Sharepoint 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) improvements, fixes, updates

Overview of SharePoint Server 2010 SP1 improvements

• Recycle bin: Lets you restore a site collection or a web that was deleted.
• Service Pack 1 will introduce long awaited Site Recycle Bin functionality that enables self-service recovery of site collections and sites.   In the past IT Professionals were tasked with restoring entire databases to recover deleted site collections and sites and would generally require expensive restore environments to support the task.  Now in Service Pack 1 administrators can quickly and easily recover site collections and sites accidentally deleted by their owners in a process similar to that of the Recycle Bin we have for Lists, Libraries, and Documents.
• Remote Backup Systems (RBS) and shallow copy can decrease downtime and increase efficiency by moving pointers to databases instead of moving databases.
• If you’re using Remote BLOB Storage you’ve probably realized that when moving Site Collections (Move-SPSite) between content databases each unit of unstructured data (BLOB) was round tripped (I.e. uploaded and subsequently downloaded again) serially during the move.  This operation was both time consuming and resource intensive.  In Service Pack 1 we reduce that overhead by enabling “shallow copy” when moving Site Collections between databases where Remote BLOB Storage is used.  New Shallow Copy functionality with the Move-SPSite CmdLet enables moving site collections between content databases without moving the underlying unstructured data, i.e. Microsoft Word documents, PowerPoint Presentations, etc. significantly increasing performance and reliability for organizations using Remote BLOB Storage by simply updating the pointers to those objects in the destination content database.
• You can see which folders are taking up valuable space with the improved Storage Management feature in site settings.
• In SharePoint 2010 we removed StorMan.aspx (Storage Space Allocation) (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982587/EN-US) which in previous versions of SharePoint enabled granular management and insight into storage.  For example, the page would show you the top 100 documents or document libraries in terms of size.  With that information end users could the page to clean up content from their site(s) by deleting the large content that they no longer needed.  In Service Pack 1 we are bringing back an improved StorMan.aspx, enabling users to better understand where their quota is going and act upon that information to reduce the size of their sites.
• Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2011.
• A more robust Search Host Distribution service that improves error recovery and performance during the search crawl.
• Adds backup and restore functionality to recover deleted site collections and webs.
• Cascading filters in PerformancePoint Services: Filters values can now be passed from one filter to the next.
• Support for Google Chrome - Very excited about this one!
• Improved support for Internet Explorer 9.
• Project Professional now synchronizes scheduled tasks with SharePoint task lists

The recommended order of installation is as follows:

Update Foundation first: SharePoint Foundation 2010 Service Pack 1
Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Foundation 2010 Language Pack
June 2011 CU for SharePoint Foundation 2010

Then SharePoint Server: SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack 1
Service Pack 1 for Server Language Pack 2010
June 2011 CU for SharePoint Server 2010 

You can then run the Configuration Wizard (PSConfig) one time on all boxes.

New Sharepoint Powershell Cmdlets

Add-SPProfileLeader -  Add a user as the company leader, make sure the CEOs pages are top in the search results, note: requires a full crawl be performed before results are seen.

Get-SPProfileLeader - Displays the company leader

Remove-SPProfileLeader - Removes the company leader

Remove-SPProfileSyncConnection - Make it easier to manage sync connections, link between the User Profile Synchronization Service (UPS) and the connected directory services

Add-SPProfileSyncConnection - Make it easier to manage sync connections

Disable-SPHealthAnalysisRule - Disables health analyzer rules 

Enable-SPHealthAnalysisRule - Enables health analyzer rules

Get-SPHealthAnalysisRule - Displays a health analyzer rule

Get-SPDeletedSite - Use this cmdlet to display a list of deleted site collections by using the identity parameter, if no parameter is specified then all deleted site collections in the farm are displayed

Remove-SPDeletedSite - Use this cmdlet to permanently remove a deleted site collection from the farm

