or through Web services in the Business Data Catalog by creating metadata that describes the database or Web service. The Business Data Catalog then uses this metadata to make the right calls into the data source to retrieve the relevant data.
The business data entities are available for use by any of the following business data features:

• 
  Business Data Web Parts
• Business Data in Lists
• Business Data Actions
• Business Data Search
• Business Data in User Profiles

for more details .....

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms546541.aspx

Business Data Catalog - getting started

http://www.lightningtools.com/bdc-meta-man/moss-business-data-catalog-getting-started.aspx

Ajax Update Panel in Publishing Portal

If ajax update panel are not working for you in Publishing portal try to move

asp:ContentPlaceHolder tag insde form tag.

In master page of publishing portal (BlueBand.master) this asp:ContentPlaceHolder is usually above the form tag , to make AJAX update panel work you can move this tag inside form tag by opening BlueBand.master in Sharepoint designer

HOW to use Microsoft AJAX in SharePoint webpart ??

HOW to use Microsoft AJAX in SharePoint webpart ??
Read it here
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/mike/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=3

Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint™ Services v3 (WSS) demo site

Avery useful site for Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint™ Services v3 (WSS) demos, articles, resources.

http://www.wssdemo.com/default.aspx

What can be done with enterprise architecture

A good article on Enterprise Architecture


http://www.theeagroup.net/ea/Default.aspx?tabid=1&newsType=ArticleView&articleId=154&goback=%2Ehom

A handy Visual Studio template for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

A handy Visual Studio template for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
http://blogs.code-counsel.net/Wouter/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=c04a88a9%2Dd138%2D4ac3%2Da2bb%2Db95c9fdd114e&ID=78

Steps to Create & Deploy WSP

1) In your custom feature folder, create a file "feature.xml"
Following is the general format of the file:

Title="My Feature"
Description="This is my feature containing a list"
Version="1.0.0.0"
Hidden="FALSE"
Scope="Web"
DefaultResourceFile="core"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">





(Change the GUID of the feature with your own)


2) Create %YourFeatureName%manifest.xml file for the feature in the following format:


Name="Messages"
Type="108"
BaseType="0"
OnQuickLaunch="FALSE"
FolderCreation="FALSE"
SecurityBits="12"
Sequence="999"
DisplayName="My List"
Description="This is my custom list based on the discussions list"
Image="/_layouts/images/itdisc.gif"/>


3) Create a manifest.xml file for the feature:

SolutionId="EC2EFD73-DBA2-4c0e-9C18-C8FC43F72E6C" >






4) Inside the source folder, create a DDF file:
.OPTION Explicit
.Set DiskDirectory1="..\bin"
.Set CabinetNameTemplate="MyListSolution.wsp"
manifest.xml
; These directory names (DestinationDir) are used for the folders creation under 12\TEMPLATE\Features
.Set DestinationDir="MyList\ListTemplates"
MyList\ListTemplates\MyListManifest.xml
.Set DestinationDir="MyList\Messages"
MyList\Messages\schema.xml
.Set DestinationDir="MyList"
MyList\Feature.xml


5) Create a build.cmd file in the source folder:
build.cmd
@setlocal
@pushd.
@cd %~dp0
makecab /f wsp.ddf
@popd
@endlocal
5) Now, to deploy the solution; create the following steps:
DeployMyListSolution.cmd
@setlocal
@pushd.
@set PATH=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN;%PATH% @cd %~dp0
stsadm.exe -o addsolution -filename MyListSolution.wsp
stsadm.exe -o deploysolution -name MyListSolution.wsp -local
@pause
@popd
@endlocal


6) After you have deployed the solution, go to Central Adminsitration > Operations > Solution Management. From here, deploy your solution on the web applications you want.

If you want to retract the solution you need to create the following file in the solution
RetractMyListSolution.cmd
@setlocal
@pushd.
@set PATH=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN;%PATH% @cd %~dp0
stsadm.exe -o retractsolution -name MyListSolution.wsp –local
stsadm.exe -o deletesolution -name MyListSolution.wsp
@pause
@popd
@endlocal


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you want to know about the elements used in the above mentioned xml file formats, please view these links:
http://www.theartofsharepoint.com/2007/05/how-to-build-solution-pack-wsp.html
http://www.chrishines.com/techblog/default.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa543741.aspx
http://geekswithblogs.net/evgenyblog/archive/2008/01/27/118966.aspx

Here's a list of the top 100 sharepoint websites by Ian Morrish

Here's a list of the top 100 websites http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/topwebsites.aspx selected by Ian Morrish

A nice SharePoint Tool (AD Self Service provides a SharePoint active directory web part)

A nice SharePoint Tool Which Reduces SharePoint Administrators Maintaining AD Users Profiles. SharePoint What they need do is just configure some specific permissions and then those job can be done by users themselves.

