Advanced Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe the architectural features of SharePoint Server 2013.

Identify new and deprecated features in SharePoint 2013.

Describe the editions for SharePoint Server 2013 on-premise and SharePoint Online.

This module examines high availability and disaster recovery in SharePoint 2013. When designing high availability and disaster recovery strategies for a SharePoint farm, it is important to understand the different approaches required by each logical tier in the farm. High availability for the database tier requires understanding of how SQL Server provides high availability and the associated requirements. High availability for the application tier can be straightforward for some service applications, while other applications, such as Search, require additional planning and configuration for high availability. The web front end tier will also require additional planning and configuration for high availability, and architects should consider the new SharePoint 2013 request management feature. SharePoint farm disaster recovery has always required considerable planning and understanding of the necessary components and backup tools available. In this regard SharePoint 2013 is no different, and farm administrators should create a disaster recovery plan that states how content and configurations are backed up, how data can be restored, and what backup schedules are required.

Designing Database Topologies for High Availability and Disaster Recovery

Designing SharePoint Infrastructure for High Availability

Planning for Disaster Recovery

Create a Backup and Restore Plan

Test the Backup and Restore Process

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Select an appropriate database server configuration to meet availability requirements.

Design a physical architecture and infrastructure to meet availability requirements.

Develop and implement a backup and restore strategy.

Service applications were introduced in SharePoint 2010, replacing the Shared Service Provider architecture of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Service applications provide a flexible design for delivering services, such as managed metadata or PerformancePoint, to users who need them. There are several deployment topologies available to you when you plan your service application implementation. These range from a simple, single-farm, single-instance service application model to more complex, cross-farm, multiple-instance designs. What remains most important is that you create a design that matches the needs of your organization's users in terms of performance, functionality, and security.

This module reviews the service application architecture, how to map business requirements to design, and the options for enterprise scale, federated service application architectures.

Planning Service Applications

Designing and Configuring a Service Application Topology

Configuring Service Application Federation

Planning a Service Application Topology

Creating a Service Application Instance

Establishing Trust Relationships between SharePoint Farms

Publishing and Consuming Service Applications

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Explain the service application architecture.

Describe the fundamental options of service application design.

Describe how to configure a federated service application deployment.

Most organizations store information in a variety of disparate systems. In many cases, these organizations want to be able to view and interact with information from these disparate systems from a single interface. This reduces the need for information workers to constantly switch between systems and creates opportunities for power users or analysts to aggregate data from multiple sources.

In SharePoint 2013, Business Connectivity Services (BCS) is a collection of technologies that enable you to query, view, and interact with data from external systems. In this module, you will learn how to plan and configure various components of BCS.

Planning and Configuring Business Connectivity Services

Configuring the Secure Store Service

Managing Business Data Connectivity Models

Configuring the Business Data Connectivity Service Application

Configuring the Secure Store Service

Configuring a Secure Store Service Target Application

Importing and Configuring BDC Models

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Plan and configure the Business Data Connectivity Service application.

Plan and configure the Secure Store Service application.

Manage Business Data Connectivity models.

Talking about connecting people in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 really means talking about taking people out of their isolated workspaces and giving them the ability and tools to collaborate with other people in the organization such as their work colleagues, peers, and executives. It is about finding people with expertise, and identifying shared interests and about creating networks of people that share common goals.

In this module, you will learn about the concepts and ways of connecting people in SharePoint 2013. You will examine user profiles and user profile synchronization, social interaction features and capabilities, and communities and community sites in SharePoint 2013.

Managing User Profiles

Enabling Social Interaction

Building Communities

Configuring Profile Synchronization

Configuring My Sites

Creating a Community Site Infrastructure

Configuring Community Site Participation

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Understand and manage user profiles and user profile synchronization in SharePoint 2013.

Enable social interaction in SharePoint 2013.

Understand and build communities and community sites in SharePoint 2013

This module examines how SharePoint 2013 extends the ability of users to work collaboratively and increase productivity through seamless integration with external software platforms, additional SharePoint collaboration features, and the provision of flexible tools, with which users can develop their own solutions to business problems.

