Thursday 18 August 2011

Building Development Machines

There are 3 schools of thought regardsing development build approaches:
  • Physical (Windows 7 or Windows 2008);
  • VM server hosts i.e. ESXi where the server has multiple VM's and the dev use remote desktop; and
  • VMWare workstation.
VMWare/HyperV are interchangable.
Base physical machine OS will be Windows 7 and run VMWare Workstation
VM needs:
  1. Windows 2008 R2 Std edition x64 – fully patched/updated and include SP1
  2. Add the Active Directory role (ensure ADFS2.0 is installed)
  3. Install Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 developer edition x64, install SP1 check using SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition') should be at least 10.50.2500.0
  4. Install SharePoint 2010 enterprise edition, I’d suggest using AutoSPInstaller (with 1 service account as provided by the AD such as demo\administrator), the pre-requistes will enable the appropriate IIS and application server roles for you.
  5. Patch SP2010 to SP1 and also ensure you have the June 2011 CU.
  6. Check SP2010 that a site works using IE.
  7. Install Visual Studio 2010 (appropriate edition – pref ultimate).
  8. Add developer tools such as Office 2010, Fiddler, SPD2010, InfoPath2010, Firefox, CKSDev(VSIX extension)2.1, SharePoint Power tool(vsix extension), U2U, ULSViewer, Beyond Compare, resharper. A comprehensive list is here.
  9. Check source control (TFS2010) works.
  10. Check deployment of code works.
Tip:
Useful to run http://blog.sharepointsite.co.uk/2012/03/turning-on-windows-2008-r2-desktop.html

Sunday 14 August 2011

Lotus Notes to SharePoint 2010 Migration Notes

Overview:
Lotus Notes application migration to SharePoint 2010 can be done using various tools such as:
Quest - Notes Migrator for SharePoint comes highly recommended. Has some real top guys working at Quest.
Binary Tree - Comprehensive tools for migrations specifically a tool to migrated from Lotus Notes to SharePoint.
AvePoint - Migrate Lotus Notes/QuickPlace/QuickR to SP2010.  AvePoint have various migration to SP2010 modules such as for Lotus Notes, Documentum, LiveLink, File System, Stellent, Vignette.
BAInsight offer connectors in this space and can migrate Lotus Note application database data into SP2010 list.
Tzunnami
Metalogix - is a good migration tool but it does not allow for Lotus Note migration.  I have used this on 2 client projects and have been happy with the product.
PCVite - Express migrator for SharePoint
VisiMigrate
CASAHL

More Info:
http://notes2sharepoint.org/ Blog on Notes to SP migration mainly focusing on Quest's Notes Migrator for SharePoint.
Blog post on migrating lotus Notes to SharePoint 2010 - http://sptechpoint.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/lotus-notes-to-sharepoint-2010-migration/

TFS2010 & Continious Integration

LINQPAD & a great blog

I was doing some research and came across this blog, every post has value.
http://sptechpoint.wordpress.com
Check it out

LINQPaD looks like a great tool for LINQ
http://sptechpoint.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/create-linq-expressions-with-linqpad/

Tuesday 2 August 2011

MSOCAF

Overview: Microsoft SharePoint Online Code Analysis Framework (MSOCAF) is used by companies or people writing custom code solutions for SharePoint online to help them validate the code meets minimium coding requirments to be deployed to SharePoint 365.  Using MSOCAF code on a local SharePoint 2010 farm can be used evaluated the custom code before it is submitted to MS for approval on SharePoint 365.  Additionally, MSOCAF can submit the custom code to SharePoint Online and perform roll back functionality.

Using MSOCAF:
Installed MSOCAF applicationb on my development machine. 
Opened MSOCAF > Analyze


More Info:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rmeure/archive/2011/05/13/want-to-have-sharepoint-code-approved-by-microsoft.aspx
Writing solution validators  -http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335711.aspx