SharePoint Team Blog

Storage Update for SharePoint Online Enterprise Plans

sharepointblog@live.com — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 06:59:50 GMT

"Business is business and business must grow.”

-Once-ler from The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.

Your feedback was clear: “We need more online storage and it needs to be cheaper.”

So we adjusted the SharePoint Online service accordingly—both in per tenant storage quota limits and the cost of additional storage. Now, you can be less constrained as you plan your content management strategy and determine how and where you share files and manage projects.

Tenant storage quota limit increase—Now up to 25 terabytes(TB)

Individual customers (tenants) can now consume up to 25TB of data and content, compared to the previous per tenant limit of 5TB. As a result, storage limits are no longer such a barrier. Go ahead and create new documents, share them, version them, move them from DRAFT to FINAL, review and approve them, populate lists, publish forms, generate new sites, upload marketing assets, create company-wide Document Centers, design your company intranet, and more.

Additional storage costs decrease—A 92 percent price reduction

Along with the recent price reductions across Office 365, the SharePoint Online additional storage add-on has decreased by 92 percent effective immediately. The reduction translates to a drop from U.S. $2.50 per GB/month, to $0.20 per GB/month. Yes, you read that right—20 cents each month. So if you need more storage than you originally received by default, go ahead. You won’t break the bank.

How much storage do you need?

There is a simple equation to help determine how much SharePoint Online content and data storage space your company gets by default when you purchase of Office 365. Please note that “seats” refers to individual user licenses.

Total available tenant storage quota

10GB + (500MB * E1-E4 seats) + purchased additional storage

Note: Kiosk workers (K1 & K2) and external users do not contribute to the total available tenant storage quota.

In addition to overall combined company storage, every user that gets a My Site (E1-E4) will also get 500MB of personal storage. My Sites are a central location to store and manage documents, favorite links, and personal blog and wiki pages.

Two example scenarios:

1

Contoso Inc. purchases a total of 2,300 seats: 1,000 Office 365 E1, 500 Office 365 E2, 500 Office 365 E3, 300 Office 365 K2, and plans to invite 35 vendors as external users for various event activities. Contoso will not need more storage beyond its default allocation.

·   Total available tenant storage quota = 10GB + (2,000 * 500MB) = 1010GBs <~1TB>

·    Individuals who get My Site storage (500MB each) = 2,000

2

Fabrikam purchases a total of 45,000 seats: 30,000 Office 365 E1, 10,000 Office 365 E3, 5,000 Office 365 K1, and plans to invite 250 clients as external users to share drafts and final deliverables. The company will require an additional 100GB.

·    Total available tenant storage quota = 10GB + (40,000 * 500MB) + 100GB =20,110GBs <~ 20TBs>

·    Individuals who get My Site storage (500MB each) = 40,000

You can go here to read more about SharePoint Online boundaries. And please review the SharePoint Online service description for more information on user rights across the various license types.

Thanks,
SharePoint Online Team

Unlock your customer’s value by Integrating SharePoint with your CRM system

sharepointblog@live.com — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:38:40 GMT

SharePoint customers are finding new ways to leverage the power of SharePoint in combination with other Microsoft products to achieve their goals. Two customers that have taken advantage of the great integration between SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites and Dynamics CRM are Copenhagen Airports (CPH) and Boys and Girls Club of Canada (BGCC). By combining SharePoint with Dynamics CRM they have improved their customer experience and relationships while increasing site traffic and revenue goals.

Copenhagen Airports (CPH) owns and operates the airports in Kastrup and Roskilde, Denmark. Kastrup airport, with more than 22.7 million passengers in 2011, is the busiest of the Scandinavian countries.CPH wanted to improve its service to passengers and increase retail revenue, but it had no data on passengers that it could use to sell them products and services. Using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites and Microsoft Dynamics CRM to create the program website and a related shopping website, CPH was able to launch a customer loyalty program.

Benefits to CPH:

·         Able to attract 50,000 members in two months

·         Improved service to travelers

·         Increased initial revenues by 45 percent

·         Gained platform for future expansion

Learn more at http://bit.ly/Hg1dX0.

Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada (BGCC) provides physical, educational, and social development to more than 200,000 young people and their families in more than 700 communities across Canada.BGCC wanted to revitalize its website and also create a members-only portal where employees could share information with BGCC clubs across the country. BGCC worked with technology partner Envision IT to build a new public-facing website and employee intranet using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites. From an operations perspective, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the key line-of-business application at BGCC. It tracks all clubs, service locations, staff, volunteers, donations, campaigns, newsletters, and marketing campaigns. It was crucial to BGCC that everything on the website feed into this program.

Benefits to BGCC:

·         Increased site traffic by 20 percent

·         Increased donations by 50 percent

·         Improved information sharing

·         Achieved annual administrative savings of US $30,000

Learn more at http://bit.ly/HFpztw.

What’s new in the User Profile Service Application

sharepointblog@live.com — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 07:30:35 GMT

The User Profile Service Application stores information about users in a centralized location used by SharePoint’s social computing features to support natural collaboration. The User Profile Service Application is also required when provisioning My Site personal sites, enabling certain social computing features such as newsfeeds, and the creation and distribution of user profiles across server farms or sites.

To learn more about the User Profile Service Application see also http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee662538.aspx.

The User Profile Service Application is based on technologies provided through ForeFront Identity Manager which provides a comprehensive solution for identity and credential management and identity-based access policies.

To learn more about ForeFront Identity Manager see also http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/forefront/identity-manager.aspx.

Since RTM the User Profile Service Application has been incrementally improved through Cumulative Updates and Service Packs to improve both its performance and resiliency. Recent improvements include:

Parallel SharePoint, Active Directory, and Business Connectivity Services import and export support
ForeFront Identity Manager performance improvements
Reduction of full table scans and indexing specific user properties
Batch import of Business Connectivity Services user properties
Removed automatic provisioning of users and groups to ILM MA
Programmatic cleanup of large run histories
Resolution of AD-Contact objects in ForeFront Identity Manager as opposed to SharePoint Server 2010

As a result of these improvements there has been a dramatic reduction of the time required to import user information into SharePoint. For example, inside of Microsoft on the RTM version of SharePoint Server 2010 with 100,000 users our profile import duration for full sychronization commonly required 2 weeks to complete and 2-3 days to support an incremental synchronization. This same scenario on SharePoint Server 2010 with the December 2011 Cumulative Update has been reduced to 120-140 hours for a full synchronization and 6 hours for an incremental synchronization.

