Improve SharePoint Performance using Tactics

SharePoint Workflow Vs Microsoft Flow

Workflow	Microsoft Flow
Enterprise focused solutions	Focused on individual
Automation of business processes	Automate workflows connects with SaaS (Software As A Service)
Works within SharePoint framework	Integrate with business APPs
Can integrate with Visual Studio	Automated ACTIONS based on EVENTS
Permission based on list	Actions are intended to automate the personal processes of end users (Permission)
Workflows starts with an event within SharePoint	Flows are triggered by web hooks into external systems
Possible to debug / attach with processes	Flow can take data from External systems to SharePoint
	Automate digital life while accessing data from social feed
	Can use defined templates, expect new templates in future
Editable using SharePoint Designer	Browser based
	Development / Administration knowledge is not necessary

Move SharePoint 2013 Search Index Location to a other location

When we setup SharePoint Search Service Application using Central Administration, there is no place to set INDEX LOCATION.

With the usage of CRAWLING, the location will be filled with INDEXED files.

If we want to change the location of INDEX folder, we have only 1 options. That is using POWERSHELL.

1) We have to create a new INDEX LOCATION

$IndexLocation = "H:\New_SearchIndex"

New-Item –ItemType Directory –Path $IndexLocation

2) Then we have to get current Search Service Application to a variable

$SearchServiceName = "SearchSer"

$SSA = Get-SPServiceApplication -Name $SearchServiceName; 

3) Then we get the current Search Service Instance to a variable

$Server = "SPDEV1APP"

$Instance = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance -Identity $Server;

4) Then we have to get current serach topology

$Current = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -SearchApplication $SSA -Active; 

we can current topology using Central Administration. Here we should have all the components in GREEN status.

5) Create a CLONE of current Search Topology

$Clone = New-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Clone -SearchApplication $SSA -SearchTopology $Current 

6) Now we SET new INDEX LOCATION

New-SPEnterpriseSearchIndexComponent -SearchTopology $Clone -IndexPartition 0 -SearchServiceInstance $Instance -RootDirectory $IndexLocation 

7) SET new one as ACTIVE

Set-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Identity $Clone

If we Type,
Get-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Active -SearchApplication $ssa 
It will return 7 components including 2 INDEX COMPONENTS

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8) Then Gets the Search Topology again,

$SSA = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication
$Current = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -SearchApplication $SSA -Active

9) Creates a copy of the current Search Topolog again,

$Clone=New-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Clone -SearchApplication $SSA -SearchTopology $Current

10) Removes the old Index Component from the Search Topology, THIS IS THE MOST CRITICAL

Get-SPEnterpriseSearchComponent -SearchTopology $Clone | ? {($_.GetType().Name -eq "IndexComponent") -and ($_.ServerName -eq $($Instance.Server.Address)) -and ($_.RootDirectory -ne $IndexLocation)} | Remove-SPEnterpriseSearchComponent -SearchTopology $Clone -Confirm:$false

11) Sets our new Search Topology as Active

Set-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Identity $Clone

If we Type again,
Get-SPEnterpriseSearchTopology -Active -SearchApplication $ssa 
It will return only 6 components including only 1 INDEX COMPONENT

It is set to new INDEX LOCATION. Now Do a CRAWL using Central Administration.

Microsoft Windows Container Concept

With the increase of necessity of so much high end Servers for our deployments, a decade before we found a solution called VIRTULIZATION. Simply it allows admins to run a server on top of another server. With the high usage while having high productivity that concept has aroused so much and today, we all get the experience of Virtualization. While evolving the concept we had to face many challenges especially on hardware limitations, software cost and shortage of expert technical skills.

The architecture of virtualization is totally based on hardware sharing and never incorporated software sharing. In other words, we were unable to use HOST’s software inside a Virtual machine. Also we were unable to share OS files / kernel information with VM.

Traditional Virtualization

To overcome mentioned limitations, Microsoft tried to implement a virtualization concept that goes beyond hardware. The original concept initiated few years back, and Microsoft merged their concept with company named DOCKER and implemented Container Service. It is a features that comes with Windows Server 2016 and already implemented on Microsoft AZURE.