AD Self Service provides a SharePoint active directory web part that allow current login user to see and modify his/her own Active Directory information through SharePoint.

http://www.microsofttechnologies.blogspot.com

Required Validator for CheckBox List

Step by Step tutorial explaining how to add required Validator on Checkbox List
http://codeclimber.net.nz/archive/2007/07/19/How-to-add-a-required-validator-to-a-CheckBoxList.aspx

A good article on Hands-Free TFS 2008 Install

A good article posted byGrant Holliday
almost hands-free TFS 2005 installation guide
(http://ozgrant.com/2007/07/17/hands-free-tfs-installation-introduction/)

Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio

from Oracle.com..

The Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio (ODT) is a tightly integrated "Add-in" for Microsoft Visual Studio. ODT is free and it is available for Visual Studio 2008, Visual Studio 2005, and Visual Studio .NET 2003.
Integration with Visual Studio: Use Server Explorer to browse your Oracle schema and launch one of the many integrated Oracle designers and wizards to create and alter schema objects. Use Microsoft Query Designer to visually design queries.
Automatic .NET Code Generation: Use the Visual Studio 2005 Datasources Window, the Dataset Designer, and the TableAdapter Configuration Wizard to drag and drop and automatically generate .NET code.
Easy ASP.NET Web Development: If you're an ASP.NET web developer, ODT makes it easy to generate ASP.NET web applications with very little coding required.
Oracle Database Project with Source Control Integration: Generate SQL scripts for Oracle schema objects that your .NET application uses, manage them in an Oracle Database Project, check them into source control, edit the scripts in the Oracle SQL Editor, and execute them with a built in SQL*Plus execution engine.
PL/SQL Editor and Debugger: The fully integrated PL/SQL Editor and Debugger allows you to leverage all of your favorite Visual Studio debugging features from within PL/SQL code. You can even seamlessly step from your .NET code into your PL/SQL stored procedure code and back out again!
User-Defined Types (UDTs): Create UDTs in Oracle with multiple new designers. A powerful UDT Custom Class code generation wizard makes using UDTs from .NET code easy and fast. An application can be rapidly created that utilizes UDTs with almost no coding required.
NET Stored Procedure Deployment: The .NET Deployment Wizard makes it easy to deploy .NET stored procedures and functions into Oracle Database.
Data Editing, Stored Procedure Testing, Adhoc SQL Execution: When testing your .NET application you can use the Oracle Data Window to insert and update Oracle data. There's also a testbed for testing stored procedures and an Oracle Query Window for executing any SQL statement you choose.
Integrated Online Help System: The integrated context sensitive online help, including the Oracle SQL and PL/SQL Users Guides puts the Oracle documentation at your fingertips.
Import Table Wizard: This new wizard makes it easy to move tables and their data from external datasources such as Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access and Excel spreadsheets into Oracle Database.
Follow the link for details ....
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/dotnet/tools/index.html

WebServices for Beginers

Those who just want to start of with WebServices , these step by step tutorial by Gopalan Suresh Raj are good reading for them


Building a Web Service Component using C# and .NET
Building a Web Service Client using C# and .NET

http://gsraj.tripod.com/dotnet/webservices/webservice_server.html

Install Sharepoint in Active Directory Account Creation Mode

Install Sharepoint in Active Directory Account Creation Mode

1. Install the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0
Enable ASP.NET 2.0
You must enable ASP.NET 2.0 on all servers.
Enable ASP.NET 2.0
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
1. In the IIS Manager tree, click the plus sign (+) next to the server name, and then click the Web Service Extensions folder.
2. In the details pane, click ASP.NET v2.0.50727, and then click Allow.
2. Install SQL 2005 server
Configure surface area settings in SQL Server 2005
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft SQL Server 2005, point to Configuration Tools, and then click SQL Server Surface Area Configuration
In the SQL Server 2005 Surface Area Configuration dialog box, click Surface Area Configuration for Services and Connections.
In the tree view, expand the node for your instance of SQL Server, expand the Database Engine node, and then click Remote Connections.
Select Local and Remote Connections, select Using both TCP/IP and named pipes, and then click OK.