If you’re experience delays in importing users and properties or are just looking to improve the security, reliability, and performance of your SharePoint 2010 environment we recommend installing the latest Cumulative Update or Service Pack.

Resources

Download SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack 1

Download the SharePoint Server 2010 February 2012 Cumulative Update

Bill Baer

Senior Product Marketing Manager (Microsoft, SharePoint)

The road to the social enterprise

sharepointblog@live.com — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:25:32 GMT

There is no doubt that the world of social networking has been heating up. As Facebook has captured the attention of the consumer world, many organizations are looking at how they can use social networking within a business context. It’s a frothy market, and there’s a lot of noise – and the stand-alone vendors have historically been more focused on features and functions than on real business outcomes.

Our view is that social is about putting people at the center of your business – helping employees, customers, and partners connect with the people and information they need to complete specific tasks. People interact with your organization all day, every day, and they’re trying to get things done. Customers want to buy things and get their questions answered. Partners need to perform services and make deliveries. Employees need to complete tasks. Social helps all of these people get things done.

To make a real business impact with social, companies must provide both a connected experience and a connected social platform.

The connected experience

Social should unify a business, not fragment it. Most social technologies today require people to go to yet another place to connect with each other, when what they really need are tools that are woven into the fabric of the tools they already use. The last thing you need is another inbox.

We recently conducted research with Harris Interactive (download the summary), asking 202 business and IT decision makers in organizations with more than 1,000 employees here in the U.S. why they are implementing enterprise social networking solutions and where they see value. The results showed that when looking at the type of features organizations want in a social solution, sixty-seven percent of decision makers said instant messaging, sixty-four percent said email, and sixty-two percent said video conferencing. It was only after those that they started to say things like “likes,” “follows,” and activity streams.

By bringing all of these features together, you’re able to augment collaboration and leverage a new type of communication social introduces: serendipity (or “connecting the dots”). For example, I was in Boston last week and because I let my network know I would be at the Cambridge office, a member of the team there reached out, and we were able to have a short meeting about some very important work they’re doing. If I hadn’t shared that update, I never would have connected with the team. There’s real value in creating and leveraging those serendipitous moments.

The connected platform

A connected platform is also critical to success. According to the Harris research, ninety percent of decision makers cited security as a top concern when it comes to social; sixty-six percent are concerned about integration with other systems; and fifty-three percent are worried about compliance. A connected platform approach addresses all of those concerns, as well as ensures you have a strong system in place to manage and analyze the data your social graph generates.

Early days

The research also showed that we’re still in the very early stages, as only thirty percent of decision makers had implemented a social solution broadly across their organizations. The majority of respondents – forty-eight percent – were still in a small, pilot phase. So as we look at how companies can be successful, a pilot phase is common and a great way to address your company’s unique culture and business needs. Once you have a solid approach in place, you can start to think about expanding more broadly across your organization or add additional functionality.

Social is here to stay

Social is a big area of investment for us because it speaks to our vision for the Microsoft Office Division: putting people –employees, customers, and partners – at the center of your business to get tasks and real work done. A connected experience infuses social into the places where people already work, making the interactions more meaningful and task-oriented. A connected platform helps you manage and secure the information and interactions in the enterprise social network. If you’re looking for examples of successful social solutions, see how three Fortune 500 companies have fostered a social online community across their organizations: download the whitepaper.

So, what do you think? How are you using social? Or are you using social? Join me for a Facebook Live Chat on Thursday, March 29 at 11 a.m. Pacific. Bring your questions and thoughts on enterprise social networking.

Look forward to talking with you then!

Jared Spataro

A Perspective on the Community Ecosystem

sharepointblog@live.com — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 06:56:28 GMT

“Back in the day, products came with manuals. Now they come with communities.”
@ScotHillier

Well said, ahem tweeted, Scot. The gravitational pull of technology seeks the glue that binds. And that is community. Where do you turn when you are in question? Community. What sounding board is available when you have a nascent idea? Community. And most importantly, who do you SharePint with? Community. J

I wanted to share my perspective on two recent SharePoint Community events (managed by the community) that I got to take part in. One was a fast-paced hour of online text flurry, virtuous opinions, hashtags and speed replies. The other was an inaugural, in-person event with 1,875 back-to-back minutes of solid info from class-A presenters. Combined, the two events highlight the tip of what is truly a rich ecosystem of people coming together to share.

State of the SharePoint Community Tweet Jam 2012

The Tweet Jam (moderated by @markfidelman of harmon.ie, his event recap) spawned out of this original question: “Is the SharePoint Community still relevant?” And if you solely went by how many people showed up to partici-tweet, you could answer the question with an emphatic “yes!” But that’s too easy. The real beauty of the event was the tremendous dialogue squashed into 60 minutes – a flurry of Q&A: 484 original tweets, 285 retweets, 196 @mentions. The Community was active and trending in the positive with tweets like:

·         “As long as people are answering and asking questions”

·         “Education and training piece of the platform is huge”

·         “Will be relevant as long as SharePoint is around”

The topics then spanned beyond ‘relevancy’ and dove into questions about ways to improve community effectiveness, community impact on the product, and how does community mature as the product matures. The answers to all were impressive, challenging, and engaging.

It was great to be an active participant, to represent the SharePoint Team, and watch the SharePoint community flex its muscles. The community was there and relevant way before the Tweet Jam, and so great to see people engaging - not running for the irrelevant hills. I look forward to the next #SPJam – anxious for the next topic.

Office 365 Saturday – Inaugural Event in Redmond, WA

First came SQL Saturday, then SharePoint Saturday, and now Office 365 Saturday: 175 attendees, 5 tracks, 25 sessions, 1,875 minutes of great, free content - all packed into one very active day - in Microsoft’s backyard at the Redmond campus conference center (again completely managed by the community).

I was honored to give the keynote speech. I brought three rabid SharePoint fans with me (my dad, my daughter and my son). J The content focused on Office 365 momentum, roadmap and a peek into the data centers that power Office 365. There were a lot of good questions and great to see both new and familiar faces. Here’s a screengrab of slide #1 of my deck:

Once the keynote ended, the real depth content began to flow. Topics ranged from deployment, hybrid, out-of-box solutions to coded solutions, planning and evaluation, and more. And all were delivered by fantastic presenters – who attended on their own dime (a testament to their commitment).

The hallways were the real lens into the community. With each break, the doors would open, people spilling out chitchatting about what they had learned. My favorite overheard comment was, “These events are great. I learn something every time and love seeing my peeps.” And numerous times I would hear people share best practices and advice on how they work on/with Office 365.

Check out the Office 365 Saturday Redmond website (powered by SharePoint Online!) for more information about this event. And visit the broader Office 365 Saturday website to learn about their upcoming events.

