DKSINHA

Highlights - new in SharePoint 2010 for Developmers?

2010-04-21T00:30:00.000-07:00

New in SharePoint 2010 for Developmers?

developer dashboard (will require sts command to be activated in the public beta) . As I said, it showss what SQL queries were executed, and you can click on the query to get more information of what was going on.
web part development
you can upload a WSP to sharepoint - no STSADM command. it sits in the database - and someone with privilages can than use the code in the WSP - but it runs in a sandbox while sharepoint monitors the resources that it uses. Nothing is deployed to the file system (so you can version items properly, and you dont have to worry about multiple front end servers). Instead of using the sharepoint dll, the sandboxed solutions use a proxy dll. You can get logs from the proxy service that look at what the solution does.

web parts - when you "run" the solution, it automatically opens the "create page" dialog in the site you designated, so you can create a new page, and add the web part to it. Breakpoints will automatically break (because the code gets attached correctly to the processes). To do this, the VS solution is actually built and deployed before the debugging.
for sharepoint - simply add a reference to the sharepoint linq dll, and
files are the same format as 2007
Connectivity Services - replaces the BDC.

will have read\write.
sharepoint field types that expose the information were not upgraded, which means that a BCS column still will not allow multiselect.
for the application definition in both VS2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010

between lists - you can prevent deletions or cause cascading deletions. However, no cascading inserts... but I guess this is where custom solutions come in.
Lookups to multiple columns
query throttling - preventing views from showing too many items - this will be dynamic - each view evaluates on the fly and if a view is going to display more than a specific amount it can be blocked.
views are XSLT views - not CAML (CAML can still be used) - this will make it a lot simpler to customize list definitions!
validation - you have a new setting for columns, where you can write a forumla (excel style) and a message to show the user if the formal does not evaluate. FANSTATIC. Shame it only supports cecrtain types of fields.

API and client object model- need I say more? Client object model will allow you to connect to a site using a "ClientContext" object, that is instanciated with a site url parameter. REST, in case you don't know, allows you to get information from sharepoint using just URL's - and you get back an XML. So no more developing web services, now your client side code (javascript or different clients) can get the information just by building a URL, performing a http request to it, and getting back XML of the results. I have talked about this in the past in the blog about how you can do this in sharepoint 2007 - specifically how to get list and site information for an infopath form without using web services (there is a file called owssvr.dll in the _vti_bin virtual folder that gets you information from lists and sites), but in 2010 it will be a lot better integrated (and documented), not to mention the javascripting will have proxies built in and development will be easier. Note - when using the REST API using a .net application do not forget to set the credentials to the REST object. I wish MS would instantiate the object with the default credentials from the cache - that would save some lines.
Synchrounous events in the event handlers! yay!
scoped events

Workflows - integration with Visio (interesting...)Upgrading code - MS provides assembly redirect for most of the sharepoint dll machines. This means that code that you wrote in 2007 has a good chance of working in 2010! This enables upgrades of a portal to be more smooth. It is still unclear to me how custom site definitions will be migrated.
Application life cycle management - generally better with TFS - no other mention of what is better so far.

SharePoint 2010 Benefits Overview

2010-04-21T00:24:00.000-07:00

SharePoint 2010 is the business collaboration platform that enables you to connect and empower people through formal and informal business communities, within the enterprise and beyond, and to manage content throughout the information lifecycle. Whether deployed on-premises or as hosted services, SharePoint’s integrated capabilities are enhanced by search technologies and enable you to rapidly respond to changing business needs by making data-driven decisions and by deploying customized solutions quickly and securely. The consolidation of collaboration solutions onto SharePoint 2010 makes it possible to cut costs by lowering training and maintenance expenses and increasing IT productivity, all within a governable and compliant platform.

Sharepoint Portal Interview Questions

2009-12-11T22:30:00.000-08:00

what is SharePoint?

Portal Collaboration Software.

what is the difference between SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services?

SharePoint Portal Server is the global portal offering features like global navigation and searching. Windows SharePoint Services is more content management based with document libraries and lists. You apply information to certain areas within your portal from Windows SharePoint Services or directly to portal areas.

what is a document library?

A document library is where you upload your core documents. They consist of a row and column view with links to the documents. When the document is updated so is the link on your site. You can also track metadata on your documents. Metadata would consist of document properties.

what is a meeting workspace?

A meeting workspace is a place to store information, attendees, and tasks related to a specific meeting.

what is a document workspace?

Document workspaces consist of information surrounding a single or multiple documents.

what is a web part?

Web parts consist of xml queries to full SharePoint lists or document libraries. You can also develop your own web parts and web part pages.

what is the difference between a document library and a form library?

Document libraries consist of your core documents. An example would be a word document, excel, powerpoint, visio, pdf, etc… Form libraries consist of XML forms.

what is a web part zone?

Web part zones are what your web parts reside in and help categorize your web parts when designing a page.

how is security managed in SharePoint?

Security can be handled at the machine, domain, or sharepoint level.

how are web parts developed?

Web parts are developed in Visual Studio .Net. VS.Net offers many web part and page templates and can also be downloaded from the Microsoft site.

what is a site definition?

It’s a methods for providing prepackaged site and list content.

what is a template?

A template is a pre-defined set of functions or settings that can be used over time. There are many templates within SharePoint, Site Templates, Document Templates, Document Library and List Templates.

how do you install web parts?

Web Parts should be distributed as a .CAB (cabinet) file using the MSI Installer.

what is CAML?

CAML stands for Collaborative Application Markup Language and is an XML-based language that is used in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services to define sites and lists, including, for example, fields, views, or forms, but CAML is also used to define tables in the Windows SharePoint Services database during site provisioning.

what is a DWP?

The file extension of a web part.

what is the GAC?

Global Assembly Cache folder on the server hosting SharePoint. You place your assemblies there for web parts and services.

what are the differences between web part page gallery, site gallery, virtual server gallery and online gallery?

Web Part Page Gallery is the default gallery that comes installed with SharePoint. Site Gallery is specific to one site. Virtual Server gallery is specific to that virtual server and online gallery are downloadable web parts from Microsoft.

what is the difference between a site and a web?

The pages in a Web site generally cover one or more topics and are interconnected through hyperlinks. Most Web sites have a home page as their starting point. While a Web is simply a blank site with SharePoint functionality built in; meaning you have to create the site from the ground up.

What is Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services? How is it related to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Windows SharePoint Services is the solution that enables you to create Web sites for information sharing and document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Services — a key piece of the information worker infrastructure delivered in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 — provides additional functionality to the Microsoft Office system and other desktop applications, and it serves as a platform for application development.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on top of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to provide additional capabilities including collaboration, portal, search, enterprise content management, business process and forms, and business intelligence.

What is Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server?

SharePoint Portal Server is a portal server that connects people, teams, and knowledge across business processes. SharePoint Portal Server integrates information from various systems into one secure solution through single sign-on and enterprise application integration capabilities. It provides flexible deployment and management tools, and facilitates end-to-end collaboration through data aggregation, organization, and searching. SharePoint Portal Server also enables users to quickly find relevant information through customization and personalization of portal content and layout as well as through audience targeting.

What is Microsoft Windows Services?

