Session I held at the Ignite 2018

Since we, in the company I work for, have rolled out 65,000 Office 365 licenses and are one of the most successful companies ever with Yammer and Teams, I had the great luck this year to be invited by Microsoft as a speaker to the Ignite 2018 in Orlando. Together with my colleague we held a total of 3 sessions and were interviewed in a podcast.

In the meantime the sessions are available on YouTube. The links to the videos can be found here:

Find out how one of the biggest retailers in Europe is using Microsoft Teams - BRK2366

With approximately 48,000 frontline workers spread across 5,000 stores around Europe, dm drogerie's employees communicate with each other by smartphone and Microsoft Teams. The introduction of modern communications tools based on Office 365 has led to a productivity increase felt by every employee and ultimately by our customers. We describe how we encouraged adoption by taking away the fears of colleagues who weren’t IT-affine and showing them the value to be gained from the new tools. Across the entire company, communications skills, team and project work has been taken to a new level. We tell the success story from the first pilot through the tsunami of demand to the roll out in production.

Build your communities using SharePoint and Yammer - BRK2076

Learn how SharePoint and Yammer bring together modern content and conversations to deliver a best-in-class community solution. Understand what's new and coming next for building communities across your organization using Microsoft 365. Leaders from Rolls Royce and DM share how to champion a community approach to business challenges for accelerated business transformation. Learn how you can empower community leaders to support a strategic approach to community management.

Success with Teams Customer Panel – Best practices for large scale enterprise - BRK2189

Learn from key customers about how they are moving to Microsoft Teams. This session includes real world guidance for planning, delivering, managing and driving adoption of Microsoft Teams at scale.

A certificate validation operation took nnn milliseconds and has exceeded the execution time threshold

After installing a new SharePoint 2013 farm, I noticed a few messages in the Windows event log:

A certificate validation operation took 14988.6926 milliseconds and has exceeded the execution time threshold. If this continues to occur, it may represent a configuration issue. Please see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=246987 for more details.
Source:	SharePoint Foundation
Event ID:	8321
Level:	Critical

As Microsoft states in their knowlege base article KB2625048:

The SharePoint server does not have access to the Internet, or the server is protected by a firewall that has limited ports open. In this situation, users intermittently experience long delays when they perform certain operations, such as logging in to the site or performing a search. Users may also encounter HTTP timeouts when they perform these operations.

The mean you must either let your server access the internet, what most of the time won't be possible due to policy reasons, or we need a other solution. Good for us that the knowlege base article offers two possible solutions.

How to remove an unsuccessful AutoSPInstaller job

What do you need to uninstall from your server if the installation with AutoSPInstaller wasn’t successful?

Installing a SharePoint Server with the AutoSPInstaller job has become the gold standard for administrators. It’s much easier for large farms and offers a high degree of quality. However, using AutoSPInstaller can be a bit of a hassle. Until you get the xml configuration right, you normally need a few approaches. You can start the installation again, but you need to remove a few things first before it will re-run successfully.

Languages

If you are installing language files with your SharePoint Farm, remove these packages first. Open the Windows Control Panel, go to Programs -> Uninstall a program. Search for any SharePoint Language Package that has been installed and remove them all.

SharePoint Server

Leave the Control Panel open. Search for the SharePoint Server binary installation package and remove that file as well.

Prerequisites

These files must not be removed. They can stay on the server.

Internet Information Server

Open the IIS Management and look for any Web Application that was created during the AutoSPInstaller setup. Remove all of them and the Application Pools as well. Because AutoSPInstaller will create all of them again, I normally delete all Application Pools and Web Applications from IIS. This way I’ll have a clean system after setup.

The Web Applications create directories in the VirtualDirectories folder of the IIS working directory. You normally find it here:

C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss

Remove the folders from the Web Applications you have deleted from here as well.

Log files

Remove the log files from the ULS logging directory or do a clean up after you sucsessfully installed SharePoint.

Search Index

If the SharePoint Search has been created already, go to the directory where the search index is stored. Delete all GUID directories you find there.

SQL Server

Open the SQL Management Studio and connect with the SQL instance you are using to host the SharePoint databases. Delete any database that has been created by the AutoSPInstaller script. At the prompt to delete the database, you should select to close any connection to the database.

Finally

Now reboot your server. After login back into the server you can restart the installation with AutoSPInstaller. Any traces of previous installations will be gone then.

Latest release of the SPBestWarmUp Script available

I finished the updates on the latest version of the SPBestWarmUp script and we’re heading version 2.0 (Stockholm). You can get it here on Codeplex.

SPBestWarmUp is a PowerShell script that will load all of your SharePoint web sites. By doing so it helps to populate the IIS and the asp.net caches. This will speed up accessing your server and give your users a better overall experience.