2012 is starting strong. Many months to come and the calendar is a-buzz – there are so many opportunities to get engaged, voice your opinions, and share ideas. Hit us up via SharePoint’s Twitter page or use #SharePoint, the SharePoint Facebook page – or a good ol’ high five any time. I look forward to hearing from, seeing, and speaking with many of you!

Thanks,

Mark Kashman
@mkashman

PDF Files in SharePoint Online

sharepointblog@live.com — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 08:57:53 GMT

We are pleased to announce that we worked with Adobe to improve access to PDF files. You can now open PDF files directly in Adobe Reader – and the PDF file will remain connected to SharePoint Online. You can also edit and save your changes to SharePoint Online from the desktop. And further, you can now use versioning (check-in and check-out) with PDF files for better management and review. We have improved the experience while maintaining the level of security you expect from Office 365.

To take advantage of this update, do the following steps.

Wait for the update to the SharePoint Online service, which is in progress now.
Upgrade Adobe Reader to the version 10.1.2 client.
Add your SharePoint Online root URL/domain to the Trusted Sites security zone in Internet Explorer¹ (e.g., https://contoso.sharepoint.com).
Check the Keep me signed in box when you log in to a SharePoint Online site.

This SharePoint Online update is currently being rolled out worldwide along with several other new features.

Thank you for your feedback and patience,

The SharePoint Online Team

¹To add your root site to the Trusted Sites security zone, open Internet Explorer, browse to your root SharePoint online site, click Tools, and then click Internet options. Click the Security tab, click Trusted sites, click Sites, and then click Add.

SharePoint Online: Service Update

sharepointblog@live.com — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:34:22 GMT

The second update to SharePoint Online (SPO) since the launch of Office 365 (O365) is beginning to roll out worldwide. We want to share information about the new features that will be available as part of this service update.

Enterprise Readiness

SharePoint Online was initially scoped to scale to customers with fewer than 20,000 Active Directory entries (specifically user objects). This service update allows customers with up to 500,000 user objects to provision SharePoint Online. As a result, customers of any size can easily start using SharePoint Online. And in the future, you can expect even larger scale limits.

To learn more about how SharePoint Online meets the requirements of enterprises, please visit the SharePoint Online planning guide of Office 365 for enterprises. There is also a SharePoint Online planning guide of Office 365 for small businesses.

Recycle Bin Enhancements

Business is full of "oops" moments, and sometimes these moments can really slow down productivity. SharePoint Online now offers numerous levels of recovery no matter what gets deleted. Specifically, enterprise customers can now restore full site collections, in addition to sites, documents, lists, and list items.

This new feature is found in the SharePoint Online Administration Center. After the update is in place, you will see a new "Recycle Bin" button, which gives you the power to self-restore data—including entire site collections—with just a few clicks in just minutes.

To learn more about how to restore full SharePoint Online site collections, visit the SharePoint Online Support Resource Center article on this topic.

External Sharing Gets a Broader Reach

The days when external invitees had to use a specific domain-based email address are gone. Instead, external users can now use their business email address to authenticate when invited into an Office 365 customer's site collection. How does it work? It’s simple. External users just associate their business email address (ex: user@contoso.com) with the Windows LiveID system. Then, Office 365 customers invite their partners and clients to their external sharing sites by using their primary email account. As long as this email has been associated to the LiveID system, the external user can sign in with their primary user name and associated password.

To associate a business email user name to the Live ID system, go to https://idsignup.live.com, select "Use existing email address:" and follow the instructions.

You can learn more about how to use external sharing within Office 365 for small businesses or within Office 365 for enterprises.

PDFs

Office 365 users wanted a better, more connected and governed experience when it came to working with PDF files within SharePoint Online document libraries. Thanks to your direct comments and active voices in the Community forums, PDF files will now open directly into Adobe Reader without requiring that it be downloaded first. The PDF remains connected and stored in your SharePoint Online document library as you view and edit the file. You can even check it out like other Office documents.

After the SharePoint Online environment has been updated, users must have the latest Adobe Reader version (10.1.2) installed: http://get.adobe.com/reader/

The SharePoint Online service description will also reflect all of the new features and changes.

Our goal is continuous innovation to enable collaboration from anywhere, with anyone, on any device. We hope you enjoy these new features and if you’re not yet using SharePoint Online, try it now risk free for 30 days!

Thanks,
The SharePoint Team

What’s New in SharePoint Online: November 2011 Update

sharepointblog@live.com — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:13:00 GMT

Our first update to SharePoint Online (SPO) since the launch of Office 365 (O365) became generally available on June 28, 2011 is now complete worldwide. We thought it would be a good time to share information about the new features and fixes available as part of this service update. On a broad level, this update enables greater reach to both people and external data, while at the same time increasing the number of supported devices and Web browsers. We also added some self-management recovery capabilities. But there’s a lot more, too.

Business Connectivity Services

At SharePoint Conference 2011 (Oct. 3-6) in Anaheim, CA, Jeff Teper (Corporate Vice President of SharePoint engineering) announced, “Business Connectivity Services (BCS) is coming to SharePoint Online by the end of this calendar year.” Available now to all Office 365 midsize and enterprise customers worldwide, BCS in SPO enables them to connect to external data sources via Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Web Services endpoints in both read and write modes.

Now, you can design solutions that extend collaboration capabilities that include external business data, such as line-of-business (LoB) applications that sit behind customer firewalls, or are being transitioned to the cloud (think SQL Azure). Best yet, you can download SharePoint Designer 2010 for free to help make the connections.

And for BCS experts, SPO now also supports external lists and data columns, the Business Data Catalogue (BDC) service for WCF connectors, and the Secure Store Service partitioned at the tenant level within customers’ SharePoint Online Administration Center. What is not yet available: external data search, rich client integration, profile pages and direct connectivity to SQL Azure without a WCF endpoint.

Want more information? Check out Steve Fox’s (Azure CoE) informative blog post. In addition, we’ve recently published new SPO BCS related documentation on MSDN:

·   Introduction to Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint Online

·   What's New for BCS in SharePoint Online

·   SharePoint Online Developer Resource Center

External Sharing

BCS is all about breaking down the boundaries to external data. Now let’s turn to breaking down the barriers when you work with people. This service update adds support for working with people who are not part of your company, such as vendors, trusted business partners, and customers. With these external sharing capabilities, a company can invite external users to view, share, and collaborate on their SharePoint Online sites. This feature is turned off by default, but a SharePoint Online Administrator can enable external sharing for the whole company. Then, individual site collection owner administrators can decide if they wish to share externally.

