SharePoint 2016 – What is in it?

Note: the information in this blog post is based on the information presented and available on public forums. The actual product SharePoint 2016 can have difference from what is available. Please do take time to check the new features when the product is released.
The same article with updated by other community member is also available at Technet Wiki.

Past few weeks been really busy, catching up Build and Ignite conferences (virtually through channel 9). One of the session which I have been waiting was What’s new in SharePoint 2016.

After the session, I thought to pin down my thought which might be helpful for quick summary to look out for what to expect in SharePoint 2016 (release is still a year later, a lot can change).

I would love to make points which makes it easier to read rather than reading the entire paragraph.

·       Release milestones: Public beta – Q4 2015, public download – Q2 2016 and a release candidate (RC) in between.

·       The design, development and maintenance for SharePoint 2016 going to inherit from cloud DNA.

·       Focusing on content management, team collaboration, user experience across devices and how the cloud can be blended into existing on-premises scenario.

·       New and improved capabilities will be delivered focusing on

o   Improved User Experience

§  Improved mobile experience

§  Personalized insights

§  People-centric File storage and collaboration

§  Power of Office graph and Delve (via hybrid)

o   Cloud-inspired infrastructure

§  Improved performance and reliability

§  Hybrid cloud with global reach

§  Support and monitoring tools

§  Simplified user experience and integration with products like next version of Win Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server 2016.

o   Compliance and Reporting

§  New DLP

§  Enable data encryption

§  Improved Analytics and reporting

·       Microsoft taken SharePoint online, modified to suite on-premises. Components which were not available are back ported.

New information available for SharePoint 2016 can be classified in 4 categories –

1.       Management of platform

·       System requirements

o Hardware Requirements

Installation Scenario	Memory / RAM	Processor	Hard Disk
Single Server*	16-24 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB
Farm Server	12-16 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB
Database Server	Refer system requirement for 64-bit version of SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 1 or SQL vNext

*There is no built in SQL Server. You need to install a separate SQL Express/Developer or any other edition even for development server.

o Software Requirements

§  Any one of Windows Server 2012 R2 | Windows Server 10

§  Windows Management Framework 3.0

§  Application Server Role

§  Web Server (IIS) Role

§  Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2 (in on Windows Server 10, then Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.6)

§  Update for the .NET Framework 4 (KB2898850)

§  Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Native Client

§  Microsoft Identity Extensions

§  Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 SP1 (x64)

§  Windows Server AppFabric v1.1 (MS is planning to end AppFabric, but it will be supported for SP 2013 and 2016).

§  Windows Identity Foundation v1.1

§  Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client

§  Microsoft WCF Data Services.

·       Upgrade and Migration

o Upgrade path is from 2013 to 2016

§  Upgrade 14.5 mode site to 15 mode and then upgrade

§  Allow the same database attach upgrade process

o Migrate Content to 2016 (using migration APIs or partner tools)

·       Auth N-Z

o Windows Identity over SAML claims

o Trying to normalize on oAuth/OpenID standards

·       SMTP Connection

o Allow using non-default ports

o Allowing to use STARTTLS connection encryption.

2.       Reliability, Performance and scalability

·       Moving from SharePoint 2013 based job enable / disable to predefined set of logic executing on a machine (Termed as MinRole Topology)

·       New Server Roles in SharePoint 2016

o Special Load – custom service applications, services, third party components which are outside of MinRole Topology

o Web Front End – services end user requests. Servers are optimized for low latency

o Search – service application provisioning, indexing service and other search components.

o Application – services backend jobs or requests triggered by backend jobs. Servers are optmized for high throughput

o Distributed Cache – servers distributed cache for the farm.

o Single Server Farm – for development purpose, configure (excluding SQL Server) all services on one server.

·       New Service categories in SharePoint 2016

o User Services

o Robot Services

o Caching Services

·       Server Role and Health Analyzer

·       Patching Updates

·       Improvement in boundaries and limits

o Content DB size up to TB’s (not yet identified the limit)

o 100K sites per site collection

o List view threshold > 5000 items

o Upload file size up to 10 GB and removed character restrictions

o Search scaling up to 500 M items.