Change log:

• Removed the Internet Explorer to fetch webpages and switched instead to the Invoke-WebRequest Cmdlet. IE will be deprecated in the future anyway.
• Collecting all relevant Urls prior fetching them from the server.
• Temporarily removed the ability to use own Urls. Will be added in the future as a parameter and/or as a file. However, if you look at the code, you’ll find it isn’t hard to write your own little patch if you need to.

The code is marked as beta. To use it, collect a copy from the source repository.

Feedback is welcome. If you find any issue, please use the issues panel on the Codeplex project site.

Kerberos and SharePoint

Keeping a SharePoint environment secure is one of the biggest challenges for an IT-Professional. Kerberos is the strongest Integrated Windows authentication protocol available so far. That is why it should always be used in a SharePoint Farm instead of NTLM.

Inferno, Canto VI, 12-35, Cerberus – From William Blake
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cerberus-Blake.jpeg

Kerberos supports advanced security features including Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption and mutual authentication of clients and servers. The protocol allows delegation of client credentials and from all the available secure authentication methods. It also requires the least amount of network traffic to the Active Directory controllers. Kerberos can reduce webpage loading latency in certain scenarios as well.

This post is

Securing SharePoint 2013 connections via TLS - Part 2

Securing your SharePoint servers via TLS is mandatory these days. Learn how to encrypt your Site Collection communication and how to configure automated redirection to a secure connection.

Picture by Ondrej Supitar / unsplash.com

In part 1 I showed you how to secure a Host Named Site Collection with TLS. But a user can still open the site collection without encryption. To force a secure connection we’ll have to create an automated redirect from http to https.

Leave the unsecure binding

You might think it’s a good idea to remove the http binding from the web application in IIS. But this would break your configuration, so don’t do that. Instead the binding is necessary for IIS to know which web application handles the request. From here the URL Rewrite module we are about to configure will take over.

First things first

To create a redirect we need an IIS extention called URL Rewrite which isn’t part of the regular IIS installation and cannot be found in the Windows installation either. Instead you must open a browser and download it from the official IIS support site http://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite

This post is

Securing SharePoint 2013 connections via TLS - Part 1

Securing your SharePoint servers via TLS is mandatory these days. Learn how to encrypt your Site Collection communication and how to configure automated redirection to a secure connection.

Picture by Ondrej Supitar / unsplash.com

Using SSL/TLS to secure your webservers has always been a good idea, not only since three letter agencies are eavesdropping on everybody’s Internet communication. Preventing hacking and information lost is also on the IT-Professionals to-do list for a very long time.

Which certificate do we use

There are a few ways to get a new certificate for the Internet Information Server, but all in all in breaks down to the simple question: Do I need a trusted certificate or not.

If you plan to publish your site to the web I’d suggest you get yourself a trusted certificate from a certificate authority. There are a lot of different certification companies out there and all of them are happy to take your money.

If you plan to stay in a local network, you could consider using your own Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). But this however might be shooting a little too high. Especially if you only have a few servers to secure and no other plans to use the PKI.

This post is

Adding PDF and other MIME Types to the Browser File Handling property

By default a WebApplication in SharePoint doesn’t consider PDF files safe. If you click on one you may download it to your computer, but can’t view it with Acrobat inline in your browser. Learn how to change this behavior.

Using PDF files in SharePoint is however a very common task. You can store them in document libraries like every other document, open and save them or move them around. But not being able to open the PDF inside of the browser is a very annoying behavior and it forces the user to save copies on their local computer. Haven’t we installed SharePoint to get rid of local copies swarming around the office?

The future of Forms for SharePoint 2016 and Office 365

As you might remember, Microsoft announced last year, that InfoPath will be discontinued. It seemed the product would come to an end and would only be supported until April 2023. All efforts from Microsoft were heading into Forms designed on SharePoint Lists, or better known as FoSL.

Well these plans have changed. As it seems Microsoft will not be able to provide FoSL on time for the next SharePoint release. Instead they announced that SharePoint 2016 will indeed have full support for InfoPath Forms for Office 365 and On Premises installations. However, a new version of InfoPath will not be part of the next Office.

Read the full story at:
http://blogs.office.com/2014/01/31/update-on-infopath-and-sharepoint-forms/

Remove the performance breaks when using VMWare 5.0 and Windows Cluster services

There are probably a lot of SharePoint Farms that use a Microsoft SQL cluster. Even now with new possibilities like Always-On for SQL 2012. But not only if you use SharePoint might this be of interest for you.

About a year ago, a customer of mine had some very bad performance with his SQL Server. The SQL was version 2008 R2 using the Windows Cluster Service hosted on a VMWare ESX 5.0 private cloud. Nothing unusual and of course the first thoughts were pointing to the VMWare servers. But let’s take a look at the performance test we performed on the cluster.

Log Parser Studio 2.2

Log files are a hassle. Too many entries and bad formatting make it a challenge to work with logs. So if you are already familiar with Microsofts LogParser, you’ll love to hear that there is an even better way to work with Log files.