Please note: External users may sign in to the service using a Microsoft Online Services ID and/or a Windows Live ID. Live IDs may include @Live.com, @Hotmail.com and @MSN.com user names, plus regional derivations.

For more information:

· Learn more about how to use external sharing within Office 365 for small businesses or within Office 365 for enterprises

With the release of Windows Phone 7.5 codenamed “Mango,” Office 365 users can now access list items and work on documents stored in SharePoint Online lists and document libraries—in addition to email, calendar and contacts. This new support applies to all Office 365 plans, including those for small businesses and professionals (http://-based) and enterprises (https://-based).

For more information:

· Read the original Windows Phone TechNet blog post when Office 365 support was announced at TechEd 2011.

· Watch this video to see how easy it is to connect Windows Phone 7.5 to Office 365 services.

Better connections

In addition to earlier versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox, SharePoint Online now officially supports Internet Explorer 9 and Chrome. No matter which browser you prefer, you’ll get a better experience. Just launch your favorite browser. Then, hit your favorite SharePoint Online team site or intranet company site, work with Office Web Apps, and more.

Connections to other services are also better. For instance, Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers can now take advantage of the rich SharePoint Online document management functionality directly within the Microsoft Dynamics CRM application. As a result, users can create SharePoint Online Document Libraries dynamically within CRM—when and where they are needed. Companies can also add Document Management capabilities to entities such as Accounts, Opportunities, Cases or even custom entities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

For more information:

· Get high-level details in the blog post here,

· Get more technical details in the blog post here.

Recycle Bin

Lastly, SharePoint Online makes it easier to recover from accidental deletions. This service update gives site collection administrators more control by significantly improving all site collection recycle bins. In other words, you can now restore an entire sub site (or document, list, library, etc.) within a few clicks, and within a few minutes.

Fixes

This update to SharePoint Online also includes numerous fixes. Many of these fixes were driven by customer feedback and Office 365 Support requests. We’re listening and appreciate your feedback. Some of the key fixes include:

Companies using SharePoint Online for small businesses will no longer be able to delete their root site—a great benefit considering that this offering is based around a single site collection.
SharePoint Online-based Public Websites will no longer prompt unauthenticated users for credentials on their mobile devices.
When Windows Phone 7.5, codenamed “Mango” was released, customers that applied a vanity URL to their Office 365 tenancy could not connect to their SharePoint Online site via the “Locations” section of the Office Hub. Now they can.
The “-my” root site collection—the parent site collection to all of a tenant’s My Sites—has returned to the SharePoint Online Administration Center within the list of site collections. It is again possible to allocate server resources, assign owners, and now this site collection cannot be deleted.

The SharePoint Online service description has been updated to reflect all the new features and changes.

The boundaries continue to break down; ever closer to collaboration from anywhere, with anyone, on any device. We hope all who are already enjoying the service will like all the new capabilities of SharePoint Online. And if you’re not yet using the service, try it today risk free for 30 days! To the Cloud!

Thanks,
The SharePoint Team

Business-critical processes with SharePoint and SQL

sharepointblog@live.com — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:45:08 GMT

SharePoint 2010 provides the ability to connect to backend business systems, surface business data in SharePoint and make it accessible by, and useful to, employees across the organization. Almost every company of significant size uses ERP and CRM solutions to run core business processes. Over time, companies have developed detailed practices around using such systems to support vertical disciplines within the organization (e.g. product planning, financial performance management, supply-chain management, etc.), yet challenges remain with regard to driving visibility and collaboration, based on business data, across different disciplines and teams. These challenges stem from the fact that only a fraction of employees are licensed and trained to use those backend systems, and from the high cost and complexity of integrating such systems across different functions and teams.

With SharePoint and SQL, once the relevant business data is surfaced in an enterprise-wide collaboration platform, several benefits can be gained; first and foremost, access to the data that underlines core business processes can now be viewed, analyzed and acted on by any employee in the organization (based on business priorities and permissions granted). With the relevant business data readily available, better decision making, quicker and more effective exception handling, and faster time-to-market can all be achieved. In addition, users are able to interact with the business data through a user interface they are already familiar with instead of having to switch between multiple user interfaces which are oftentimes not as user friendly.

Interestingly enough, training-related cost reductions do not count for the bulk of the TCO reductions that could be achieved by implementing backend data connectivity with SharePoint. The more significant source of such efficiencies is the impact related to reducing business risk; as more functions in the organization are exposed to the business data that is related to their daily responsibilities, and as workflows are implemented to support cross-team exception handling and problem solving, more and more of the risk associated with the underlying business processes can be mitigated, leading to more efficient processes and to reduced operational costs.

To learn more about the benefits related to enable business-critical solutions with SharePoint and SQL, click here.

SharePoint Conference 2011 – A Week In Review

sharepointblog@live.com — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 09:13:52 GMT

It’s hard to believe that SharePoint Conference 2011 just wrapped up. Most of the attendees are on planes back to all corners of the world, laden down with knowledge and swag and plans to meet again in Las Vegas next year.

We kicked off Monday with a great keynote by Jared Spataro, Jeff Teper and Kurt Del Bene, including announcements about integration with Office 365, the Certified Architects Program for SharePoint and an interactive donation for NetHope. Of course one of the highlights was the on-stage live demonstration of the failover of a 14-Terabyte SharePoint database – in less than 40 seconds.

We then kicked off the conference proper with more sessions than are possible to list in a single blog post. The SharePoint Express sessions in Microsoft’s booth proved extremely popular, with most of them turning into standing-room-only events. Videos from most sessions have already been posted on MySPC for attendees to download at their leisure to review.

Tuesday evening was another huge event – the Disneyland party, where we got to let our proverbial hair down (and Mickey Mouse ears out) for a few hours. We heard through the grapevine that one attendee rode Star Tours no less than 8 times that night. If you heard of anyone riding it more, let us know. We want to know if there are bigger geeks out there than we are.

Wednesday night we had our Ask the Experts session followed by the annual SharePint event at ESPN Sportszone. Both were well-attended, and the SharePint crowd agreed to reconvene on Thursday night to continue the party.

Another big star at SharePoint conference was the SharePoint monkey (whom some of the attendees suggested we call Franklin after the rumored return of a certain television comedy show). Twice a day attendees “found the monkey” in exchange for prizes, and on Wednesday afternoon we had the world’s largest (and to our knowledge only) monkey fling, where around 70 people shot monkey slingshots into the air, creating a heck of a spectacle.