·       Better File Performance

o Use BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) to better file performance

·       Fast Site Creation

o Create faster site collections at database level using the standard site template saved as site.

o Remove feature activation overhead

·       User Profile Service

o Bi-directional sync using external FIM service. No built in FIM anymore.

·       Project Server

o Still require separate Project Server Licensing, but SharePoint and Project Server content database is merged.

·       Durable Links

o New sharing URLs are resources Id based, thus renaming file, moving file will not break the link already shared.

3.       Analytics (Insights and Data)

·       Real time data analysis on various parameters

o Usage

§  daily active users

§  Weekly active users

§  Usage by browser

§  Usage by agent

§  Usage by OS

o Storage

§  Storage by site template

§  Daily storage

§  File type

§  Storage breakout

o Health Reports

o Network

o Portals

4.       Cloud Experience

·       Compliance Center

o This showcase the feasibility of bringing same compliance system to on-premises which works well in O365 with Azure RMS.

o Discover and preserve with hybrid eDiscovery.

·       Cloud Search Service Application

o This unifies the on-premises and cloud data search from one search center.

o This also add value to Office Graph / Delve to extend the presence on on-premises.

o This can also leave search running in cloud only while indexing from on-premises and online.

·       Extranet

o Making easier to maintain and publish sites to Internet.

o Using O365 Identity federation services.

·       Team Sites

o Separate the data in either on-premises or in cloud

o Follow sites, documents or people in on-premises and master the information in cloud.

o Allowing ODF files creation.

·       Scenario Picker

o Hybrid deployment automation

o Select the Hybrid configuration required and use automated and wizard driven information to setup Hybdrid (forget the lengthy procedures and PowerShell scripts to run)

Error 0x80071A90

I have been working on my laptop for setting up my development environment and update Win 8.1 Pro. I keep getting the error 0x80071A90 while doing the windows update or trying to add windows features like Hyper-V or IIS.

I searched entire MS KB base, but could not find any solid base for the error. Then I get a reference that there could be an anti-virus program which is causing problem on disk for real time scan.

I switched off the anti-virus program and everything worked well. I was able to install the updates, enable windows features like Hyper-V or IIS without much problem.

I hope this can help someone.

SharePoint File and Folder Name validation

Here is a quick sample on how you can validate a file or folder name before creating/uploading it in SharePoint.
Scenario in which I used this code block when I am creating a folder hierarchy in SharePoint site (on-premises or online) based on a database query and migrating files.
Based on the KB 905231, there are following characters are not allowed in the file/folder name for SharePoint.

• Tilde (~)
• Number sign (#)
• Percent (%)
• Ampersand (&)
• Asterisk (*)
• Braces ({ })
• Backslash (\)
• Colon (:)
• Angle brackets (< >)
• Question mark (?)
• Slash (/)
• Plus sign (+)
• Pipe (|)
• Quotation mark (")

Along with those, you have to check below conditions also:

• You cannot use the period character consecutively in the middle of a file name.
• You cannot use the period character at the end of a file name.
• You cannot start a file name by using the period character.
• If you use an underscore character (_) at the beginning of a file name, the file will be a hidden file.

Extra conditions:

In addition, file names and folder names may not end with any of the following strings:

• .files
• _files
• -Dateien
• _fichiers
• _bestanden
• _file
• _archivos
• -filer
• _tiedostot
• _pliki
• _soubory
• _elemei
• _ficheiros
• _arquivos
• _dosyalar
• _datoteke
• _fitxers
• _failid
• _fails
• _bylos
• _fajlovi
• _fitxategiak

In My code block, I am not considering the extra conditions.
You can pass the required file/folder name which need to be validated to the function, and function will let you know if that is a valid name.

public static bool NameValidate(string strName)
{
bool isValidFileName = true;
var match = (new Regex("[ ~ # % & * { } : < > ? / + | \" \\\\ ]|\\.\\.|^\\.|^[_]|\\.$")).IsMatch(strName);
if (match)
{

//Invalid file name.

isValidFileName = false;

}
else
{
    //Valid file name.
}
return isValidFileName;
}

Else you can also use below options if you have to replace each occurrence of characters and fix the name –
char[] filenameChars = fileORFolderName.ToCharArray();
     foreach (char c in filenameChars)
     {
         if (!SPEncode.IsLegalCharInUrl(c))
fileORFolderName = fileORFolderName.Replace(c.ToString(), "");
     }

 In above the reg ex can be broken as:

[ ~ # % & * { } : < > ? / + | \" \\\\ ]	Any one of the chars anywhere in the name (last \\\\ represent one backslash \)
\\.\\.	. .( double Dot) consecutive dot occurring in the name
^\\.	. (Dot) at the start of name
^[_]	_(underscore) in the beginning of name
\\.$	. (Dot) at the end of name

Feel free to share your comments.