Microsoft Windows Services is the engine that allows administrators to create Web sites for information sharing and document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Services provides additional functionality to the Microsoft Office System and other desktop applications, as well as serving as a plat form for application development. SharePoint sites provide communities for team

collaboration, enabling users to work together on documents, tasks, and projects. The environment for easy and flexible deployment, administration, and application development.

What is the relationship between Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and Microsoft Windows Services?

Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies (including SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services) deliver highly scalable collaboration solutions with flexible deployment and management tools. Windows SharePoint Services provides sites for team collaboration, while Share Point Portal Server connects these sites, people, and business processes—facilitating knowledge sharing and smart organizations. SharePoint Portal Server also extends the capabilities of Windows SharePoint Services by providing organizational and management tools for SharePoint sites, and by enabling teams to publish information to the entire organization.

Who is Office SharePoint Server 2007 designed for?

Office SharePoint Server 2007 can be used by information workers, IT administrators, and application developers.

is designed

What are the main benefits of Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides a single integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across the enterprise.

* Business users gain greater control over the storage, security, distribution, and management of their electronic content, with tools that are easy to use and tightly integrated into familiar, everyday applications.

* Organizations can accelerate shared business processes with customers and partners across organizational boundaries using InfoPath Forms Services–driven solutions.

* Information workers can find information and people efficiently and easily through the facilitated information-sharing functionality and simplified content publishing. In addition, access to back-end data is achieved easily through a browser, and views into this data can be personalized.

* Administrators have powerful tools at their fingertips that ease deployment, management, and system administration, so they can spend more time on strategic tasks.

* Developers have a rich platform to build a new class of applications, called Office Business Applications, that combine powerful developer functionality with the flexibility and ease of deployment of Office SharePoint Server 2007. Through the use of out-of-the-box application services, developers can build richer applications with less code.

What is the difference between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 have identical feature functionality. While the feature functionality is similar, the usage rights are different.

If you are creating an Internet, or Extranet, facing website, it is recommended that you use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites which does not require the purchase client access licenses. Websites hosted using an “Internet sites” edition can only be used for Internet facing websites and all content, information, and applications must be accessible to non-employees. Websites hosted using an “Internet sites” edition cannot be accessed by employees creating, sharing, or collaborating on content which is solely for internal use only, such as an Intranet Portal scenario. See the previous section on licensing for more information on the usage scenarios.

What suites of the 2007 Microsoft Office system work with Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Office Outlook 2007 provides bidirectional offline synchronization with SharePoint document libraries, discussion groups, contacts, calendars, and tasks.

Microsoft Office Groove 2007, included as part of Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, will enable bidirectional offline synchronization with SharePoint document libraries.

Features such as the document panel and the ability to publish to Excel Services will only be enabled when using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007or Office Enterprise 2007.

Excel Services will only work with documents saved in the new Office Excel 2007 file format (XLSX).

How do I invite users to join a Windows SharePoint Services Site? Is the site secure?

SharePoint-based Web sites can be password-protected to restrict access to registered users, who are invited to join via e-mail. In addition, the site administrator can restrict certain members' roles by assigning different permission levels to view post and edit.

Can I post any kind of document?

You can post documents in many formats, including .pdf, .htm and .doc. In addition, if you are using Microsoft Office XP, you can save documents directly to your Windows SharePoint Services site.

Can I download information directly from a SharePoint site to a personal digital assistant (PDA)?

No you cannot. However, you can exchange contact information lists with Microsoft Outlook.

How long does it take to set up the initial team Web site?

It only takes a few minutes to create a complete Web site. Preformatted forms let you and your team members contribute to the site by filling out lists. Standard forms include announcements, events, contacts, tasks, surveys, discussions and links.

Can I create custom templates?

Yes you can. You can have templates for business plans, doctor's office, lawyer's office etc.

How can I make my site public?

By default, all sites are created private.If you want your site to be a public Web site, enable anonymous access for the entire site. Then you can give out your URL to anybody in your business card, e-mail or any other marketing material. The URL for your Web site will be:

http:// yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com

Hence, please take special care to name your site.

These Web sites are ideal for information and knowledge intensive sites and/or sites where you need to have shared Web workspace.

Remember: Under each parent Web site, you can create up to 10 sub-sites each with unique permissions, settings and security rights

How do the sub sites work?

You can create a sub site for various categories. For example:

* Departments - finance, marketing, IT
* Products - electrical, mechanical, hydraulics
* Projects - Trey Research, Department of Transportation, FDA
* Team - Retention team, BPR team
* Clients - new clients, old clients
* Suppliers - Supplier 1, Supplier 2, Supplier 3
* Customers - Customer A, Customer B, Customer C
* Real estate - property A, property B

The URLs for each will be, for example:

* http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/finance

* http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/marketing

You can keep track of permissions for each team separately so that access is restricted while maintaining global access to the parent site.

How do I make my site non-restricted?

If you want your site to have anonymous access enabled (i.e., you want to treat it like any site on the Internet that does not ask you to provide a user name and password to see the content of the site), follow these simple steps:

# Login as an administrator

# Click on site settings

# Click on Go to Site Administration

# Click on Manage anonymous access

# Choose one of the three conditions on what Anonymous users can access:

** Entire Web site

** Lists and libraries

** Nothing

Default condition is nothing; your site has restricted access. The default conditions allow you to create a secure site for your Web site.

Can I get domain name for my Web site?

Unfortunately, no. At this point, we don't offer domain names for SharePoint sites. But very soon we will be making this available for all our SharePoint site customers. Please keep checking this page for further update on this. Meanwhile, we suggest you go ahead and set up your site and create content for it.

What are picture libraries?

Picture libraries allow you to access a photo album and view it as a slide show or thumbnails or a film strip. You can have separate folder for each event, category, etc

What are the advantages of a hosted SharePoint vs. one that is on an in-house server?

* No hardware investment, i.e. lower costs

* No software to download - ready to start from the word go

* No IT resources - Anyone who has used a Web program like Hotmail can use it

* Faster deployment

Can I ask users outside of my organization to participate in my Windows SharePoint Services site?

Yes. You can manage this process using the Administration Site Settings. Simply add users via their e-mail alias and assign permissions such as Reader or Contributor.

Are there any IT requirements or downloads required to set up my SharePoint site?

No. You do not need to download any code or plan for any IT support. Simply complete the on-line signup process and provide us your current and correct email address. Once you have successfully signed up and your site has been provisioned, we will send a confirmation to the email address you provided.

I am located outside of the United States. Are there any restrictions or requirements for accessing the Windows SharePoint Services?

No. There are no system or bandwidth limitations for international trial users. Additionally language packs have been installed which allow users to set up sub-webs in languages other than English. These include: Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish and Swedish.

Are there any browser recommendations?

Yes. Microsoft recommends using the following browsers for viewing and editing Windows SharePoint Services sites: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 with Service Pack 2, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 with Service Pack 2, Internet Explorer 6, Netscape Navigator 6.2 or later.

What security levels are assigned to users?

Security levels are assigned by the administrator who is adding the user. There are four levels by default and additional levels can be composed as necessary.

* Reader - Has read-only access to the Web site.

* Contributor - Can add content to existing document libraries and lists.

* Web Designer - Can create lists and document libraries and customize pages in the Web site.

* Administrator - Has full control of the Web site.