Aggregating Tasks

Planning and Configuring Collaboration Features

Planning and Configuring Composites

Creating Project Sites

Configuring Project Sites

Engaging Project Teams

Configure Windows Azure Workflow and SharePoint Workflow Services

Creating and Testing a Workflow

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Explain how the integration options for Exchange 2013 and Project Server 2013 improve task aggregation.

Describe how to plan and configure SharePoint collaborative and co-authoring options.

Describe how to plan and use workflows in SharePoint 2013.

Business Intelligence (BI) continues to be an important area for large enterprise organizations. The key to successful BI is the ability to integrate the components that deliver the right information, to the right people, at the right time. Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise Edition provides a range of integrated solutions that enable both users and administrators across an organization to develop BI solutions to fit their business requirements. These BI tools extend beyond SharePoint to provide consistent information management from personal data analysis environments, which use Microsoft Excel, through to departmental or organizational data repositories, which use SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS).

In this module you will see how SharePoint 2013 can deliver BI solutions for your business.

Planning for Business Intelligence

Planning, Deploying, and Managing Business Intelligence Services

Planning and Configuring Advanced Analysis Tools

Provisioning Excel Services

Configuring External Data Access

Configuring Data Connections

Configuring PowerPivot for SharePoint

Configuring Power View for SharePoint

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Explain the SharePoint BI architecture, its components, and how to identify BI opportunities in your organization.

Describe how to plan, deploy, and manage the core SharePoint 2013 BI services.

Describe the advanced BI options available with SharePoint 2013 and Microsoft SQL Server 2012.

The Search service remains a cornerstone of the SharePoint platform’s success. In Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 there have been major changes to the components that make up the service, to increase performance and configurability.

In this module, you will examine the configuration options in SharePoint Search that enable you to provide greater search result effectiveness by fine-tuning the service in various ways. The introduction of new functionality, such as result types and the increased move towards search-driven navigation mean that the role of the Search administrator has become even more important for business success. Search now enables you to delegate more of this management to site collection administrator and site owner levels, improving Search flexibility without increasing the administrative burden on a few Search service application administrators.

This module also examines Search analytics and reporting. To help you in your management of a Search environment, SharePoint 2013 now incorporates Search analytics and reporting into the Search service, rather than in a separate service application, as was the case in SharePoint Server 2010. The reports available will help you to monitor the service and optimize its configuration.

Configuring Search for an Enterprise Environment

Configuring the Search Experience

Optimizing Search

Planning a Search Solution

Configuring a Thesaurus

Configuring Entity Extractors and Refiners

Configuring Query Spelling Correction

Configuring Company Name Extraction

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe the Search service architecture and key areas of configuration.

Explain how to configure the Search service to improve the end-user experience.

Describe how to use analytics reports to optimize your Search environment.

This module examines Enterprise Content Management (ECM), which is a set of technologies and features that administrators use to provide some control over sites and content. This could include control over how information is stored, how long information is kept, how information is visible to users while in use, and how information growth is kept under control.

Planning support for your ECM requirements requires a clear understanding of content requirements and how that content supports the organization. This means that, as a best practice, many different organizational roles should have input into the ECM strategy and supporting features.

Planning Content Management

Planning and Configuring eDiscovery

Planning Records Management

Creating and Configuring an eDiscovery Center

Discovering and Preserving Content

Querying and Exporting Content

Configuring In-Place Records Management

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Plan how to manage content and documents.

Plan and configure eDiscovery.

Plan records management and compliance.

The web content management capabilities in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 can help an organization to communicate and integrate more effectively with employees, partners, and customers. SharePoint Server 2013 provides easy-to-use functionality to create, approve, and publish web content. This enables you to get information out quickly to intranet, extranet, and Internet sites and give your content a consistent look and feel. You can use these web content management capabilities to create, publish, manage, and control a large and dynamic collection of content. As part of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) in SharePoint Server 2013, web content management can help to streamline your process for creating and publishing web sites.