3. Install WSS 3.0
Run Setup on the first server
1. On the Read the Microsoft Software License Terms page, review the terms, select the I accept the terms of this agreement check box, and then click Continue.
2. On the Choose the installation you want page, click Advanced. The Basic option is for stand-alone installations.
3. On the Server Type tab, click Web Front End. The Stand-alone option is for stand-alone installations.
4. Optionally, to install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 at a custom location, select the Data Location tab, and then type the location name or Browse to the location.
5. Optionally, to participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program, select the Feedback tab and select the option you want. To learn more about the program, click the link. You must have an Internet connection to view the program information.
6. When you have chosen the correct options, click Install Now.
7. When Setup finishes, a dialog box appears that prompts you to complete the configuration of your server. Be sure that the Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard now check box is not selected.
Before running "SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard" Prepare the Domain Controller.
Create an organizational unit (OU) for the user accounts
1. On your Active Directory server, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Active Directory Users and Computers.
2. Right-click the Active Directory domain name, click New, and then click Organizational Unit.
3. Type a name for the organizational unit.
For example, name the organizational unit "sharepoint_ou" for simplicity.
4. Click OK.
Delegate permissions to the organizational unit
1. On your Active Directory server, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Active Directory Users and Computers.
2. Right-click the new organizational unit, and then click Delegate control.
3. In the Welcome pane, click Next.
4. In the Users and Groups pane, click Add.
5. In the Enter the object names to select box, type the user name that you are planning to use for the administration application pool identity, and then click OK.
6. Click Next.
7. In the Tasks to Delegate pane, select the Create, delete, and manage user accounts check box and the Read all user information check box, and then click Next.
8. Click Finish.
9. Start "SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard". Follow the Farm Installation instructions
10. When you arrive at: “Completing the Sharepoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard”, select Advanced.
11. On Advanced Settings Page select “Enable Active Directory Account Creation Mode” and enter the Domain name and the organizational Unit Created before (Sharepoint_ou for example).
12. Now you can go back to the Server Farm installation document and continue the configuration steps.
13. After creating a “New Sharepoint Application” remember to use the command “iisreset /noforce” so that you leave your environment ready for the next step.
14. Now you may click on the link “Create site Collection” and the result should be an ERROR: “The Page cannot be displayed because your server’s current configuration does not support it. To perform this task, use the command line operations in Stsadmin.exe.” and that is a good sign… Now you have to execute the following command:
C:\PROGRAM FILES\COMMON FILES\MICROSOFT SHARED\WEB SERVER EXTENSIONS\12\BIN>STSADM -O CREATESITE -URL HTTP://servername -OWNEREMAIL User@Domain -OWNERLOGIN WindowsDomain\Windows Account
Substitute Servername, e-mail, WindowsDomain and WindowsAccount according with your implementation.
15. It’s important to notice that this command will effectively send an e-mail, so you should already have configured the SMTP Server on the “Operations/Outgoing E-mail Settings” Page.

S E V E N Years of Sharepoint

comprehensive round trip of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server creation lifecycle………..
http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/12/28/7-years-of-sharepoint-a-history-lesson.aspx
by: Joel Oleson (Senior Technical Product Manager for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)

A good article on Sharepointpug group

A good article on Sharepointpug group

Persian Language Pack for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 After localizing WSS and during the process of working with MOSS we found that some features we need in our projects are more suitable planned in MOSS, so when we decided to apply the MOSS, the first step is to have a Persian version, a procedure we have experiences about it in case of WSS, but main difference is the vast amount of work we should do to approach this idea.As past experiences we do not have enough support by Microsoft for Persian Language Pack, on the other hand we were implementing some projects so we were in lake of time and ought to do this job through our other projects implementation. Localizing MOSS was a delicate work need time managing and especial attention to get an acceptable translation , so we review the words and strings many times although we were testing the words and strings translated in a practical environment so that we encounter the problems and remove them before presenting and implementing the Persian Language Pack as a product. Overall now this product is ready to use and we have done our best wish to achieve the best.
See also:
http://www.sharepoi ntsolutions. ir/en-uk/ products/ Pages/MOSS. aspx
http://www.sharepoi ntsolutions. ir/en-uk/ products/ Pages/WSS. aspx