How secure are Windows SharePoint Services sites hosted by Microsoft?

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Technical security measures provide firewall protection, intrusion detection, and web-publishing rules. The Microsoft operation center team tests and deploys software updates in order to maintain the highest level of security and software reliability. Software hot-fixes and service packs are tested and deployed based on their priority and level of risk. Security related hot-fixes are rapidly deployed into the environment to address current threats. A comprehensive software validation activity ensures software stability through regression testing prior to deployment.

What is the difference between an Internet and an intranet site?

An internet site is a normal site that anyone on the internet can access (e.g., www.msn.com, www.microsoft.com, etc.). You can set up a site for your company that can be accessed by anyone without any user name and password.

An intranet (or internal network), though hosted on the Web, can only be accessed by people who are members of the network. They need to have a login and password that was assigned to them when they were added to the site by the site administrator.

What is a workspace?

A site or workspace is when you want a new place for collaborating on Web pages, lists and document libraries. For example, you might create a site to manage a new team or project, collaborate on a document or prepare for a meeting.

What are the various kinds of roles the users can have?

A user can be assigned one of the following roles

* Reader - Has read-only access to the Web site.

* Contributor - Can add content to existing document libraries and lists.

* Web Designer - Can create lists and document libraries and customize pages in the Web site.

* Administrator - Has full control of the Web site.

Can more than one person use the same login?

If the users sharing that login will have the same permissions and there is no fear of them sharing a password, then yes. Otherwise, this is discouraged.

How customizable is the user-to-user access?

User permissions apply to an entire Web, not to documents themselves. However, you can have additional sub webs that can optionally have their own permissions. Each user can be given any of four default roles. Additional roles can be defined by the administrator.

Can each user have access to their own calendar?

Yes there are two ways to do this,

* by creating a calendar for each user, or

* by creating a calendar with a view for each user

How many files can I upload?

There is no restriction in place except that any storage consumed beyond that provided by the base offering may have an additional monthly charge associated with them.

What types of files can I upload / post to the site?

The only files restricted are those ending with the following extensions: .asa, .asp, .ida, .idc, .idq. Microsoft reserves the right to add additional file types to this listing at any time. Also, no content that violates the terms of service may be uploaded or posted to the site.

Can SharePoint be linked to an external data source?

SharePoint data can be opened with Access and Excel as an external data source. Thus, SharePoint can be referenced as an external data source. SharePoint itself cannot reference an external data source.

Can SharePoint be linked to a SQL database?

This is possible via a custom application, but it not natively supported by SharePoint or SQL Server.

Can I customize my Windows SharePoint Services site?

YES! Windows SharePoint Services makes updating sites and their content from the browser easier then ever.

SharePoint includes tools that let you create custom lists, calendars, page views, etc. You can apply a theme; add List, Survey and Document Library Web Parts to a page; create personal views; change logos; connect Web Parts and more.

To fully customize your site, you can use Microsoft FrontPage 2003. Specifically, you can use FrontPage themes and shared borders, and also use FrontPage to create photo galleries and top ten lists, utilize standard usage reports, and integrate automatic Web content.

Will Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 run on a 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows?

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office Forms Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search will support 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003.

How Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help you?

Office SharePoint Server 2007 can help us:

Manage content and streamline processes. Comprehensively manage and control unstructured content like Microsoft Office documents, Web pages, Portable Document Format file (PDF) files, and e-mail messages. Streamline business processes that are a drain on organizational productivity.

Improve business insight. Monitor your business, enable better-informed decisions, and respond proactively to business events.

Find and share information more simply. Find information and expertise wherever they are located. Share knowledge and simplify working with others within and across organizational boundaries.

Empower IT to make a strategic impact. Increase responsiveness of IT to business needs and reduce the number of platforms that have to be maintained by supporting all the intranet, extranet, and Web applications across the enterprise with one integrated platform.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 capabilities can help improve organizational effectiveness by connecting people, processes, and information.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides these capabilities in an integrated server offering, so your organization doesn't have to integrate fragmented technology solutions itself.

What are the features that the portal components of Office SharePoint Server 2007 include?

The portal components of Office SharePoint Server 2007 include features that are especially useful for designing, deploying, and managing enterprise intranet portals, corporate Internet Web sites, and divisional portal sites. The portal components make it easier to connect to people within the organization who have the right skills, knowledge, and project experience.

What are the advanced features of MOSS 2007?

* User Interface (UI) and navigation enhancements

* Document management enhancements

* The new Workflow engine

* Office 2007 Integration

* New Web Parts

* New Site-type templates

* Enhancements to List technology

* Web Content Management

* Business Data Catalog

* Search enhancements

* Report Center

* Records Management

* Business Intelligence and Excel Server

* Forms Server and InfoPath

* The “Features” feature

* Alternate authentication providers and Forms-based authentication

What are the features of the new Content management in Office SharePoint 2007?

The new and enhanced content management features in Office SharePoint Server 2007 fall within three areas:

* Document management

* Records management

* Web content management

Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on the core document management functionality provided by Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, including check in and check out, versioning, metadata, and role-based granular access controls. Organizations can use this functionality to deliver enhanced authoring, business document processing, Web content management and publishing, records management, policy management, and support for multilingual publishing.

Does a SharePoint Web site include search functionality?

Yes. SharePoint Team Services provides a powerful text-based search feature that helps you find documents and information fast.

Write the features of the search component of Office SharePoint Server 2007?

The search component of Office SharePoint Server 2007 has been significantly enhanced by this release of SharePoint Products and Technologies. New features provide:

* A consistent and familiar search experience.

* Increased relevance of search results.

* New functions to search for people and expertise.

* Ability to index and search data in line-of-business applications and

* Improved manageability and extensibility.

What are the benefits of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?

* Provide a simple, familiar, and consistent user experience.

* Boost employee productivity by simplifying everyday business activities.

* Help meet regulatory requirements through comprehensive control over content.

* Effectively manage and repurpose content to gain increased business value.

* Simplify organization-wide access to both structured and unstructured information across disparate systems.

* Connect people with information and expertise.

* Accelerate shared business processes across organizational boundaries.

* Share business data without divulging sensitive information.

* Enable people to make better-informed decisions by presenting business-critical information in one central location.

* Provide a single, integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across the enterprise.

Will SharePoint Portal Server and Team Services ever merge?

The products will come together because they are both developed by the Office team.

What does partial trust mean the Web Part developer?

If an assembly is installed into the BIN directory, the code must be ensured that provides error handling in the event that required permissions are not available. Otherwise, unhandled security exceptions may cause the Web Part to fail and may affect page rendering on the page where the Web Part appears.

How can I raise the trust level for assemblies installed in the BIN directory?

Windows SharePoint Services can use any of the following three options from ASP.NET and the CLR to provide assemblies installed in the BIN directory with sufficient permissions. The following table outlines the implications and requirements for each option.

Option Pros Cons Increase the trust level for the entire virtual server. For more information, see "Setting the trust level for a virtual server" Easy to implement. In a development environment, increasing the trust level allows you to test an assembly with increased permissions while allowing you to recompile assemblies directly into the BIN directory without resetting IIS. This option is least secure. This option affects all assemblies used by the virtual server.

There is no guarantee the destination server has the required trust level. Therefore, Web Parts may not work once installed on the destination server.

