How to monitor your SharePoint environment

As SharePoint becomes a more critical component of your infrastructure, it also becomes a service that needs to be more closely monitored to ensure its availability. But many organizations mistakenly try to treat SharePoint like other application servers, such as SQL Server.
The most common misconception is that it's SharePoint that you have to monitor. This false belief will lead most operations personnel to overlook the fact that SharePoint is really a combination of services that act together. Because these services are tightly integrated, your monitoring strategy needs to be multidimensional.
So what do you monitor? Start with SharePoint's core dependencies.
SharePoint is dependent on services that provide different functions to the core SharePoint services. If any of these core dependencies fails, it will cause SharePoint to cease working and seriously degrade your SharePoint farm's ability to service clients. Above all, you need to ensure that all of the following services are available and that SharePoint is able to leverage them:
Windows
Without Windows, SharePoint wouldn't work at all. So that means you must be vigilant and monitor all event logs to ensure that the OS is performing as expected. Event logs can be a great indicator that patches haven't been applied because errors in the event log will often point to issues with your SharePoint infrastructure.
Active Directory
Whether you use forms-based authentication or Active Directory for authenticating users, Active Directory is a requirement for server-to-server communication. SharePoint uses several service accounts and needs to communicate with AD to validate the credentials it uses for those accounts. The critical accounts include the SharePoint service account and the search account. SharePoint applications may also have unique accounts.
If SharePoint is unable to authenticate these accounts, the farm will come screeching to a halt pretty quickly. If you use AD for your authentication provider, it also becomes a critical source of profile data and will leverage the search account to periodically gather that data, adding it to SharePoint's profile store.
SQL Server
Everything in SharePoint is stored in a SQL database. As a result, if SQL Server ceases to function, SharePoint will quickly follow. So you must ensure that SQL Server is not only functional but that the SharePoint Web Front End can communicate with it as well. Make sure the service accounts that SharePoint uses have the appropriate access to the various databases—primarily the SharePoint_Config database and secondarily the content databases associated with each Web application.
Internet Information Server (IIS)
SharePoint is a Web-based application server. It relies on the IIS configuration and on the service being fully operational. Depending on the complexity of your SharePoint environment, IIS will be configured with one or more application pools and one or more IIS websites.
There may not be a one-to-one relationship between an application pool and website, but central administration and the Shared Services Provider will probably have dedicated application pools—or at least they should in a production environment. Other Web applications, like your main portal site or your My Sites application, may or may not have dedicated application pools. This is especially true if you have "extended" Web applications.
Take care to map out the relationships and the corresponding application pool identities. Keeping tabs on their status and response to requests will be key to ensuring SharePoint is available to your end users.
Beyond dependent services, there are a number of direct SharePoint components that are worth monitoring. Like dependent services, all of the following are more or less required for SharePoint's operation:
SharePoint's Timer Service
The "automatic" things that SharePoint does really aren't all that automatic. In fact, many of the processes that occur in a SharePoint environment are the result of the Timer Service and the related timer jobs defined in central administration.
The Timer Service is a true Windows service that is responsible for initiating this job. It generally runs every five minutes, but it could shut down or become inoperable for a few different reasons. Most often it's the result of some authentication problem with the identity it uses. This is a service that you should monitor. If it's not running, it's not likely to be noticed immediately, but when users don't get their alerts, you'll get calls.
SharePoint Search
Even with WSS, SharePoint has a search service running. The WSS search and the add-on MOSS search are used for indexing content as well as importing profile data. If these services are inoperable or inconsistently available, you'll almost immediately begin seeing issues with your farm, ranging from event log entries to inoperable search to your profile imports failing.
If you want to keep your users happy and SharePoint humming along, create a program for monitoring the items identified here. What hasn't been addressed are applications built on SharePoint or key add on tools like backup and recovery programs. All of these elements should also be monitored. Talk to you vendors to understand how these components can be included in your monitoring program.
SharePoint Content Databases
There's a known performance limit for SharePoint's content databases. In general, you shouldn't let these databases exceed 100 GB. Your site won't come crashing to a halt if you exceed that limit, but you will begin to notice performance degradation. Content databases are associated with an application, and you can have multiple data.