Planning and Implementing a Web Content Management Infrastructure

Configuring Managed Navigation and Catalog Sites

Supporting Multiple Languages and Locales

Enabling Design and Customization

Supporting Mobile Users

Configuring Product Catalog Sites

Configuring Cross-Site Publishing

Configuring Publishing Sites

Configuring Device Channels

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Plan and configure a Web Content Management infrastructure to meet business requirements.

Configure managed navigation and product catalog sites.

Plan and configure support for multilingual sites.

Manage design and customization for publishing sites.

Plan and configure support for mobile users

As a SharePoint administrator, it is important to understand the features that are available in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013. However, there are often specific functional requirements that may be part of SharePoint’s feature set but are not included in certain site templates. There may also be sites that require repeatable customization of lists or libraries, or custom code deployments that are necessary to add capabilities that are not available out-of-the-box. Developers use features and solutions to add and control these functionality requirements. Administrators, on the other hand, must understand how features and solutions are deployed and managed in order to meet user needs in a SharePoint farm.

Understanding the SharePoint Solution Architecture

Managing Sandbox Solutions

Configuring Sandboxed Solution Management at the Farm Level

Configuring Sandboxed Solution Management at the Site Collection Level

Deploying Farm Solutions

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe and manage SharePoint features and solutions

Manage sandboxed solutions in a SharePoint 2013 deployment

SharePoint apps are new to Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 and provide an additional capability to provide application functionality within the context of SharePoint. SharePoint apps supplement the capabilities of farm solutions and sandbox solutions, while providing a user experience that offers a measure of self-service customization capabilities without putting the stability or security of the farm at risk.

Understanding the SharePoint App Architecture

Provisioning and Managing Apps and App Catalogs

Configuring a SharePoint Farm to Support Apps

Creating and Configuring a Corporate App Catalog

Deploying and Monitoring Apps

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe SharePoint apps and the supporting SharePoint infrastructure

Provision and configure SharePoint apps and app catalogs

Manage how apps are used within a SharePoint 2013 deployment

Governance as it relates to SharePoint can be described as a way of controlling a SharePoint environment through the application of people, policies, and processes. Governance is necessary for all IT systems as a whole, and in particular for SharePoint deployments, which often introduce significant change in business processes, available functionality, and day-to-day working practices.

It is important to understand that governance must reflect the needs of the organization and how it should best use SharePoint. Therefore, the IT department cannot be the only body governing SharePoint; input must come from corporate sponsorship across the organization. The IT department must still act as the technical authority for SharePoint; however, this is just a single part of how SharePoint governance must be brought together from different parts of the organization.

Introduction to Governance Planning

Key Elements of a Governance Plan

Planning for Governance in SharePoint 2013

Implementing Governance in SharePoint 2013

Creating a Governance Plan

Creating and Publishing Site Policies

Enabling and Managing Self-Service Site Creation

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe the concepts of governance

Describe the key elements of a governance plan

Plan for governance in SharePoint Server 2013

Upgrading your Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 farm(s) to SharePoint 2013 is a major undertaking, so it is important that you carefully plan the upgrade activities. You need to ensure that your upgrade path—moving from version to version—is supported, that you have reviewed the business impact of your upgrade, and that you test your upgrade strategy to ensure business continuity. As with all such activities, preparation is crucial.

In contrast with earlier version of SharePoint, SharePoint 2013 supports only database-attach upgrades for content, but it now supports upgrades for some of the databases associated with service applications. You need to plan for these and ensure that you are prepared for any troubleshooting that may be required.

Another change in SharePoint 2013 is the approach to upgrading site collections. These are upgraded separately from the data and service applications. You can also delegate the upgrade tasks to site collection administrators.

Preparing the Upgrade or Migration Environment

Performing the Upgrade Process

Managing a Site Collection Upgrade

Import the SharePoint 2010 Databases

Migrating and Upgrading a Service Application

Migrating and Upgrading a Content Database

Preparing Site Collections for Upgrade

Upgrading Site Collections

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe how to plan and prepare for your upgrade.

Explain the steps involved in data and service application upgrades.

Describe the process for upgrading site collections.