Create a custom policy file for your assemblies. For more information, see "How do I create a custom policy file?" Recommended approach.

This option is most secure.

An assembly can operate with a unique policy that meets the minimum permission requirements for the assembly.

By creating a custom security policy, you can ensure the destination server can run your Web Parts.

Requires the most configuration of all three options.

Install your assemblies in the GAC

Easy to implement.

This grants Full trust to your assembly without affecting the trust level of assemblies installed in the BIN directory.

This option is less secure.

Assemblies installed in the GAC are available to all virtual servers and applications on a server running Windows SharePoint Services. This could represent a potential security risk as it potentially grants a higher level of permission to your assembly across a larger scope than necessary

In a development environment, you must reset IIS every time you recompile assemblies.

Licensing issues may arise due to the global availability of your assembly.

Does SharePoint work with NFS?

Yes and no. It can crawl documents on an NFS volume, but the sharepoint database or logs cannot be stored there.

How is SharePoint Portal Server different from the Site Server?

Site Server has search capabilities but these are more advanced using SharePoint. SPS uses digital dashboard technology which provides a nice interface for creating web parts and showing them on dashboards (pages). SS doesn't have anything as advanced as that. The biggest difference would be SPS document management features which also integrate with web folders and MS Office.

What would you like to see in the next version of SharePoint?

A few suggestions:

# SPS and STS on same machine

# Tree view of Categories and Folders

# General Discussion Web Part

# Personalization of Dashboards

# Role Customization

# Email to say WHY a document has been rejected for Approval

# More ways to customize the interface

# Backup and restore an individual Workspaces

# Filter for Visio

# Better way to track activity on SPS

Why Sharepoint is not a viable solution for enterprise wide deployments?

Document management does not scale beyond a single server, but scales great within a single server. For example, a quad Xeon machine with 4GB of RAM works great for a document management server that has about 900,000 - 1,000,000 document, but if you need to store 50,000,000 document and want to have them all in one single workspace then it does not scale at all. If you need a scenario like this, you need to plan your deployment right and it should scale for you, it just does not right out of the box.

If you are using your server as a portal and search server most for the most part it scales great. You can have many different servers crawl content sources and have separate servers searching and serving the content.

If you have <>

What are the actual advantages of SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) over SharePoint Team Services (STS)?

SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) has MUCH better document management. It has check-in, check-out, versioning, approval, publishing, subscriptions, categories, etc. STS does not have these features, or they are very scaled back. SharePoint team Services (SPS) has a better search engine, and can crawl multiple content sources. STS cannot. STS is easier to manage and much better for a team environment where there is not much Document Management going on. SPS is better for an organization, or where Document Management is crucial.

How Does SharePoint work?

The browser sends a DAV packet to IIS asking to perform a document check in. PKMDASL.DLL, an ISAPI DLL, parses the packet and sees that it has the proprietary INVOKE command. Because of the existence of this command, the packet is passed off to msdmserv.exe, who in turn processes the packet and uses EXOLEDB to access the WSS, perform the operation and send the results back to the user in the form of XML.

SharePoint Interview Questions

2009-12-11T22:24:00.000-08:00

Q What is SharePoint?

Ans: Portal Collaboration Software.

Q What is the difference between SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services?

Ans: SharePoint Portal Server is the global portal offering features like global navigation and searching. Windows SharePoint Services is more content management based with document libraries and lists. You apply information to certain areas within your portal from windows SharePoint Services or directly to portal areas.

Q What is a document library?
Ans: A document library is where you upload your core documents. They consist of a row and column view with links to the documents. When the document is updated so is the link on your site. You can also track metadata on your documents. Metadata would consist of document properties.

Q What is a meeting workspace?
Ans: A meeting workspace is a place to store information, attendees, and tasks related to a specific meeting.

Q What is a document workspace?
Ans: Document workspaces consist of information surrounding a single or multiple documents.

Q What is the difference between a document library and a form library?
Ans: Document libraries consist of your core documents. An example would be a word document, excel, PowerPoint, visio, pdf, etc… Form libraries consist of XML forms.

Q What is a web part zone?
Ans: Web part zones are what your web parts reside in and help categorize your web parts when designing a page.

Q How is security managed in SharePoint?
Ans: Security can be handled at the machine, domain, or SharePoint level.

Q How are web parts developed?
Ans: Web parts are developed in Visual Studio .Net. VS.Net offers many web part and page templates and can also be downloaded from the Microsoft Site.

Q What is a site definition?
Ans: It’s a method for providing prepackaged site and list content.

Q What is a template?
A template is a pre-defined set of functions or settings that can be used over time. There are many templates within SharePoint, Site Templates, Document Templates, Document Library and List Templates.

Q How do you install web parts?
Ans: Web Parts should be distributed as a .CAB (cabinet) file using the MSI Installer.

Q What is CAML?
Ans: CAML stands for Collaborative Application Markup Language and is an XML-based language that is used in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services to define sites and lists, including, for Eg, fields, views, or forms, but CAML is also used to define tables in the Windows SharePoint Servies database during site provisioning.

Q What is a DWP?
Ans: The file extension of a web part.

Q What is the GAC?
Ans: Global Assembly Cache folder on the server hosting SharePoint. You place your assemblies there for web parts and services to share them.

Q What are the differences between web part page gallery, site gallery, Virtual server gallery and online gallery?
Ans: Web Part Page Gallery is the default gallery that comes installed with SharePoint. Site Gallery is specific to one site. Virtual Server gallery is specific to that virtual server and online gallery is downloadable web parts from Microsoft.

Q What is the difference between a site and a web?
Ans: The pages in a web site generally cover one or more topics and are interconnected through hyperlinks. Most Web sites have a home page as their starting point. While a Web is simply a blank site with SharePoint functionality built in; meaning you have to create the site from the ground up.

Q What is Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services? How is it related to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?
Ans: Windows SharePoint Services is the solution that enables you to create Web site for information sharing and document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Services — a key piece of the information worker infrastructure delivered in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 — provides additional functionality to the Microsoft Office system and other desktop applications, and it serves as a platform for application development. Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on top of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to provide additional capabilities including collaboration, portal, search, Enterprise content management, business process and forms, and business intelligence.

Q. Who is Office SharePoint server 2007 designed for?
Ans: Office SharePoint Server 2007 can be used by information workers, IT administrators, and application developers.

Q. What are the main benefits of Office SharePoint Server 2007?
Ans: Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides a single integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across the enterprise.

* Business users gain greater control over the storage, security, distribution, and management of their electronic content, with tools that are easy to use and tightly integrated into familiar, everyday applications.

* Organizations can accelerate shared business processes with customers and partners across organizational boundaries using InfoPath Forms Services–driven solutions.

* Information workers can find information and people efficiently and easily through the facilitated information-sharing functionality and simplified content publishing. In addition, access to back-end data is achieved easily through a browser, and views into this data can be personalized.

* Administrators have powerful tools at their fingertips that ease deployment, management, and system administration, so they can spend more time on strategic tasks.

* Developers have a rich platform to build a new class of applications, called Office Business Applications that combine powerful developer functionality with the flexibility and ease of deployment of Office SharePoint Server 2007. Through the use of out-of-the-box application services, developers can build richer applications with less code.