The Difference Between MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0

It always astounds me what Microsoft are willing to bundle with their software, Analysis Services or SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services) with SQL Server for example! They haven't stopped, they bundle Windows Sharepoint Services with Windows Server 2003, with is basically a fully functional SharePoint Server, however they still have SharePoint Server 2007 as a product. So what are the differences? At first glance it doesn't appear to be much, however for tight integration into the enterprise, it seems that MOSS 2007 (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) is a must! I will highlight the most interesting bits that MOSS 2007 has over and above WSS 3.0 (Windows Sharepoint Services) :
User Profiles support - Allows each user to store profile information
Site Manager - Manage Navigation, Security and look and feel with drag an drop functionality
Enterprise Search Tools - numerous tools to search Sharepoint Sites and Portals across entire enterprises
Business Data Catalog - The Business Data Catalog (BDC) tightly integrates external data, providing access to external data residing within other business applications, and enabling the display of, and interaction with external data
Business data search - Search data residing in your business applications using the BDC (See Above)
Business Data Web Parts - Used for viewing lists, entities, and related information retrieved through the Business Data Catalog
Business document workflow support - Automate document review, approval, signature collection, and issue tracking using workflow applications
Retention and auditing policies - Allows customized information management policies to control retention period, expiration, and auditing
Browser-based forms - Integration with InfoPath, allows integration on to SharePoint of created forms and surveys.
Integrated, flexible spreadsheet publishing - Allows information workers to easily choose what they want to share with others and determine how others can interact with published spreadsheets.
Share, manage, and control spreadsheets - Provides access to spreadsheet data and analysis through server-calculated, interactive spreadsheets from a Web browser. Can help to protect any sensitive or proprietary information embedded in documents, such as financial models, and audits their usage.
Web-based business intelligence using Excel Services - Allows spreadsheets to be broadly and easily shared. Fully interactive, data-bound spreadsheets including charts, tables, and PivotTable views can be created as part of a portal, dashboard, or business scorecard.
Data Connection Libraries - Document Libraries storing ODCs (Office Data Connections), Making one single location for all data connections.
Business Data actions - Easily create actions that open Web pages, display the user interfaces of other business applications, launch InfoPath forms, and perform other common tasks.
Integrated business intelligence dashboards - Rich, interactive BI dashboards that assemble and display business information from disparate sources by using built-in Web parts, Excel spreadsheets, Reporting Services, or a collection of business data connectivity Web Parts.
Report Center - Provides consistent management of reports, spreadsheets, and data connections.
Key performance indicators - A KPI web Part can connect to Analysis Services, Excel Spreadsheets, SharePoint Lists, or manual entered data.
Notification service - Improved allowing workflow users to receive emails by default, and improved triggering and filtering
Single Sign-On (SSO) - Allows the User to log onto a variety of applications with a single user name and password, therefore integrating back office applications, and helps pre-population with integration to the Profile part of MOSS 2007.
Social Networking Part - Connect to Public My Site pages to help establish connections between colleagues with common interests
Personal Site Support - Allows Users to create Personal Web Sites
Content syndication - Use RSS feeds to syndicate content managed in a portal site.

This is just a few of the extras you get in MOSS 2007, and I have highlighted those that are more angled to Business Intelligence! As for the cost, you can find that here: (In USD$ I am afraid) http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver...

Preview and Open InfoPath Forms after Upgrading to Internet Explorer 8

Problem: Preview and Open Forms after Upgrading to Internet Explorer 8.

Resolution: The steps to fix are repeated here:
1. Launch Internet Explorer.
2. Click the Tools button, and then click Internet Options.
3. On the Security tab of the Internet Options dialog box, select the Local Intranet zone, and then click Sites.
4. In the Local Intranet dialog box, clear the Automatically Detect Intranet Network check box
Disabling automatic intranet detection in Internet Explorer.
4. Select all other check boxes.
5. Click OK twice.
6. Preview your form.

Reason for occurrences: Related to security issue. InfoPath is reliant on the security settings of Internet Explorer, and Internet Explorer 8 has tightened the security

SharePoint Tip of the Month - Closing, Deleting, and Restoring a Web Part

Closing, Deleting and Restoring Web Parts
This month’s SharePoint tip will show users how to manage SharePoint web parts on their site by closing, deleting or restoring them. Below you will find out the difference between these three actions and when it is appropriate to use them.

Closing a Web Part:

When a user temporarily wants to remove a web part from their site, they can simply close them. A web part can be closed by clicking the x button in the top right corner. This will remove the web part from the page; however, it will not delete it. The web part is still loaded on the page, just merely not displayed. This feature comes in handy when and if the user chooses to use the web part again.

Deleting a Web Part:

Should the user want to permanently remove the web part from the site to free up the resources allocated, they will need to delete it. There are two options to do so. First, here are the steps to delete a single web part displayed on the page:

1. Site Actions -> Edit Page
2. Click the edit button on the web part of choice
3. Choose Delete -> OK

If the user would like to delete multiple web parts at once, or delete a web part that has already been closed, they can do so from the Web Part Maintenance Page by following the steps below:

1. From the main Team Site page, add “?contents=1” to end of the URL string in the address bar window (ex. http://YourSite/Default.aspx?contents=1).
2. From this page, users can select the check boxes for web parts they wish to delete. Notice, the right hand column specifies whether the web part is currently open or closed.
3. Choose Delete -> OK

Restoring a Web Part:

Finally, if the user would like to reopen a web part that has been closed, but not deleted, they will need to restore the web part. This can be done by following these simple steps:

1. Site Actions -> Edit Page
2. Click Add a Web Part
3. Click Advanced Web Part Gallery and Options
4. Click Closed Web Parts
5. Drag closed web part onto page