Log Parser Studio is a Windows Tool that uses LogParser and gives you a GUI to work with. This way it's easier to create adhoc reports of your logfiles. You can export the query as a script and then automate your tasks.
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/Log-Parser-Studio-cd458765

LogParser
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=24659

Getting Started with the Log Parser Studio
http://blogs.technet.com/b/karywa/archive/2013/04/21/getting-started-with-log-parser-studio.aspx

Fire up those caches

Picture by Caroline Gutman

If you’re working with SharePoint you probable heard already about something called the Warm-Up Script. It won’t keep you warm in the night and you must ask your partner or cat to do so. The Warm-Up script prefetches SharePoints ASPX pages and loads them into the IIS cache. This will help to improve the user experience. There are different approaches to do this. But beside of the script itself, the proper configuration will get things really started.

This post is

Updated SP1 for SharePoint 2013 has been rereleased

Stefan Goßner announced on his blog that the updated version of Service Pack 1 has been released.

Please be aware that the knowledge base articles for the updated Service Pack are different from the recalled Service Pack:

• KB 2880551 - SharePoint Foundation 2013 SP1
• KB 2880552 - SharePoint Server 2013 SP1
• KB 2880553 - Project Server 2013 SP1
• KB 2880554 - SharePoint Server Language Pack
• KB 2880555 - SharePoint Foundation Language Pack
• KB 2880558 - Office Web Apps Server 2013 SP1

The files can be downloaded from here:

• SharePoint Foundation 2013 Service Pack 1
• SharePoint Foundation 2013 Language Pack Service Pack 1
• SharePoint Server 2013 Service Pack 1
• SharePoint Server 2013 Language Pack Service Pack 1
• Project Server 2013 Service Pack 1
• Office Web Apps Server 2013 Service Pack 1

For more information you can read the official announcement on Bill Baer's blog.

Service Pack 1 for SharePoint 2013 has been retracted

Microsoft has retracted the Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Server 2013, SharePoint Foundation 2013, SharePoint Designer 2013 and Office Web Apps Server 2013. The reason for this move is stated by Microsoft in the knowlege base article:

We have recently uncovered an issue with this Service Pack 1 package that may prevent customers who have Service Pack 1 from deploying future public or cumulative updates.

If you have already downloaded the Service Pack 1 for SharePoint 2013, it is recommended you wait with the installation for an updated version of the Service Pack 1.

If you have already installed the Service Pack 1, you should not expect any problems. However Microsoft will release a patch to fix the problem in your Service Pack 1 version. It is recommended to wait for this fix before your install any other patches. Bill Baer has a post that covers this issue.

SharePoint 2013 with SP1 also known as Slipstream installations are not affected by this issue.

Free ebook: Introducing Microsoft System Center 2012 R2

Microsoft System Center is one of the three pillars of Microsoft’s Cloud OS vision that will transform the traditional datacenter environment, help businesses unlock insights in data stored anywhere, enable the development of a wide range of modern business applications, and empower IT to support users who work anywhere while being able to manage any device in a secure and consistent way. The other two pillars of the Cloud OS are, of course, Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Azure, and Microsoft Press has recently released free Introducing books on these platforms as well.

The free eBook is available for download from the following link:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2013/12/16/free-ebook-introducing-microsoft-system-center-2012-r2.aspx

Microsoft IT-Camp on Hyper-V and Systemcenter

Friday the 13th has an attitude to some people, for me actually it was an interesting day. Attending the Microsoft IT-Camp in Walldorf, Germany there where a lot of interesting information about System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Hyper-V, SMB 3.0 and Azure Pack. So here are just a few impressions.

Removing a corrupted search service from SharePoint 2010

Removing the SharePoint 2010 Search Service can become quite a pain. Especially when the removal hasn’t work out the way it should have. So what do you do when the removal failed and your attempts to reinstall the search service are failing as well? I suffered from the same pains and therefor I’ll go thru the step I took to get my search service back online in this blog article.

Alternate Access Mapping (AAM) explained in less than 5 minutes

Do you have trouble to understand how Alternate Access Mapping (AAM) works? Well, here's a great YouTube video from LessThan5Min that explains just that in a very easy way. Check it out.

Why should you prefer A-records over CName in SharePoint

You might have heard that somebody was suggestion to use A-records for DNS instead of CName for your SharePoint installation. This question is often asked to me when I’m in class.

The reason for this is an authentication issue you might experience when using Kerberos and SharePoint. And since SharePoint 2013, were NTLM is deprecated, this issue might hit you when planning an update of your farm. More details can be found in the following Technet article:

Liste aller SharePoint 2010- und Office Server 2010 SP1-Pakete

Wollten Sie schon immer mal wissen welchen Service Pack Sie für SharePoint 2010 benötigen? Dieser Artikel führt alle Microsoft SharePoint 2010 und Office Server 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1)-Pakete auf und gibt Informationen, wie Sie sie beziehen können:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510766/de