Q. What is the difference between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?
Ans: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server2007 have identical feature functionality. While the feature functionality is similar, the usage rights are different. If you are creating an Internet, or Extranet, facing website, it is recommended that you use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet sites which does not require the purchase client access licenses. Websites hosted using an “Internet sites” edition can only be used for Internet facing websites and all content, information, and applications must be accessible to nonemployees. Websites hosted using an “Internet sites” edition cannot be accessed by employees creating, sharing, or collaborating on content which is solely for internal use only, such as an Intranet Portal scenario.

Q.What suites of the 2007 Microsoft Office system work with Office SharePoint Server 2007?
Ans: Office Outlook 2007 provides bidirectional offline Synchronization with SharePoint document libraries, discussion groups, contacts, calendars, and tasks.vabnix.page.tlMicrosoft Office Groove 2007, included as part of Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, will enable bidirectional offline synchronization with SharePoint document libraries. Features such as the document panel and the ability to publish to Excel Services will only be enabled when using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007or Office Enterprise 2007.Excel Services will only work with documents saved in the new Office Excel 2007 file format(XLSX).

Q. How do I invite users to join a Windows SharePoint Services Site? Is the site secure?
Ans: SharePoint-based Web sites can be password-protected to restrict access to registered users, who’re invited to join via e-mail. In addition, the site administrator can restrict certain members' roles by assigning different permission levels to view post and edit.

Q Can I post any kind of document?
Ans: You can post documents in many formats, including .pdf, .htm and .doc. In addition, if you are using Microsoft Office XP, you can save documents directly to your Windows SharePoint Services site.

Q Can I create custom templates?
Ans: Yes you can. You can have templates for business plans, doctor's office, lawyer's office etc.

Q. How can I make My site public?
Ans: By default, all sites are created private. If you want your site to be a public Web site, enable anonymous access for the entire site. Then you can give out your URL to anybody in your business card, e-mail or any other marketing material. The URL for your Web site will be: http:// yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com hence, please take special care to name your site. These Web sites are ideal for information and knowledge intensive sites and/or sites where you need to have shared Web workspace. Remember: Under each parent Web site, you can create up to 10 sub-sites each with unique permissions, settings and security rights.

Q. How do the sub sites work?
Ans: You can create a sub site for various categories.
For example:* Departments - finance, marketing, IT* Products - electrical, mechanical, hydraulics* Projects - Trey Research, Department of Transportation, FDA* Team - Retention team, BPR team* Clients - new clients, old clients* Suppliers - Supplier 1, Supplier 2, Supplier 3* Customers - Customer A, Customer B, Customer C* Real estate - property A, property The URLs for each will be, for example:* http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/finance* http://yoursitename.wss.bcentral.com/marketingYou can keep track of permissions for each team separately so that access is restricted while vabnix.page.tl maintaining global access to the parent site.

Q.How do I make my site non-restricted?
Ans: If you want your site to have anonymous access enabled (i.e., you want to treat it like any site on the Internet that does not ask you to provide a user name and password to see the content of the site), follow these simple steps:

# Login as an administrator
# Click on site settings
# Click on Go to Site Administration
# Click on Manage anonymous access
# Choose one of the three conditions on what Anonymous users can access:** Entire Web site** Lists and libraries** NothingDefault condition is nothing; your site has restricted access.
The default conditions allow you to create a secure site for your Web site.

Q. Can I ask users outside of my organization to participate in my Windows SharePoint Services site?
Ans: Yes. You can manage this process using the Administration Site Settings. Simply add users via their e-mail alias and assign permissions such as Reader or Contributor.

Q. Are there any restrictions or requirements for accessing the Windows SharePoint Services?

Ans: No. There are no system or bandwidth limitations for international trial users. Additionally language packs have been installed which allow users to set up sub-webs in languages other than English. These include: Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish and Swedish.

Q. Are there any browser recommendations?
Ans: Yes. Microsoft recommends using the following browsers for viewing and editing Windows SharePoint Services sites: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 with Service Pack 2, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 with Service Pack 2, Internet Explorer 6, Netscape Navigator
6.2 or later.vabnix.page.

Q.What security levels are assigned to users?
Ans: Security levels are assigned by the administrator who is adding the user. There are four levels by default and additional levels can be composed as necessary.
* Reader - Has read-only access to the Web site.
* Contributor - Can add content to existing document libraries and lists.
* Web Designer - Can create lists and document libraries and customize pages in the Web site.
* Administrator - Has full control of the Web site.

Q.What is the difference between an Internet and an intranet site?
Ans: An internet site is a normal site that anyone on the internet can access (e.g., www.msn.com, www.microsoft.com, etc.). You can set up a site for your company that can be accessed by anyone without any user name and password. An intranet (or internal network), though hosted on the Web, can only be accessed by people who’re members of the network. They need to have a login and password that was assigned to them when they were added to the site by the site administrator.

Q. What is a workspace?
Ans: A site or workspace is when you want a new place for collaborating on Web pages, lists and document libraries. For example, you might create a site to manage a new team or project, collaborate on a document or prepare for a meeting.

Q.How customizable is the user-to-user access?
Ans: User permissions apply to an entire Web, not to documents themselves. However, you can have additional sub webs that can optionally have their own permissions. Each user can be given any of four default roles. Additional roles can be defined by the administrator.

Q.Can each user have access to their own calendar?
Ans: Yes there are two ways to do this,
* by creating a calendar for each user, or
* by creating a calendar with a view for each user.

Q. What types of files can I upload / post to the site?
Ans: The only files restricted are those ending with the following extensions: .asa, .asp, .ida, .idc, .idq.Microsoft reserves the right to add additional file types to this listing at any time. Also, no content that violates the terms of service may be uploaded or posted to the site.

Q.Can SharePoint be linked to an external data source?
Ans: SharePoint data can be opened with Access and Excel as an external data source. Thus, SharePoint can be referenced as an external data source. SharePoint itself cannot reference an external data source.

Q. Can SharePoint be linked to a SQL database?
Ans: This is possible via a custom application, but it not natively supported by SharePoint or SQLServer.

Q.Can I customize my Windows SharePoint Services site?
Ans: YES! Windows SharePoint Services makes updating sites and their content from the browser easier then ever. SharePoint includes tools that let you create custom lists, calendars, page views, etc. You can apply a theme; add List, Survey and Document Library Web Parts to a page; create personal views; change logos; connect Web Parts and more. To fully customize your site, you can use Microsoft FrontPage 2003. Specifically, you can use FrontPage themes and shared borders, and also use FrontPage to create photo galleries and top ten lists, utilize standard usage reports, and integrate automatic Web content.

Q. Will Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 run on a 64-bit version of MicrosoftWindows?

Ans: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office Forms Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search will support 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003.

Q. What are the features that the portal components of Office SharePoint Server 2007 include?

Ans: The portal components of Office SharePoint Server 2007 include features that are especially useful for designing, deploying, and managing enterprise intranet portals, corporate Internet Websites, and divisional portal sites. The portal components make it easier to connect to people within the organization who have the right skills, knowledge, and project experience.