Restore-SPDeletedSite - Restore a previously deleted site collection

Move-SPSocialComments - Move social comments from one page to another

Download Links for 2010 Service Pack 1

Access 2010 Runtime SP1	2460015	32-bit	64-bit
Access Database Engine 2010 SP1	2460011	32-bt	64-bit
FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint SP1	2460039		64-bit
Groove Server 2010 SP1	2460067		64-bit
Office 2010 Filter Pack SP1	2460041	32-bit	64-bit
Office 2010 Language Pack SP1	2460043	32-bit	64-bit
Office 2010 SP1	2460049	32-bit	64-bit
Office Language Interface Pack 2010 SP1	2460044	32-bit	64-bit
Office Proofing Tools 2010 SP1	2460053	32-bit	64-bit
Office Web Apps 2010 SP1	2460073		64-bit
PowerPoint Viewer SP1	2460050	32-bit
Project 2010 SP1	2460052	32-bit	64-bit
Project Server 2010 SP1	2460047		64-bit
Search Server 2010 SP1	2460070		64-bit
Server Language Pack SP1	2460056		64-bit
SharePoint 2010 Indexing Connector for Documentum SP1	2460054		64-bit
SharePoint Designer 2010 SP1	2460057	32-bit	64-bit
SharePoint Foundation 2010 Client Object Model Redistributable SP1	2508825	32-bit	64-bit
SharePoint Foundation 2010 Language Pack SP1	2460059		64-bit
SharePoint Foundation 2010 SP1	2460058		64-bit
SharePoint Server 2010 SP1	2460045		64-bit
Visio 2010 SP1	2460061	32-bit	64-bit
Visio Viewer 2010 SP1	2460065	32-bit	64-bit

Passed the 70-668 PRO: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Administrator Exam

I took this exam today and passed, I think it was definitely harder than the 70-667 exam, 65 questions in all, 16 break out portions that were based on a reusable customer requirements scenarios. There were about 10 questions that you had a list of items in the left box you had to drag the correct # of items and put them in the correct order.

A few I remember with the select-able steps - just basic idea here I don't remember much!
1. Configure a content deployment path. Choices were things like create a deployment path on server 1 or server 2, allow content deployment, create a quick deployment job, create a content deployment job etc.

2. You must create a new site at the top level of a site collection based on a saved template. Choices were save site as a template, import stp file and activate, save site template, import WSP file, etc.

3. They asked for you to add Excel and Visio services to your farm, requirements were best performance and redundancy. Choices were install a new app server, install Sharepoint 2010 into a SQL Cluster, install the enterprise version of Sharepoint on all servers using the /Complete option and then a configuration list in one box. I really hated the way this question was worded, probably missed it.

4. One question asked to configure servers for sandbox solutions, must as isolated as possible and redundant,  displayed a farm with 3 WFE's and one index server. Choices were stop sandbox service on WFE 01 & 02, stop sandbox service on WFE 03, start sandbox service on WFE01 & 02, start sandbox service on WFE03, start sandbox service on WFE03 & start sandbox service on QS01, stop sandbox service on WFE03 & start sandbox service on QS01

Things to be proficient on, when to use each type of authentication type, kerberos, claims, forms, integrated. How many servers, web apps, site colls, based on a given customer scenario. Different upgrade types and when to use each. Search - understand query server, query mirroring, crawl components, index partitions, how to isolate each part of search within your farm, authoritative pages, search federation etc. a couple of Infopath forms questions, several backup questions on perform a backup, granular backup, backup-spsite, backup-spfarm powershell cmdlets. A few BCS questions and a few talking about secure store service application, moving 2007 SSO farms into 2010. Memorize all of the web application general settings, all of the backup settings in CA and all the monitoring settings like diagnostic, trace log, web analytics, etc.

Upgrade Sharepoint 2007 Shared Service Provider(s) to Sharepoint 2010

Working on a MOSS upgrade project I recently discovered the only complete upgrade method for the MOSS Shared Service Providers is an In Place Upgrade. The In Place Upgrade method will actually take the original SSP(s) and map them over into the new 2010 database architecture i.e. BDC database, Search Service Admin database, Search Service Gatherer database, Taxonomy database and User Profile database.

The Database Attach upgrade method can be used on a MOSS SSP however, only the User Profile data will be upgraded into Sharepoint 2010 User Profile database. All of the remaining items from the SSP will have to be manually created/configured using 2010 Service Applications.