SharePoint Conference 2012 will be the next time we all get to meet, and it’ll be in Vegas next November! You can imagine that there will be plenty of great things to see and do, and of course, a whole new parcel of places to find the monkey. We look forward to seeing everyone there!

NetHope uses SharePoint to help 33 Leading Humanitarian Organizations share best practices.

sharepointblog@live.com — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:30:17 GMT

When natural disasters occur, the ability to coordinate relief efficiently and effectively is critical. Responders are faced with a challenging environment that includes increasing complexity of inter-agency coordination, damaged and limited communications infrastructure, outdated or paper-based mapping/topography information, and difficulty in disseminating information quickly (both between the various response participants and the public). These challenges have been compounded by the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters as well as deepening global inter-dependencies occurring in the last decade.

One organization that is helping these countries tackle the digital divide is NetHope. Formed 10 years ago, NetHope is a nonprofit collaboration of IT leaders from 33 leading international NGOs that serve tens of millions of people each year in over 180 countries and that manage more than $30 billion (U.S.) in aid. NetHope members currently use SharePoint to share information, technology resources and best practices across their organizations in order to better support healthcare, education, agriculture, natural resource management, emergency response and microfinance programs. By fostering partnerships between NGOs as well as socially responsible corporations and foundations, NetHope leverages the power of collaboration and technology to scale humanitarian relief, emergency response and conservation programs to reach more people in need.

While NetHope has been using SharePoint and Microsoft technologies for more than five years, the non-profit consortium is migrating to Office 365 to take advantage of the advancements in collaboration, information sharing, and productivity offered by SharePoint Online and Lync Online.

Pooling knowledge and other resources amongst NGOs increases their ability to scale programs and reach more people in need. These organizations need to work around the clock, often providing as many as 20-25 programs simultaneously in different parts of the world. From providing health programs in sub-Saharan Africa to dealing with flooding in Pakistan to helping to resolve conflict in the Middle East, NetHope is looking to SharePoint Online and Lync Online to better connect its members, share resources and solutions, and improve responses to natural disasters, famine, and war.

NetHope and Microsoft together believe that technology can accelerate change and help to address some of society’s most pressing problems. Watch this video to see how NetHope, World Vision and SharePoint are working together:

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/Videos.aspx?VideoID=32

Welcome to Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011!

sharepointblog@live.com — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 06:29:14 GMT

As the sold-out SharePoint Conference begins in Anaheim, California today, businesses continue to adopt SharePoint 2010 at an unprecedented pace. Microsoft will reflect on ten years of redefining collaboration and look ahead to where the cloud and a growing SharePoint ecosystem will take the product next. Here are a few things we’ll be talking about this week.

SharePoint is a thriving business, and one of the biggest products at Microsoft - its success speaks for itself:

In 2008, SharePoint surpassed $1 billion in revenues - the fastest product at Microsoft to reach this milestone, and it continues to grow at double-digit speed.
More than 125 million people in 66,000 organizations have SharePoint.
Over 62 million SharePoint 2010 licenses have been sold.
More businesses chose SharePoint than all other vendors combined as their primary collaboration tool to share information inside and outside their organization.

SharePoint has a vibrant ecosystem, and today there are endless options for the SharePoint platform.

More than 700,000 SharePoint developers.
Currently 1,000 ISV solutions for SharePoint 2010 and another 1,000 in development.
This year alone, Microsoft trained more than 93,000 partners on the SharePoint platform.

New SharePoint certification program designed to take customers’ SharePoint deployments to the next level. Today, Microsoft announced there’s an addition to the suite of Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA) certifications: MCA SharePoint. Through a rigorous review board and exam process, the MCA program helps the highest-achieving IT architecture professionals distinguish their expertise with Microsoft server technologies, including SharePoint solutions for enterprise customers. Learn more about the MCA Program here.

SharePoint and Office 365, deliver enhanced collaboration and productivity tools in the cloud. Office 365 is not just about creating documents. Whether you’re a mom-and-pop shop or the largest global corporation, it’s what you can do with your information that matters. Office 365 provides tools to create, share and collaborate using the Office productivity suite, email and calendar, shared documents, team workspaces, IM, online meetings and video chat. Businesses using SharePoint Online and Office 365 are already reporting impressive results.

Business Connectivity Services come to SharePoint Online. Microsoft plans to expand the business critical services delivered by Office 365 and Azure and make moving to the cloud even easier for customers. By the end of the year, the first round of service updates to SharePoint Online since Office 365 launched will be complete and will enable customers to use Business Connectivity Services (BCS) to connect to data sources via Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Web Services endpoints. BCS lets customers use and search data from other systems as if it lives in SharePoint—in both read and write modes.

For more information about the SharePoint Conference and a replay of today’s keynote, please visit the SharePoint Conference virtual press room at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/office/servers/ And enjoy the conference!

Top 5 SharePoint Conference Sessions

sharepointblog@live.com — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:00:33 GMT

Are you having trouble deciding which sessions to attend while you are at the SharePoint Conference next week? With more than 300 sessions we thought we would try to help shed some light on your decision making. The lists below show what your fellow conference goers are most interested in attending based on calendar additions.

Feel free to use this as a guide of what to attend -- or for those of you looking to choose your own track, what not to attend. For a complete list of sessions, click here

With only days to go we hope you are as excited for SharePoint Conference 2011 as we are. Stay tuned in the coming days for more SPC 11 information right here on the SharePoint Team Blog.

Monday, October 3rd

SPC285	Understanding SharePoint Administration Part 1
SPC221	Work Smarter, not Harder! Top Ten Tips for Improving Productivity with SharePoint
SPC350	Got iPads, Android tablets, smart phones and Windows devices? Managing Office 2010 endpoints in an Interoperable and multi-device World
SPC216	Creating Beautiful and Engaging Web Sites with SharePoint 2010
SPC202	Attractive Business Intelligence: Dashboards, Pivots, Scorecards, KPIs, and Reports Using Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Office 2010, PowerPivot, and SQL Server 2008 R2

Tuesday, October 4th

SPC310	Best Practices Around SharePoint 2010 User Profiles
SPC338	Developing SharePoint applications with HTML5 and JQuery
SPC307	Automating Business Processes with SharePoint 2010 (Part 1) - Using SharePoint Designer, InfoPath and Workflow
SPC391	SharePoint Workflow Best Practices
SPC215	Creating Awesome Dashboards with SharePoint 2010, Infopath 2010 and SharePoint Designer

Wednesday, October 5th

SPC308	Automating Business Processes with SharePoint 2010 (Part 2) - Using BCS, Word Automation Services (and More Workflow)
SPC296	InfoPath 2010 – Best Practices for Design and Performance
SPC329	Content Query WebPart: A Deep Dive on SharePoint's Swiss Army Knife WebPart
SPC203	Best Practices from the Field: Managing Corporate Metadata and Taxonomies with SharePoint 2010
SPC373	Performance Tuning SharePoint 2010

Thursday, October 6th

SPC3983	Business Intelligence Overall Architecture
SPC394	Taxonomy Based Content Targeting for a SharePoint Internet Site
SPC413	The Inside Scoop: How the SharePoint Dev Team Troubleshoots Performance and Reliability
SPC411	Security Design with Claims Based Authentication
SPC300	A Closer Look at SQL and SharePoint: Tips and tricks from the field

Get Social with SharePoint

sharepointblog@live.com — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 06:57:49 GMT

After months of planning, prepping, stressing (and a little “monkeying” around) it’s finally here – SharePoint Conference 2011 in Anaheim, CA, USA.