FAST Search 2010 on Taxonomy

Recently during my work, I got to build the query string for FAST Search 2010 for SP 2010. The refiner was the managed metadata column.
When we compare the enterprise search  result query string and FAST search query string, we see that FAST search has alphanumeric string after the "r" parameter.
Enterprise search has string as : r=%22owstaxIdColName%22%3D%230b37b7b2%2D0079%2D402b%2D8342%2D3aac932037ec%3A%22EMEA%22, which is : r="owstaxIdColName"=#0b37b7b2-0079-402b-8342-3aac932037ec:"EMEA".
While when same query string come as : r=%22owstaxIdColName%22%3D
AQRFTUVBCG93c3RheGlkABgDXiJvd3N0YXhpZFRlc3RUYWcjMGIzN2I3YjItMDA3OS00MDJiLTgzNDItM2FhYzkzMjAzN2VjIiQ%3D in FAST Search 2010 for SP.
Now challenge is how to build the query string in FSAT search. For this I referred the referenced articles and got a lot of ideas from Mikael.
I downloaded the attached refinementtokenencoder.cs. In the code, there is a refinement class.When you pass the existing alphanumeric string, you will get the components in the string as.
refinement.ManagedPropertyName.
refinement.RefinementName.
refinement.RefinementValue.
Since you know what was selected refiner, and you got the components of string. Now you pass your own components and use RefinementTokenEncoder.GenerateToken(refinement) to get the base64 string for FAST Search 2010.
I have tried this and worked perfectly for one refinement.it is easier than writting long FQL query and customizing core search web part to enable FQL for managed metadata column.

This can help when we have associated taxonomy with documents and just want to filter the documents associated with taxonomy. No need to enter any search keyword also.

I will put next blog on multiple refinement.

Reference:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff625182.aspx
http://techmikael.blogspot.in/2011/08/creating-refinement-query-parameter-for.html

Creating SP 2010 Sites using PowerShell

We all know PowerShell is recommended command line tool for SharePoint 2010. But PowerShell does not support the same style as the UI supports.

I ran in to problem, when I was creating sites using PowerShell. After creating sites I was not able to see the default groups (Members, Visitors and Owners) for the site. But when you create site from UI, you have all those available.

I figured out that, we need to execute one more command in order to get that. The steps can be as listed below:

1. Create Site, either using New-SPSite or simple .NET style code to add site to web application $WebApp.Sites.Add(params....).

2. After that execute command as :

$CurrentWeb.CreateDefaultAssociatedGroups($PrimaryOwnerLogin,

$SecondaryOwnerLogin,

$CurrentWebTitle)

It will create the groups with the current site title for e.g. MyProjects Members.

SharePoint 2010 with search scope on managed path

I came across this while trying to restrict my search on a specific managed path. I tried a lot options and at last the tricky configuration did the work. The steps to do so can be as below:

1. Go to central admin site of your farm.

2. Navigate Application Management --> Manage Service Connections.

3. Locate Search Service Application. Select it by click it in the same row. (as usual step in SP 2010).

4. From left quick launch, navigate to scopes.

5. Create New Scope with your preferred title, description and specify your custom search result page (ex - salesresults.aspx)

6. Create rule as :

select Scope Rule Type as Web Address,

select Web address as http:/// (ex - http://myserver/sales)

select behavior as include.

7. Now go to your search center, where you have created your custom search tab.

8. Go to the result page (which is created using search results page layout) for that custom tab.

9. Edit page and locate search core results web part on bottom of page.

10. Edit the web part.

11. Expand location properties. In the Scopes text box, enter your scope name which is created in step 5 above.

12. save web part settings and save page. checkin the page and publish it.

13. when you search on this custom tab, on refiner list under site, you can only sites available under the managed path.

Done.