Q.What is the advanced features of MOSS 2007?
Ans: * User Interface (UI) and navigation enhancements
* Document management enhancements
* The new Workflow engine
* Office 2007 Integration
* New Web Parts
* New Site-type templates
* Enhancements to List technology
* Web Content Management
* Business Data Catalog
* Search enhancements
* Report Center
* Records Management
* Business Intelligence and Excel Server
* Forms Server and InfoPath
* The “Features” feature
* Alternate authentication providers and Forms-based authentication

Q.What are the features of the new Content management in Office SharePoint 2007?
Ans: The new and enhanced content management features in Office SharePoint Server 2007 fall within three areas:

* Document management
* Records management.
* Web content management Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on the core document management functionality provided by Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, including check in and check out, versioning, metadata, and role-based granular access controls. Organizations can use this functionality to deliver enhanced authoring, business document processing, Web content management and publishing, records management, policy management, and support for multilingual publishing.

Q.Does a SharePoint Web site includes search functionality?
Ans: Yes. SharePoint Team Services provides a powerful text-based search feature that helps you find documents and information fast.

Q.What are the benefits of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?
Ans: * Provide a simple, familiar, and consistent user experience.* Boost employee productivity by simplifying everyday business activities.* Help meet regulatory requirements through comprehensive control over content.* Effectively manage and repurpose content to gain increased business value.* Simplify organization-wide access to both structured and unstructured information across disparate systems.* Connect people with information and expertise.* Accelerate shared business processes across organizational boundaries.* Share business data without divulging sensitive information.* Enable people to make better-informed decisions by presenting business-critical information in one central location.* Provide a single, integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across the enterprise.

Q.Will SharePoint Portal Server and Team Services ever merge?
Ans: The products will come together because they are both developed by the Office team.

Q.What does partial trust means the Web Part developer?
Ans: If an assembly is installed into the BIN directory, the code must be ensured that provides error handling in the event that required permissions are not available. Otherwise, unhandled security exceptions may cause the Web Part to fail and may affect page rendering on the page where the Web Part appears.

Q.How can I raise the trust level for assemblies installed in the BIN directory?
Ans: Windows SharePoint Services can use any of the following three options from ASP.NET and the CLR to provide assemblies installed in the BIN directory with sufficient permissions. The following table outlines the implications and requirements for each option.

1.Option Pros Cons Increase the trust level for the entire virtual server.
In a development environment,increasing the trust level allows you to test an assembly with increased permissions while allowing you to recompile assemblies directly into the BIN directory without resetting IIS. This option is least secure. This option affects all assemblies used by the virtual server.There is no guarantee the destination server has the required trust level. Therefore, Web Parts may not work once installed on the destination server.

2.Create a custom policy file for your assemblies. For more information, see "How do I create acustom policy file?" Recommended approach.This option is most secure.An assembly can operate with a unique policy that meets the minimum permission requirementsfor the assembly.By creating a custom security policy, you can ensure the destination server can run your WebParts.

3.Requires the most configuration of all three options.Install your assemblies in the GACEasy to implement.This grants Full trust to your assembly without affecting the trust level of assemblies installed inthe BIN directory.This option is less secure.Assemblies installed in the GAC are available to all virtual servers and applications on a serverrunning Windows SharePoint Services. This could represent a potential security risk as itpotentially grants a higher level of permission to your assembly across a larger scope thannecessaryIn a development environment, you must reset IIS every time you recompile assemblies.Licensing issues may arise due to the global availability of your assembly.

Q. Does SharePoint work with NFS?Yes and no.
Ans: It can crawl documents on an NFS volume, but the sharepoint database or logs cannotbe stored there.

Q.How is SharePoint Portal Server different from the Site Server?
Ans: Site Server has search capabilities but these are more advanced using SharePoint. SPS uses digital dashboard technology which provides a nice interface for creating web parts and showing them ondashboards (pages). SS doesn't have anything as advanced as that. The biggest difference wouldbe SPS document management features which also integrate with web folders and MS Office.

MOSS Architecture and Shared Services

2009-12-11T22:08:00.000-08:00

MOSS Architecture and Shared Services

I have been doing some work recently on MOSS architecture for large deployments and thought that I’d share some of my findings. MOSS architecture is very similar to SharePoint 2003 in some ways but different in a few crucial areas.

So what is the same?

MOSS adopts a typical 3-tier model with web servers at the front, application servers in the middle and a database server at the back where all the data and config is stored.

The front-end web servers are simple web servers that can be network load balanced to achieve additional performance and fault tolerance (like 2003). The backend database is a typical SQL 2005 database service and can be clustered as you’d expect.

So what is different?

The interesting bit is what goes on in the middle. With MOSS, it is mandatory to have a Shared Service Provider. This is a collection of application servers that provide shared services out to any portals or sites that need them. These services include:

Search
Index
Audience compilation
User profiles database
My Sites
Business Data Catalogue
Excel Services

Any of the above services can exist on any number of servers within the SSP. For example, for a small-ish deployment you could have them all on one box, or you could scale them out onto different boxes as you see fit. There are no rules that govern where these services reside within the SSP or how many servers you have servicing them (with the exception of the Index server - only one per SSP). For example if you want 10 search servers – got for it ... “fill your boots” as we’d say here in England!

This model is very similar to the 2003 approach with one crucial difference, the SSP has no portal affiliation. This means that you are not forced to have a specific parent/child style portal topology in order to use Shared Services which was one of the big sticking points with Sharepoint 2003 shared services.

So what does the ‘Portal’ actually do now?

For starters, it is now called ‘Collaboration Portal', not ‘portal’ and it is just another type of site collection that is hosted on an IIS site (called web applications in MOSS). Portals no longer contain any application services such as search, my site etc – all these services now have to come from an SSP. This means that all you need to host a portal is a web server and a place to put the content database.

Different portals can live on their own hardware which is completely isolated from any other hardware other than the fact that it consumes services from a centrally managed SSP. Alternatively, you can put some of your portals on shared hardware and some on dedicated.

I always hear requirements around different business units wanting their own portal which has its own visual style, custom webparts, different SLAs etc . With this model, there does not have to be any affiliation between any portals or sites if it is not required.

This diagram outlines the logic of how SSP provide services that are consumed by several site collections:

So does this mean that ‘Supported Farm configurations’ have gone?

In short, yes!

This model means that you can scale any element of the system out as you see fit. However, there are several recommended server layouts that will meet most scenarios. These broadly follow the small, medium and large models of Sharepoint 2003, but should be considered as starting points only. You can easily deviate to a different setup depending on your requirements.

So how does all this map to physical servers?

All three tiers (web, application, database) of the SharePoint model can be hosted on a single machine or scaled out to a huge collection of servers to meet the requirements.

Most organisations will want some level of fault tolerance and separation between server roles. Typically these kind of organisations will have at least 2 web servers running your portals and sites, at least one application server hosting all services (maybe a second for fault tolerance) and one database cluster. This diagram shows this model:

Larger organisations may want to have separate web servers for each of their portals, sites and my sites. They may also have multiple application servers as part of the SSP. This diagram describes this model:

I hope this was usefull. There is an increasing amount of content on the public Microsoft sites now about this stuff, so be sure to have a dig around.