How to Debug JavaScript in Internet Explorer (I.E )

1)Installing Firebug Lite


Add this script in your page


Insert this line of code into any page that you want to contain Firebug lite:


http://getfirebug.com/lite.html


2) Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e59c3964-672d-4511-bb3e-2d5e1db91038&displaylang=en

A nice White Paper on Measuring the true impact of job scheduling software

By
TechTarget.Com


How much of an impact does automated job scheduling and workload
automation software truly have on cost savings, operational
efficiency, down time, and productivity?
Read this white paper to learn how much of a measured cost change
various IT managers reported in a survey on job scheduling
technology.
Click here to download:
http://go.techtarget.com/r/4152630/1709793
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ABOUT THIS FEATURED WHITE PAPER SPONSORED BY CA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The use of automated job scheduling typically helps to bring
automation and centralized control to the execution of the steps
needed to execute business workloads and processes, these include:
** Efficient operations
** Cost savings
** Delivering required services levels
** Application integration
** Communicating status to IT operations and users
This white paper is a summary of the results of a study that set out
to prove how much of an impact automated job scheduling and workload
automation software tools really have.
Download now to learn how much cost savings IT managers across 14
organizations reported in the areas of higher availability, including
changes in downtime, improved IT efficiency, and increased user
productivity.
Read this white paper here:
http://go.techtarget.com/r/4152632/1709793

Setting up SSL for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Simple guidelines to setup the SSL (https) for WSS v3

1. In WSS server, start SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.
2. Click Application Management tab, then Create or extend SharePoint Web application link.
3. Click Extend an existing Web application link .
4. Select the Web Application (SharePoint Site) which you want to extend by click on the drop down box next to Web Application.
5. Enter the Port number you wish to used. For SSL you can used the standard port number 443.
6. Used Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) = Yes .
7. Select the required Zone .
8. Click OK button to extend the site.

You might need to change the access mapping to reflect the URL if your WSS is going to publish to the Internet. the path are Central Administration > Operations > Alternate Access Mappings

Next step is to setup your IIS SSL Certificate.

1. Start IIS Manager.
2. In IIS Manager the newly extended site (SSL) is available. Right click on the Site Name, select Properties.
3. Select Directory Security tab, click Server Certificate... button.
4. Follow the Certificate wizard to install the certificate for your new site.
5. Click Edit... button.
6. In Secure Communications windows, Checked Required secure channel (SSL).
7. Checked Required
8. 128-bit encryption.