We’re excited and we hope those of you attending this week’s sessions and activities are too. And for those unable to join us this year, don’t worry – our social media team will keep you updated on All Things SPC11.

Whether you will be joining us and the ever-present SharePoint Monkey at the conference or just soaking it all in online, we want to give you a brief overview what will be happening on the social front and how you can participate in the conversation:

Official Social Media Channels - Make sure to check them out and “like” or follow us if you haven’t already:

o Facebook SharePoint Main Page: http://www.facebook.com/MSSharePoint

o Facebook SharePoint Conference Page: http://www.facebook.com/wwspc

o Twitter Channel: http://twitter.com/SharePoint

o Twitter SharePoint Monkey Channel: http://twitter.com/TheSPMonkey

o YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/mssharepoint

o Blog: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blog/Pages/default.aspx

Twitter Hashtags - Be sure to use the #SPC11 hashtag for all tweets, and you can add a related event hashtag as well (we’ll be sure to let you know what they are.) Even if you aren’t attending but want to weigh in on the conversation, keynotes or anything else conference related, use the #SPC11 tag to be heard!

Foursquare Check-In Locations - We have set up several Foursquare check-in venues for #SPC11 and will provided some handy “tips” for you to download when you check-in at each marked location. The “Mayor” of each venue will receive a prize at the conclusion of the conference (hint: It’s a seriously great prize, trust us) J

“Find the Monkey” Contests – These fun on-site giveaways will be scheduled throughout the conference. Attendees will be notified via Twitter (make sure to follow us!) that the monkey is “on the move” -- the first 10 people who find him will receive a prize and pictures will be posted of daily winners on Facebook.

Monkey Fling “Flash Mob” - Everyone and anyone with a monkey “slingshot” toy will meet at a pre-determined location and “fling” their screaming monkeys into the air at once – the event will be captured on video and posted online for all to enjoy. For attendees who don’t have a monkey from the 2009 conference, we will have a “monkey giveaway” one hour prior to the Fling. Stay tuned to the SharePoint social media channels for more details!

“Man on the Street” Interviews - Don’t be shy, all interested conference-goers are welcome to participate in a simple “Q&A” style video and share your thoughts about #SPC11 on Monday, Oct. 3 and Wednesday, Oct. 5. We’ll let you know exactly where and when (or just look for the video cameras, they will be hard to miss.)

If you have any questions or need assistance during the conference, just ping us via Twitter or Facebook and a member of the social media team will be happy to help. And remember to use the #SPC11 hashtag whenever you tweet!

It’s going to be a busy and exciting week – thanks in advance for your participation and support. Let #SPC11 begin!

Guidance to Move to the Cloud on Your Terms

sharepointblog@live.com — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 06:29:48 GMT

Introducing the new whitepaper, “Hybrid SharePoint Environments with Office 365.”

hy·brid (n) - something (as a power plant, vehicle, or electronic circuit) that has two different types of components performing essentially the same function.
- Merriam-Webster.com

Are you evaluating how Office 365 fits into your overall communication and collaboration strategy plan, both today and into the future? Specific to SharePoint, are you planning for full cloud adoption within your firewall, or will you begin your move to the cloud with a mixed deployment across SharePoint environments – both on-premises and online within Office 365? To provide insight in this area, we’re excited to announce the new “Hybrid SharePoint Environments with Office 365” whitepaper - downloadable here: www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=154e9524-27a1-4c1f-b4ea-efeb0027b1bc

As of June 28^th, 2011, Office 365 introduced the ability to achieve single sign-on (SSO) via Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS). Once established, this enables end-users to securely move between on-premises and online boundaries. The “Hybrid SharePoint Environments with Office 365” whitepaper provides step-by-step guidance for extending SharePoint and SharePoint Online beyond SSO – covering best practices for planning your cross-domain information architecture, direction for approaching security and compliance requirements, and insights on the ways branding & navigation play an important role in building a consistent end-user experience. The paper equally weighs a variety of business scenarios providing clear guidance about which deployment approach might make the most sense in your organization.

We believe you should move to the cloud on your terms and we encourage you to use the hybrid guidance and technical capabilities in this whitepaper to chart your cloud roadmap. The SharePoint team continues to plan and design for future hybrid scenarios and we are committed to supporting you every step of the way. We believe a thoughtful hybrid deployment plan will bridge gaps between existing investments, ease migration to the cloud and foster rapid, cloud-first innovation for your organization.

Enjoy the read,
The SharePoint Team

Related resources:

o   Prepare for single sign-on (SSO) – Office 365

o   The main Deploying Office 365 page

o   The Microsoft Office 365 Deployment Guide for Enterprises

o   SharePoint Online Planning Guide for Office 365 for enterprises

o   Exchange Online hybrid deployment and migration with Office 365

Microsoft SharePoint Director, Jared Spataro, to Host Live Chat on Facebook!

sharepointblog@live.com — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:15:58 GMT

Yes, our blog is typically a place for us to post technical tips and news, but in this case, we wanted to remind you about an exciting upcoming live chat that will be hosted by our Microsoft SharePoint Director, Jared Spataro!

And though this won’t be a technical discussion, we encourage you to bring all your questions related to the SharePoint business. Mark your calendars for this hour-long event happening Wednesday, September 14th from 12:30pm – 1:30p.m. PDT, GMT -7. And if you haven’t already, you should “like” Microsoft SharePoint on Facebook and RSVP for Jared Spataro’s live chat here.

Jared is looking forward to your questions -- hopes to chat with you then!