All about SSP in MOSS 2007

2009-12-11T22:05:00.000-08:00

An SSP host the services that will be used ( consumed ) by any associated Web applications. These services include :

Profiles
Audiences
Business Data Catalog Connections
Search and Indexing
Single Sign On
Excel Services
Usage Reporting

A Web Application is a web site in IIS that hosts the Site Collections. When this Web application is associated with an SSP all the sites that belong to this Web application will now use the services listed above that are configured on the SSP.

A Web application is also used to host the actual SSP. So you first create a web application - then create your first SSP - Then create anther web application - then create your first Top Level Site Collection to use this new Web Application. By default this new Web application and site collection will be associated automatically with your SSP.

Prior to creating your Site Collections you should configure your SSP services as much as you can to ensure all is well just in case you need to create a new SSP and delete the first one.

What is SharePoint?

2009-10-26T22:09:00.000-07:00

What is SharePoint?

SharePoint is an enterprise information portal, from Microsoft, that can be configured to run Intranet, Extranet and Internet sites. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 allows people, teams and expertise to connect and collaborate. A SharePoint enterprise portal is composed of both SharePoint Portal and Windows SharePoint Services, with SharePoint being built upon WSS. WSS is typically used by small teams, projects and companies. SharePoint Server is designed for individuals, teams and projects within a medium to large company wide enterprise portal.

Some SharePoint facts:

• SharePoint is the fastest-growing product in the history of Microsoft
• Over 100 million licenses of SharePoint have been sold worldwide
• SharePoint has been adopted by over 17,000 companies worldwide
• SharePoint is listed, by Forrester, as the number 1 portal product
• SharePoint is positioned as a leader within the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals products
• In 2008 sales of SharePoint surpassed 1 billion US dollars

Why should you use SharePoint?

• As companies grow so does the amount of their files. It soon becomes difficult to keep track of the multiplying documents and their locations. SharePoint overcomes this by allowing you to store and share your files in a central site.

• Sharing work files through email is a cumbersome process. SharePoint eliminates this by allowing files to be stored in one location, allowing easy access to all team members.

• Business Intelligence has traditionally remained in the hands of a few key decision makers within organizations. For years, it has been the goal of BI providers to “democratize business intelligence” by making it available to all levels of workers throughout companies. With the addition of PerformancePoint to the SharePoint Enterprise version of SharePoint, this vision is realized, finally taking business intelligence out of the hands of the few and into the hands of many.

• Today’s work occurs over multiple locations, whether it is in different countries, office locations, separate departments or at your home office. SharePoint enables teams and individuals to connect and collaborate together regardless of where they are located.

• Surveys have shown that employees can spend up to 20 – 30 % of their day searching for data and information. SharePoint eliminates this drag on productivity by providing the robust search functionality needed to find the information and expertise buried in the thousands, or hundreds of thousands of files a company generates in the course of business.

• It’s difficult and time consuming to create and maintain sites. SharePoint allows anyone to create sites for use within their company’s Intranet, as they are needed, whether they are departmental sites, document libraries, meetings sites, survey sites, or discussion boards

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a collaborative enterprise portal that is built upon WSS 3.0. MOSS 2007 allows people, teams and expertise to connect and collaborate. Unlike WSS, SharePoint Server is not free and requires an additional license. MOSS 2007 comes in two versions – Standard and Enterprise.

The main components of SharePoint 2007 are collaboration, portals, enterprise search, enterprise content management, business process and forms, and business intelligence. Previous versions of SharePoint Server included SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and before that SharePoint Portal Server 2001. To preview SharePoint’s new features visit the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 demo.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is the platform on which all SharePoint Products and Technologies are built. WSS 3.0 is for is suitable for small teams, projects and organizations.

WSS’s project collaboration, document workspace, meeting sub-site, and discussion board features allow individuals and small teams to collaborate and share information online. Past versions of Windows SharePoint Services included Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 and SharePoint Team Services. New features in WSS 3.0 include integrated workflows, RSS feeds, blogs, wikis and ASP-style Web parts. To preview more of WSS 3.0’s new features visit the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 demo.

SharePoint Designer 2007

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 is the next generation of Microsoft FrontPage that enables both the design and customization of SharePoint 2007 sites. SharePoint Designer 2007 allows organizations to automate common business processes through simple or complex custom workflows. Corporations can apply their corporate branding to their SharePoint portal providing a unified look and feel to all their end users. Companies can also create customized SharePoint sites based upon the unique needs of your company's end users, teams, or departments without having to turn to outside consultants. In 2008, Microsoft made SharePoint Designer 2007 available for free. To download your free copy of SharePoint Designer visit Microsoft at the SharePoint Designer 2007 home page.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Top 10 Benefits

Provide a simple, familiar, and consistent user experience.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 is tightly integrated with familiar client desktop applications, e-mail, and Web browsers to provide a consistent user experience that simplifies how people interact with content, processes, and business data. This tight integration, coupled with robust out-of-the-box functionality, helps you employ services themselves and facilitates product adoption.

Boost employee productivity by simplifying everyday business activities.

Take advantage of out-of-the-box workflows for initiating, tracking, and reporting common business activities such as document review and approval, issue tracking, and signature collection. You can complete these activities without any coding. Tight integration with familiar client applications, e-mail, and Web browsers provide you with a simple, consistent experience. Modifying and extending these out-of-the-box workflow processes is made easy through tools like Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (the next release of Microsoft Office FrontPage).

Help meet regulatory requirements through comprehensive control over content.

By specifying security settings, storage policies, auditing policies, and expiration actions for business records in accordance with compliance regulations, you can help ensure your sensitive business information can be controlled and managed effectively. And you can reduce litigation risk for your organization. Tight integration of Office SharePoint Server 2007 with familiar desktop applications means that policy settings are rendered onto client applications in the Microsoft Office system, making it simpler for employees to be aware of and comply with regulatory requirements.

Effectively manage and repurpose content to gain increased business value.

Business users and content authors can create and submit content for approval and scheduled deployment to intranet or Internet sites. Managing multilingual content is simplified through new document library templates that are specifically designed to maintain a relationship between the original version and different translations of a document.

Simplify organization-wide access to both structured and unstructured information across disparate systems. Give your users access to business data found in common line-of-business systems like SAP and Siebel through Office SharePoint Server 2007. Users can also create personalized views and interactions with business systems through a browser by dragging configurable back-end connections. Enterprise-wide Managed Document Repositories help your organizations store and organize business documents in one central location.

Connect people with information and expertise.

Enterprise Search in Office SharePoint Server 2007 incorporates business data along with information about documents, people, and Web pages to produce comprehensive, relevant results. Features like duplicate collapsing, spelling correction, and alerts improve the relevance of the results, so you can easily find what you need.

Accelerate shared business processes across organizational boundaries.

Without coding any custom applications, you can use smart, electronic forms–driven solutions to collect critical business information from customers, partners, and suppliers through a Web browser. Built-in data validation rules help you gather accurate and consistent data that can be directly integrated into back-end systems to avoid redundancy and errors that result from manual data re-entry.

Share business data without divulging sensitive information.

Give your employees access to real-time, interactive Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets from a Web browser through Excel Services running on Office SharePoint Server 2007. Use these spreadsheets to maintain and efficiently share one central and up-to-date version while helping to protect any proprietary information embedded in the documents (such as financial models).