Microsoft Online Launch

Dan Holme
Office & SharePoint Pro
Community Manager

Microsoft Online Makes a Big Splash in the Services Pool
If you, like many others, have been watching the development of "Software as a Service" (SaaS), "Services Oriented Architecture" (SOA), "Web 2.0" or whatever the latest buzzword might be; and if you've been waiting to see who sinks and who swims in the big swimming pool of offerings—stand back, because Microsoft just dove into the pool with a very big splash.
Today, at its Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft announced the final details surrounding its enterprise-class service offerings under the Microsoft Online brand. I've been working with clients and Microsoft technologies for long enough to have seen some strike outs and some grand slams and, folks, I believe Microsoft Online falls squarely into the latter category. In fact, I think Microsoft Online's "debut" this week will be a turning point in the way we all view our enterprise and our technologies moving forward.
This week, I'd like to discuss and analyze the pricing and licensing of Microsoft Online. In future columns, I'll share the technical details and my experience migrating my business to the service.
A Brief History of Microsoft Online
If you haven't been following the development of Microsoft Online, let me catch you up quickly. Several years ago, Microsoft purchased Placeware, rebranding its flagship online conference application as LiveMeeting, thus entering the SaaS market. Shortly thereafter, Microsoft began offering hosted Exchange services to large enterprises. Microsoft also released its customer relationship management suite, Dynamics CRM, as a hosted model. Now, with 10 million seats licensed for Exchange hosted services and more than 50 billion messages per month, Microsoft is extending its services to enterprises of all sizes.
Microsoft Online entered beta testing last spring, offering Exchange, LiveMeeting, and Office SharePoint Server. Today, Microsoft announced the pricing and channel model that will move Microsoft Online into general availability. I met recently with John Betz, Director of Product Management at Microsoft, to discuss the final details of the offering.
Betz explained that Microsoft Online will provide, out of the chute, Exchange, SharePoint, and Live Meeting services, to support email, conferencing, and collaboration scenarios. Later this year, Office Communications Server (OCS) will be offered as Office Communications Online to fill out the picture with IM and presence awareness. Although subscribers can select any one or more of these ‘pieces,' there is obvious synergy to leveraging the entire suite, particularly when combined with Office 2007 end-user applications. Therefore, Microsoft is offering the "bundle" of Exchange, SharePoint, Live Meeting and (eventually), Office Communications as the Business Productivity Online Suite.
Licensing and Pricing
Today's announcement includes a new licensing model, called the User Subscription License, or "USL." Each user who will access Microsoft Online services requires a USL, but you don't need to purchase USLs for every user in your enterprise. So, for example, you might host the mailboxes for your remote sales force on Microsoft Online and acquire USLs for those users, while supporting internal users with more traditional Client Access Licenses (CALs). One of the great features of the USL is that a USL can be used both with Microsoft Online external services as well as with internal services. So a user with a SharePoint USL can access SharePoint on Microsoft Online and your intranet SharePoint servers—a SharePoint CAL is not required for that user.
The first question on our minds these days is, of course, cost. So let's cut to the chase. The baseline cost of a USL for the Business Productivity Online Suite is $15 per month. That means, for $15 per month, a user can have access to Exchange, SharePoint server, Live Meeting and, when released, Office Communications Online. And, in the background, ForeFront and Exchange Hosted Filtering are managing the data hygiene of your Exchange and SharePoint data stores.
The $15/month USL is the baseline for the suite. Each piece can be licensed separately if you wish: $10/month for an Exchange USL, $7.25/month for SharePoint, $2.50 for Office Communications and $4.50 for Live Meeting. Each USL includes a storage allocation: 1GB per USL for Exchange storage and 250MB per USL for SharePoint, and additional storage can be purchased for $2.50 per GB per month.
Betz anticipates that Microsoft's current Exchange and SharePoint server customers will begin to mix-and-match and migrate to hosted services, so it created a Step-Up USL that can be used by Software Assurance (SA) customers. SA customers already pay, effectively, a per-user cost for an application such as Exchange. They can purchase the Step-Up USL and convert that SA license to a USL. As an example, an SA customer with a 1000-seat Enterprise agreement will pay approximately $7.53 per user per month for the Business Productivity Online Suite.
Of course, the theory is that by moving to a mixed or hosted model, which Microsoft calls "Software Plus Services," you can significantly reduce the total cost of implementing and supporting a complex IT service. No more worries about storage, spam filtering, upgrades, redundancy, or disaster recovery. Microsoft's 13 global datacenters (growing to 20 next year) are highly scalable, and a customer's Microsoft Online services are replicated to two distinct datacenters to provide redundancy, and the service guarantees a 99.9 percent SLA.
I was quite surprised to learn from Betz that Microsoft is also offering its online services in a super-trimmed-down model, called the "Deskless Worker." This model is designed to support infrequently connected users. Exchange services include Outlook Web Access (OWA) access only, and SharePoint services provide full access to SharePoint sites but no additional storage allocation. Pricing is $2/month per service, or you can purchase the Deskless Worker Suite, consisting of both the OWA and SharePoint site access, for $3/month per USL.
My "Take" on Today's Announcement
So now that you know the facts, let me tell you what I think about today's announcement of pricing: Wow. When Microsoft started talking to me about this service, I had a target price in mind, and this beat that target handily. I know what several large organizations pay for email and SharePoint service, and even at the "retail" price of $15/USL, before any volume discounts, this is a screaming deal. I've been running my business on an Exchange service hosted by a Microsoft partner, and I can vouch for the fact that TCO, and "total headaches of ownership" have been greatly reduced.
I think this offering will change the landscape, simply by the magnitude of Microsoft's presence in the services market, and will accelerate what I believe is the inevitable transformation of IT organizations away from being plumbers and utility providers toward being a strategic asset for the organization. I see far too many very smart people in IT fighting fires and troubleshooting technology, when their brain power could be applied to much greater value if they could get their heads above water and work to align technology with the strategy and objectives of the enterprise.
What Else You Need to Know
You can learn more about Microsoft Online by visiting the Microsoft Online website. The site is extremely well designed, and you'll find it easy to learn about the services and to set up a trial. Once you're ready to purchase the service, you can purchase it directly from Microsoft or through a partner—the pricing is the same either way. Partners will offer value-added services, the most obvious of which would be Blackberry support, but we will likely see a proliferation of partner add-ons that wrap around Microsoft Online.
There are several questions I'm regularly asked about Microsoft Online, so let me answer them briefly. First, Microsoft Online can replace or complement your existing infrastructure. For example, you can host Exchange servers internally and leverage Microsoft Online to serve mailboxes for a subset of users. Your internal Exchange servers would simply forward the messages to Microsoft Online. There is no direct integration of the internal and hosted servers, yet, so you cannot replicate mailboxes or public folders between internal and hosted servers at this point. Microsoft is aiming at "Server-To-Service" feature parity in future versions of its products.
Second, SharePoint Online is Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) Standard edition, so it does not support Excel Services or InfoPath Forms Services. It also does not offer My Sites or Enterprise Data Search—that is, SharePoint Online will not index your internal data stores or SharePoint sites. It will, of course, index all of your SharePoint online sites. SharePoint Online is thus targeted at this point for intranet and collaboration scenarios, but that's where I see most clients trying to implement SharePoint currently, so that's not a bad thing.
I only have so much "space" to discuss today's pricing and licensing announcements, and I will be working over the next few days and weeks to migrate my business to Microsoft Online. I will certainly report on my progress and success. But I have no doubt that it will be successful—I've seen a number of Microsoft "launches" and this one looks very solid and very promising. Whether you're a small business or a large enterprise, Microsoft's Software Plus Services model is likely to play an increasingly important role in the strategic and tactical decisions you make for your IT organization.
And, although I'll be the first to slam Microsoft for half-hearted products and over-hyped value, I'll also be among the first to say, in this case, "Wow." I expect to see a lot of spin from Microsoft's competitors as they try to find ways to detract from the capabilities of Microsoft Online. But it seems to me to be just what we need, right now: secure, reliable, low-touch, and a price that probably can't be beat with internal resources.
'Til next time,
Dan Holme
danh at intelliem dot (top level commercial domain)

