FAST for SharePoint 2010 Case Studies

There is a new FAST Case Study that for FAST for SharePoint 2010.  IMF - http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000011274

Here are two other good FAST for SharePoint Case Studies:

• Case Study – General Mills Research (FAST) - http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-FAST-Search-Server-2010-For-Sharepoint/General-Mills/General-Mills-Frees-More-Time-for-Innovation-with-Research-Focused-Search-Application/4000007255
• Case Study – Mississippi State Department of Transportation (FAST) - http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-SharePoint-Server-2010/Mississippi-Department-of-Transportation/State-Transportation-Department-Saves-Lives-with-Better-Business-Insight/4000007073

InfoPath 2010 and Digital Signatures

I have had several questions about InfoPath 2010 and support for Digital Signatures. The answer is yes, InfoPath 2010 supports them and there is even more improved capability. Here are some good references.

• This provides good general information about InfoPath Digital Signatures - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/infopath-help/digital-signatures-in-infopath-2010-HA010381868.aspx
• This provides information describing in more detail the improvements with SharePoint and InfoPath 2010 - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/infopath/archive/2010/02/18/digital-signature-support-in-infopath-2010.aspx
• This is a good article about the event model around digital signatures and how you create customizations around those event - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa948780.aspx

SharePoint 2010 Max File Size

I have as well been receiving an inordinate amount of questions associated to the max file size the SharePoint 2010 supports. It is been clearly stated for some time that the max file size supported by SharePoint 2010 is 2 GB - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx#ListLibrary. A lot of customers are asking why. I am not on product team but usually couch it as SharePoint is a web based ECM platform. Two GB uploads and downloads is not very effective over the internet in general. Yes, internet speeds are getting better but still, that is a big file. Plus, if you are not using Remote BLOB storage, that is a lot of data to put into SQL Server.

If you have files that are larger than 2 GB you should look into storing the content externally and then utilize enterprise search and third party web parts to make the large files accessible through SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint Search Index Document

I received several questions about indexing of SharePoint content lately. Specifically does SharePoint index the entire document?

First off if FAST is being utilized, yes, the entire document will be indexed.

Second if you are using the out of the box SharePoint search by default it configured to index the content of items that are under 16MB or under. Metadata associated to these documents will still be indexed (so if the big files are videos they will still be searchable).

The max file size for indexing can be upped up to the max file size limit; which is 2GB. Before upping the size, it is recommended that you do some testing and understand any performance ramifications relative to your environment and data. Here are some good references on the topic.

• http://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=215
• http://appsense.logimindz.com/?p=27

SharePoint 2010 Content Database Sizing

A lot of people already know this but on July 14, 2011 it was announced that Content Database Sizing has been updated http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx#ContentDB.

There is still recommendation to keep content databases at 200GB. Why? This recommendation is still a good recommendation because if you need to back-up and restore a database very quickly, you do not have move around large back-up files. Plus if you have an Information Architecture that drives content to specific site collections (with dedicated content databases), you will be much more agile to requirement changes, upgrades, etc. One big massive content database is an indication of poor planning and governance.

The first new recommendations in this article is that 4TB of data can be stored in a content database. There are some parameters around this recommendation that you should read.

The second new recommendation is that there is no explicit recommendation on sizing for document archiving scenarios. However there are some very specific recommendations made in here to support that scenario – so review http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx#ContentDB. This is really important for Records Management solutions. On this specific point, it would also be good to review the “Extremely large-scale content archive” section in http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263028.aspx. When going down this path you will need to have Remote Blob Storage and FAST to support this solution architecture.

Finally SQL Server tuning is fundamental to your success for managing large content databases. Here is a blog that I wrote on the topic - http://www.astaticstate.com/2010/12/sharepoint-2010-high-availability-with.html

SharePoint Online Hybrid Architecture Whitepaper

There is a new SharePoint Online Hybrid Architecture Whitepaper that has been published - http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27580. It is definitely worth a read and has some good stuff. I think it is a good place to start but there is a lot more too this.
I will be working on some SharePoint architecture blogs that discuss this along with general SharePoint Governance and Information Architecture. I have been having way too conversations with clients where people confuse the real spirit of governance making it too authoritative. It is not about locking down SharePoint; it is about setting up business services and service level agreements and then delivering capabilities on them. It is about setting up a real Information Architecture! More to come I promise.

Create InfoPath Form Instance through Workflow

Issue

Have you ever wanted to have an InfoPath form generated by a workflow? Well I thought it would be a simple task but I had to do some extra things to make it happen correctly.

I recently wanted to be able to generate an InfoPath form based on an event on a SharePoint Designer workflow. So I published my InfoPath form to a Form Library, added an action to create a list item and then ran the workflow. I believed this would work because I have created Word templates, associated them to content types and the word file would be created just fine with the appropriate template. The net result in this situation does not work. Instead the InfoPath form template (.xsn file) is created as a file instance. The InfoPath xml that I had expected was not there.

Solution

I found this article (http://www.bizsupportonline.net/blog/2009/06/create-infopath-forms-sharepoint-designer-workflow/) which I reviewed. My solution is a little bit different because I was building this solution in SharePoint Online in Office365 and I was not able to implement this exact solution. However I was given some clues and came up with the following.

My solution was to:

• Publish the InfoPath form the same way I did before.
• Then I created an instance of the InfoPath form xml and saved it to my desktop.
• Then went to the form library configuration, advanced settings and turned on “Allow management of content types”.
• Then clicked on the default Form Content Type.
• Then clicked on Advanced Settings for the Form Content.
• Then I selected Upload a new document template and selected xml template I saved locally.

The following is what I had.

The InfoPath form template (.xsn file) is still there behind the scenes and the form will render correctly through InfoPath form services.

There are a few limitations of this solution:

• The user will not be able to create a new InfoPath form instance through the browser using the New Document button in the ribbon. What will happen is the InfoPath client will launched. This is not such a big deal because in my situation InfoPath forms will always be created through the workflow.
• If the InfoPath form changes, you will have to publish the InfoPath form template (.xsn file) and then go through these steps again.