-Microsoft SharePoint Team

Jared Spataro on the Growing SharePoint Business: Exciting Times for Customers and Partners

sharepointblog@live.com — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 10:11:05 GMT

Hi, everyone! I’ve recently taken over as the lead on the SharePoint business and, with summer behind us, I want to take this opportunity to introduce myself. I’ve met many of you over the last five years in my role on the SharePoint search and core product management teams. Your passion for SharePoint is one of the reasons I’m so excited about my new job—so I look forward to meeting many more of you over the coming (busy!) months. I also want thank the previous SharePoint lead, Eric Swift, for his leadership. Eric recently accepted a role leading world-wide productivity sales for Microsoft, so he will still be telling the SharePoint story along with the rest of our productivity offerings: Exchange, Lync, Office, and Office 365. Please join me in wishing Eric all the best in his new position!

It’s an exciting time for SharePoint and our customers. We continue to see double-digital growth for the business, and it’s rewarding to see how customers are using SharePoint to truly change the way they share information and work together. We launched Office 365 (including SharePoint Online) in June, and the uptake has been amazing – just two weeks post-launch, more than 50,000 organizations had already signed up to try the service. Already, we’ve seen many of our SharePoint 2010 customers evaluating the online version to reduce costs and complexity. We also had great conversations with our partners at the Worldwide Partner Conference. The energy at this event was infectious. This year, our partners told me they’re growing their SharePoint businesses and a big part of this growth is the new opportunities they see with SharePoint Online. Sky’s the limit! (Sorry, corny cloud joke. Couldn’t resist. J)

The SharePoint community is what makes this one of the most rewarding jobs at Microsoft. I will use this blog to provide updates on occasion and – as always – I want to hear your feedback! I hope to see you all in one month at the SharePoint Conference in Anaheim, California. My team has been working hard to get ready for the event, putting together an incredible conference packed with over 250 sessions, access to experts, and hands-on labs to ensure you’re getting the most from your SharePoint deployment. If you haven’t already registered, go to the SharePoint Conference site to sign up and learn more. In the meantime, please join me for my upcoming Facebook Live Conference on Wednesday, September 14 at 12:30-1:30pm PST (3:30 – 4:30pm EST). Register here!

Talk to you soon!

Jared Spataro

SharePoint Online Learning Materials for IT Professionals

sharepointblog@live.com — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 08:54:50 GMT

Are you an IT Professional looking to learn more about how SharePoint Online can help supplement your on-premise SharePoint 2010 Products deployment? We’ve recently put together a comprehensive set of learning materials that illustrate the benefits of SharePoint Online and how you can leverage its capabilities to bring additional value to your on-premise deployment.

Video Learning Series

Narrated Presentation

Exploring SharePoint Online for IT Professionals

Whitepaper

Microsoft SharePoint Online: An Overview for Enterprise IT Professionals

June 2011 Cumulative Update Refresh

sharepointblog@live.com — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:57:37 GMT

The June 2011 Cumulative Update has been refreshed with additional updates and fixes that resolve specific issues (see below) that were not included in the June 2011 Cumulative Update published between June 28th, 2011 and July 8th, 2011. We recommend customers install the latest June 2011 Cumulative Update to take advantage of these updates and fixes.

The latest June 2011 Cumulative Update will install on server farms with an existing June 2011 Cumulative Update installed, Service Pack 1 installed, or on environments where previous or no Cumulative Updates are installed. To learn more about updating SharePoint 2010 Products see the Updates for SharePoint 2010 Products Resource Center at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff800847.

Issues resolved in the June 2011 Update Cumulative Update Refresh:

• Install fails on environments with .NET 4.0 installed
• Some services do not start when the June 2011 Cumulative Update is installed on environments following a least privileged model

June 2011 Cumulative Update Downloads

SharePoint Foundation 2010

SharePoint Server 2010

Data Storage Changes for SharePoint 2010

sharepointblog@live.com — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 10:02:41 GMT

Today we are announcing two related changes to the way we describe data storage in SharePoint. First, by taking advantage of performance and reliability improvements in SP1 and by defining specific requirements for large data storage in SharePoint, Microsoft is able to increase the supported limits for data storage in SharePoint.

Additionally, we are announcing that the SQL Server FILESTREAM RBS provider is now supported for use with SharePoint so that lower cost iSCSI connected NAS disk can be used. This post outlines the new data storage support limits and guidelines for scaling to those limits and it defines RBS including the new FILESTREAM RBS provider.

The SharePoint Content Database Data Size Limit

With the release of SharePoint 2010 SP1 and some new guidance we are changing the supported data size limits for SharePoint content databases. Prior to SP1 the content database limit was 200 GB for collaboration and 1 TB for document archive. The content database size includes both metadata and BLOBs regardless of where the BLOBs are located and use of RBS does not bypass or increase these limits.

The new guidance for supported content database size details outlines specific guidance for SharePoint administrators as the data size grows. If this new guidance is followed SharePoint can support up to 4 TB of data in all usage scenarios and has no imposed size limit for document archive scenarios. The details are in the TechNet document SharePoint Server 2010 capacity management: Software boundaries and limits and the primary changes are:

For a SharePoint content database up to 200 GB there are no special requirements and this limit is included for consistency.
For a SharePoint content database up to 4 TB you need to additionally plan for the following two requirements:

Requires disk sub-system performance of 0.25 IOPS per GB, 2 IOPS per GB is recommended for optimal performance.
Requires the customer to have plans for high availability, disaster recovery, future capacity, and performance testing.
And you need to review additional considerations in the TechNet Boundaries and Limits article.

For a SharePoint content database over 4TB specifically for a Document Archive scenario you are required to additionally plan for the following:

SharePoint sites must be based on Document Center or Records Center site templates and must be an archive scenario where less than 5% of content is actively read from each month and less than 1% of content is actively written to.
Do not use alerts, workflows, link fix-ups, or item level security on any SharePoint objects in the content database. Note: document archive content databases can be the recipient of documents as a result of Content Routing workflow.

Other specific limits changes being made at the same time:

A new limit of 60million items in any one SharePoint content database
The specific 5 TB limit per SQL Server instance has been removed. Instead you should work with a SQL Server professional to plan for database storage.

Please review the full TechNet Article SharePoint Server 2010 capacity management: Software boundaries and limits document. We have also published a guide on SharePoint 2010 scalability here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=223599. In the near future we will publish a test report of large scale testing that supports these new size limits.

The Value of Remote Blob Store with SharePoint

RBS (Remote Blob Store) is a set of standardized APIs that allow storage/retrieval of BLOBs (binary large object data) outside of your main SQL database where a dedicated BLOB store is desirable. RBS uses a provider model for plugging in any dedicated BLOB store that implements the RBS APIs. RBS was introduced in SharePoint 2010 and providers can be installed into SharePoint and are used to store BLOBs. Documents in SharePoint document libraries are BLOBs and with RBS they can be stored remote to the SQL Server database. This commonly means the BLOBs are stored on the same machine as SQL Server though they may be on a network connected SQL Server machine.