Azure Container Service aka ACS is introduced to create, configure and manage cluster of virtual machines in a configured environment using optimized performances. The container is the application piece which works as a virtual machine.

Containerization (aka OS Virtualization)

** Container runs an operating system, has a file system and can be accessed over a network.

With new concept, the HOST can handle many containers same as virtual machines. But the containers can share resources, OS files with the HOST as the diagram explained. With the sharing capability of Container based virtualization the container can run as LIGHT weight machine which enable efficiency. It will reduce loading time and will increase operation time.

Important Facts

1)      Releasing with Windows server 2016

2)      First we need to create a “CONTAINER HOST” (Windows HOST or a LINUX HOST) before start virtualization

3)      We can create 2 types of Containers

a.      Windows Server Containers (shares a kernel with the container host and all containers running on the host)

b.      Hyper-V Containers (container in a highly optimized virtual machine, valid only on-premise)

4)      Windows Server Container Efficiency is greater than Hyper-V Container, because of OS level virtualization

5)      Windows Server Container Security is lesser than Hyper-V Container, because of resource sharing

1)      Image is a Snapshot of a Container which includes the current status of running virtualized environment.

2)      Sandbox is the storage use to write changes in each container and can be committed to Image if wanted

1)      Container OS Image provides the operating system environment for Container, but this is Immutable.

2)      Container Repository to Keep local data including container specific installed software changes, file level changes and other OS level changes.

3)      Microservices architecture will be integrated with ACS,

a.      Container can have many micro-services (can call as SUB-SYSTEMS)

b.      Efficient and manageable resource allocation

4)      We can enable the feature using command of

 Install-WindowsFeature containers

WOW things

1)      “Docker image” can be created and it can be deployed to all environments (IDENTICAL environment of UAT, PRODUCTION)

2)      “Container Orchestration” is capable of handling,

a.      Tracking / managing containers

b.      Can CLUSTER containers for easy access

c.       Scheduling of maintenance tasks

d.      Constraint based deployments

3)      Docker template is available with visual studio 2015, we can create APPs directly to ACS

4)      Azure Container Service (ACS) is now available with on MARKETPLACE, we can create CONTAINERS on Azure

5)      REST API support to connect with third party tools

Portability among different platforms and environments 

Benefits

1)      With the use of ACS, the OS will be virtualized. Hence the amount of resources will be less and it will be a Financial benefit

2)      All the containers can use single base image and it will make all the environments are identical

3)      Easy to upgrade sever kernel as one unit

4)      Direct integration of Visual Studio with Azure

How to Solve the issue of "SharePoint Search Service is Stopped"

SharePoint Search is a critical Service, which needs to up and running for many things. If the Search is in PAUSED status, then we can't do a crawl.

First We have to verify All the necessary SERVICES are up and running. 

Then we have to make sure the account has permission to run a CRAWL.

Also we have to verify the Alternative Access Mapping is set.

If we cant resolve the issue, then have a look of EVENT VIEWER.

There we can see the "Content Plugin can not be initialized" error message. It makes little interesting and I had a look of SEARCH TOPOLOGY.

Then it shows as "Unable to Retrieve Topology Component". Then we can assume PERMISSION issue somewhere.

Then I have found that the Service called "Windows Service - Search Host Controller Service".

That Account is responsible of working with NODE RUNNER and setting up the SharePoint farm topology. So that account needs LOCAL ADMIN privileges. After I have set the PERMISSION for the account,

The Topology Starts working and fine. It displayed all the COMPONENTS correctly with GREEN color.

Then I was able to see CRAWLING options in front of CONTENT SOURCES.

  

 It makes all other related issues sorted and works fine.

Workflow Initiation is Failing on SharePoint Farm and Solution

My SharePoint farm was integrated with Workflow Service and worked fine till a restart.

All of sudden it failed to start new workflows. Then I tried to start a WF manually.

Still It failed.

Then I have opened the "Workflow Manager Powershell" and tried to get the current status of the WF farm. (get-WFfarmStatus)

Surprisingly, the WorkflowServiceFrontEnd service was stopped.