Announcements
Losing Productivity or Profit Due to Poor Document Management Processes? The Doctor Is In!
You are invited to attend a "therapeutic" session to learn more about leveraging your Microsoft Office SharePoint Server investment! In this Web seminar you'll learn about a solution that enables small, midtier and global organizations to optimize their business processes through certified technologies and solutions for paperless automation. Learn how your business can capture, deliver, manage, and share quantities of vital documents. Register today!

http://windowsitpro.com/Downloads/Index.cfm?fuseaction=ShowDownload&uuid=898f68ce-b5b2-427e-a9c8-9028c35f5eb3

SharePoint Replication Tips
Many leading organizations look to Microsoft SharePoint as an essential online collaboration platform and enterprise-wide content repository. In order to provide continuous, reliable information access to geographically dispersed audiences, you must deploy a high-performance content replication strategy. This Webcast discusses key considerations for ensuring a successful SharePoint replication strategy.

http://windowsitpro.com/Downloads/Index.cfm?fuseaction=ShowDownload&uuid=4c5fdfa9-f209-4cb0-a422-407b3158aaca

The Shortcut Guide to SQL Server Infrastructure Optimization
As companies find more uses for SQL Server, there are inevitably more SQL Server installations to deal with. This eBook share some new techniques for optimizing your SQL Server infrastructure and explores why so many organizations aren't really optimizing their SQL Server platforms.

http://sqlmag.com/ebooks/index.cfm?fuseaction=ebook&ebid=e0c1dfe3-c117-44d9-9d48-6dd7a0a003b7

Sustainable Compliance: How to reconnect compliance, security, and business goals
Large enterprises are seeking ways to actively streamline their compliance activities, operationalize their security management programs, and gain value from automating and integrating both. Unfortunately, streamlining compliance activities has not proven to be simple. Download this paper to get started reducing the impact of compliance programs on your resources.
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Whitepapers/Index.cfm?fuseaction=ShowWP&WPID=c748c2a5-dce9-4784-a10e-030925aa32b9

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