Above are two diagrams showing common architectures for SharePoint using RBS. Both show the RBS Client Provider which is installed on the SharePoint Web Front End. The left diagram shows the generic RBS implementation where a third party has implemented RBS to access their storage. The right diagram shows the SQL Server FILESTREAM RBS provider which stores blobs in the Windows file system.

By storing BLOBs outside of the SQL Server database there can be certain advantages such as:

· RBS enables SharePoint Foundation 2010 running on SQL Express to store more data than the SQL Express limit of 4 GB. In SQL Express 2008 R2 this limit was increased to 10 GB.

· Some operations can be performance optimized with average blob sizes over 1Mb. This result is from tests with the SQL RBS Provider. Ref: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc949109(SQL.100).aspx

· There could be storage optimizations with potential disk space and disk cost savings from differential backups or tiered storage.

· We have completed testing on the SQL RBS FILESTREAM provider which can enable iSCSI connected storage for RBS use. Using iSCSI allows for the use of lower cost NAS storage.

· Other potential data optimizations may be developed by ISV’s using the supported public RBS APIs and SharePoint APIs.

There are a few things to be careful with when implementing RBS:

· Backup strategy must be carefully considered. Both document metadata and document BLOBs must be backed up at exactly the same point in time. This means any third party backup solution needs to be capable of restoring both the SQL database used by SharePoint and the BLOBs used by SharePoint as a set where no variance occurs which would have the database reference BLOBs that are not available from the same backup.

· RBS is most likely to be used for document archive scenarios where documents are written and not updated. BLOBs in RBS are never updated once they are written; instead a new BLOB is created for any update. BLOBs are immutable, old BLOBs are garbage collected later. You can read more about RBS garbage collection in this article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff628583.aspx

· RBS providers are required to return the first byte of data in a request in 20ms. This applies for all requests between SharePoint and the RBS provider storage layer.

· The SharePoint database is not intended to be read from or written to except by SharePoint. RBS providers don’t have separate access to the data. This includes direct access to blobs. Ref: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841057/en-us

· Performance may decrease for smaller BLOB sizes when using RBS. This is also shown in the “FILESTREAM Storage in SQL Server 2008” article referenced above.

· There are many RBS providers available and customers should evaluate them for suitability for their implementations.

Additional Documentation from Microsoft on RBS in SharePoint

TechNet Documentation RBS Links:

· Plan for RBS (SharePoint Server 2010) [http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff628583.aspx]

· Overview of RBS (SharePoint Server 2010) [http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee748649.aspx]

· Maintain RBS (SharePoint Server 2010) [http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff943565.aspx]

Q & A

·  Q: How come you couldn’t provide these increased data limits when SharePoint 2010 launched?

·   A: We have learned more about how customers implement document archive solutions on SharePoint in the past 12 months. Now by providing specific guidance around data size scaling and focusing supportability around those we can have an increased data size limit for SharePoint and avoid having a data size limit for the document archive scenario.

·   Q: What is the new data size limit for document archives on SharePoint

·    A: There isn’t a data size limit, though the new guidance factors for building supportable large scale systems must be followed. If the additional factors are not properly addressed then the lower supportability limit applies.

·   Q: What if I really need more than 4 TB on a SharePoint farm and it isn’t document archive?

·    A: You should use a scale out topology. This involves having multiple content databases in a single farm and spread sites out amongst them. Each content database can grow to 4 TB by following the guidance.

·  Q: What if I had incorrectly assumed the 200 GB limit could be avoided by moving BLOBs to a Remote Blob Storage provider thereby reducing the amount of SQL Server stored data for SharePoint?

· A: We recommend that you upgrade to SharePoint 2010 SP1 and follow the new guidance for the total size you have. Consult the company you purchased your RBS provider from to ensure they are tested with SharePoint 2010 SP1. If you have a deployment that falls outside of the new and old limits we recommend you to contact Microsoft Support and request a supportability review. This is a paid support review and the support engineer will be able to tell you if your current implementation can be supported or if changes to reduce the data per content database are recommended.

· Q: Since NAS is supported, does the SQL Server RBS FILESTREAM provider allow use of a network share to store BLOBs on?

·  A: No, NAS must be connected using iSCSI and appear as a local drive on the SQL Server machine.

·  Q: Will the content database size limit or the 20mS TTFB limit be enforced in the software?

·  A: No. These are support limits that we recommend customers stay within for best performance and in order to get the best support from Microsoft. They are not hard boundaries that are measured by the SharePoint software.

·  Q: Where was the old 200 GB limit detailed on TechNet?

· A: It was listed on the SharePoint Capacity Planning Boundaries and Limits page on TechNet. Whilst RBS and BLOBs were not previously specifically called out, the limit of 200 GB was clearly stated for a SharePoint Content Database which includes metadata and BLOBs. This article has been updated for the new limits and to list RBS to be more explicit and to avoid any future misinterpretation.

·   Q: Can a large document archive have multiple SharePoint sites collections?

·   A: Yes. However our guidance is that if you have a site collection over 100 GB, it should be the only site collection in a content database.

·   Q: Can a large document archive have multiple document libraries?

·   A: Yes. You can have multiple document libraries with different permissions set.

·  Q: Is SharePoint 2010 SP1 required to take advantage of these new content database limits?

·   A: No. The limits apply to SharePoint 2010 regardless of whether SP1 is applied. However due to improvements in SharePoint 2010 SP1 you are strongly encouraged to install it.

1	Contoso Inc. purchases a total of 2,300 seats: 1,000 Office 365 E1, 500 Office 365 E2, 500 Office 365 E3, 300 Office 365 K2, and plans to invite 35 vendors as external users for various event activities. Contoso will not need more storage beyond its default allocation.
· Total available tenant storage quota = 10GB + (2,000 * 500MB) = 1010GBs <~1TB> · Individuals who get My Site storage (500MB each) = 2,000

2	Fabrikam purchases a total of 45,000 seats: 30,000 Office 365 E1, 10,000 Office 365 E3, 5,000 Office 365 K1, and plans to invite 250 clients as external users to share drafts and final deliverables. The company will require an additional 100GB.
· Total available tenant storage quota = 10GB + (40,000 * 500MB) + 100GB =20,110GBs <~ 20TBs> · Individuals who get My Site storage (500MB each) = 40,000