With commands we cant start the WorkflowServiceFrontEnd.

First we have to STOP Backend service using,

net stop WorkflowServiceBackend

Then We have to START the Backend Service using,

net start WorkflowServiceBackend

Now we can check the STATUS again,

Both Services are RUNNING smoothly.

Now we can start Workflows.

Configuration of Multi-Lingual SharePoint Sites

When we need to display our SharePoint portal with different languages we can enable site variations, that is an in-built feature comes with SharePoint. For that first we need to identify necessary languages for the proposed SharePoint site. In this case I will configure Arabic language along with English.

First we need to download Arabic Language Pack for SharePoint.

Then we have to install language pack for application servers + web front end servers.

We can verify whether the relevant LANGUAGE PACKS are installed via central administration.

In central administration àManage Patch Status under “Upgrade and Migration” section

Then we have to go to relevant site collection and,

Site Settings àVariation Labels

There we can see current labels (in this case, English) and I’m going to create new label for Arabic.

We will go through a 5 step wizard and it starts by picking the necessary language. We will get a drop down with the available languages. Then we have to pick a LOCALE also for the required Language.

Then we have to assign a NAME to LABEL. It will append to the URL (here http://spsvr:ar-sa)

There we have to specify “Display Name” and “Hierarchy Creation”. We can choose,

·         Publishing sites, List and pages OR

·         Publishing pages OR

·         Root site only

In step 3, we have to specify how we can set whether users to translate the whole SharePoint site. Machine translation is also possible if “Machine Translation Service” is running on servers.

We can check it via Central Administration à Services on Server

Then we have to go the step 4, that is the CONTENT changing mechanism and Page Update behavior. There we can set either,

1) User can manually sync update

2) Automatically update sites using SharePoint timer jobs

After all, steps we can verify all the settings in the Steps 5. Then Finish the wizard.

We can see our latest Site variations in the

Site settings à Variation Labels as “ar-sa”

When we go to Site settings à Variation Logs, we can see important messages. That is about SharePoint timer jobs.

 So it is better to go and check newly created SharePoint timer jobs,

It is called “Variations Create Hierarchies Job definition” and it will do the content translation.

We have to wait our SharePoint timer jobs do the backend work.

That will create of new SITES for new Multi-linguals. In this scenario we can see newly create Sub-Site called “Arabic (Saudi Arabia)” under root site collection.

When we go to the site we can Pages are created and waiting for PUBLISH.

After that we have to Approve Page to view normal users.

Then we can navigate to language SITE that we want.

We can click the RIBBON and check the content.

We can also take necessary actions within the site with ARABIC language.

It is a cool feature that comes with SharePoint to enable MULTI-LINGUAL sites.

Search a SQL TABLE within ALL SQL Databases

When we want to find a TABLE among all DATABASES there is no such query.
In that case we have to JOIN SYS.TABLES and SYS.SCHEMAS.
We can use following SQL Script to FIND tables Named as 'SOCIAL'.

================================================================================================================================================

SET NOCOUNT ON

DECLARE @AllTables table (DbName sysname,SchemaName sysname, TableName sysname)

DECLARE

     @SearchDb nvarchar(200)

    ,@SearchSchema nvarchar(200)

    ,@SearchTable nvarchar(200)

    ,@SQL nvarchar(4000)

SET @SearchDb='%'

SET @SearchSchema='%'

SET @SearchTable='%SOCIAL%'

SET @SQL='select ''?'' as DbName, s.name as SchemaName, t.name as TableName from [?].sys.tables t inner join sys.schemas s on t.schema_id=s.schema_id WHERE ''?'' LIKE '''+@SearchDb+''' AND s.name LIKE '''+@SearchSchema+''' AND t.name LIKE '''+@SearchTable+''''

INSERT INTO @AllTables (DbName, SchemaName, TableName)

    EXEC sp_msforeachdb @SQL

SET NOCOUNT OFF

SELECT * FROM @AllTables ORDER BY DbName, SchemaName, TableName

Can see the RESULTS.