Enable people to make better-informed decisions by presenting business-critical information in one central location.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 makes it easy to create live, interactive business intelligence (BI) portals that assemble and display business-critical information from disparate sources, using integrated BI capabilities such as dashboards, Web Parts, scorecards, key performance indicators (KPIs), and business data connectivity technologies. Centralized Report Center sites give users a single place for locating the latest reports, spreadsheets, or KPIs.

Provide a single, integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across the enterprise.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 is built on an open, scalable architecture, with support for Web services and interoperability standards including XML and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). The server has rich, open application programming interfaces (APIs) and event handlers for lists and documents. These features provide integration with existing systems and the flexibility to incorporate new non-Microsoft IT investments.

Top 10 Benefits of Windows SharePoint Services

Improve team productivity with easy-to-use collaborative tools

Connect people with the information and resources they need. Users can create team workspaces, coordinate calendars, organize documents, and receive important notifications and updates through communication features including announcements and alerts, as well as the new templates for creating blogs and wikis. While mobile, users can take advantage of convenient offline synchronization capabilities.

Easily manage documents and help ensure integrity of content

With enhanced document management capabilities including the option to activate required document checkout before editing, the ability to view revisions to documents and restore to previous versions, and the control to set document- and item-level security, Windows SharePoint Services can help ensure the integrity of documents stored on team sites.

Get users up to speed quickly

User interface improvements in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 include enhanced views and menus that simplify navigation within and among SharePoint sites. Integration with familiar productivity tools, including programs in the Microsoft Office system, makes it easy for users to get up to speed quickly. For example, users can create workspaces, post and edit documents, and view and update calendars on SharePoint sites, all while working within Microsoft Office system files and programs.

Deploy solutions tailored to your business processes

While standard workspaces in Windows SharePoint Services are easy to implement, organizations seeking a more customized deployment can get started quickly with application templates for addressing specific business processes or sets of tasks.

Build a collaboration environment quickly and easily

Easy to manage and easy to scale, Windows SharePoint Services enables IT departments to deploy a collaborative environment with minimal administrative time and effort, from simple, single-server configurations to more robust enterprise configurations. Because deployment settings can be flexibly changed, less pre-planning time is required and companies can get started even faster.

Reduce the complexity of securing business information

Windows SharePoint Services provides IT with advanced administrative controls for increasing the security of information resources, while decreasing cost and complexity associated with site provisioning, site management, and support. Take advantage of better controls for site life-cycle management, site memberships and permissions, and storage limits.

Provide sophisticated controls for securing company resources

IT departments can now set permissions as deep down as the document or item level, and site managers, teams, and other work groups can initiate self-service collaborative workspaces and tasks within these preset parameters. New features enable IT to set top-down policies for better content recovery and users, groups, and team workspace site administration.

Take file sharing to a new level with robust storage capabilities

Windows SharePoint Services supplies workspaces with document storage and retrieval features, including check-in/check-out functionality, version history, custom metadata, and customizable views. New features in Windows SharePoint Services include enhanced recycle bin functionality for easier recovery of content and improved backup and restoration.

Easily scale your collaboration solution to meet business needs

Quickly and easily manage and configure Windows SharePoint Services using a Web browser or command-line utilities. Manage server farms, servers, and sites using the Microsoft .NET Framework, which enables a variety of custom and third-party administration solution offerings.

Provide a cost-effective foundation for building Web-based applications

Windows SharePoint Services exposes a common framework for document management and collaboration from which flexible and scalable Web applications and Internet sites, specific to the needs of the organization, can be built. Integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 expands these capabilities further to offer enterprise-wide functionality for records management, search, workflows, portals, personalized sites, and more.

See more in

2009-04-07T02:43:00.000-07:00

http://dksinha.wordpress.com/

sanjeev.net: SQL server 2005 : TOP Clause

2009-02-04T22:44:00.000-08:00

>net blog

Why CLR called Virtual Execution System (VES) ??

2009-02-03T01:24:00.000-08:00

Virtual Execution System (VES)

The VES (usually referred to as the runtime) is the environment in which the CIL byte code is executed. The VES reads the byte code generated by the C# compiler and uses something called a Just in Time (JIT) compiler to compile the byte code down to the native machine code of the processor on which it is running. While this code is executing it does so in conjunction with a runtime agent which essentially manages the execution process. As a result, this executing code is known as managed code and the process handles issues such as garbage collection (to handle memory allocation and deallocation), memory access and type safety to ensure that the code does not do anything it is not supposed to do.
A term that is often used in connection with the VES is the Common Language Runtime (CLR). The CLR is officially the name given to Microsoft's implementation of the VES component of the CLI specification.
It is worth noting that the JIT process can introduce a startup delay on execution of an application. One option available with .Net to avoid this problem is to pre-compile CLI byte code down to native machine code using the NGEN compiler. Because the NGEN compilation must take place on the target processor architecture this is step is often performed at the point that the application in question is installed by the user.

ASp.net Faq

2009-02-02T00:23:00.000-08:00

1. What is CLR?

Common Language Runtime (CLR) is a run-time environment that manages the execution of .NET code and provides services like memory management, debugging, security, etc. The CLR is also known as Virtual Execution System (VES).

2. What is CLI?

The CLI is a set of specifications for a runtime environment, including a common type system, base class library, and a machine-independent intermediate code known as the Common Intermediate Language (CIL). (Source: Wikipedia.)

3. List the various stages of Page-Load lifecycle.

o Init()

o Load()

o PreRender()

o Unload()

4. Explain Assembly and Manifest.

An assembly is a collection of one or more files and one of them (DLL or EXE) contains a special metadata called Assembly Manifest. The manifest is stored as binary data and contains details like versioning requirements for the assembly, the author, security permissions, and list of files forming the assembly. An assembly is created whenever a DLL is built. The manifest can be viewed programmatically by making use of classes from the System.Reflection namespace. The tool Intermediate Language Disassembler (ILDASM) can be used for this purpose. It can be launched from the command prompt or via Start> Run.

5. What is Shadow Copy?

In order to replace a COM component on a live web server, it was necessary to stop the entire website, copy the new files and then restart the website. This is not feasible for the web servers that need to be always running. .NET components are different. They can be overwritten at any time using a mechanism called Shadow Copy. It prevents the Portable Executable (PE) files like DLLs and EXEs from being locked. Whenever new versions of the PEs are released, they are automatically detected by the CLR and the changed components will be automatically loaded. They will be used to process all new requests not currently executing, while the older version still runs the currently executing requests. By bleeding out the older version, the update is completed.

6. What is DLL Hell?

DLL hell is the problem that occurs when an installation of a newer application might break or hinder other applications as newer DLLs are copied into the system and the older applications do not support or are not compatible with them. .NET overcomes this problem by supporting multiple versions of an assembly at any given time. This is also called side-by-side component versioning.

7. Explain Web Services.

Web services are programmable business logic components that provide access to functionality through the Internet. Standard protocols like HTTP can be used to access them. Web services are based on the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), which is an application of XML. Web services are given the .asmx extension.

8. Explain Windows Forms.

Windows Forms is employed for developing Windows GUI applications. It is a class library that gives developers access to Windows Common Controls with rich functionality. It is a common GUI library for all the languages supported by the .NET Framework.

9. What is Postback?

When an action occurs (like button click), the page containing all the controls within the tag performs an HTTP POST, while having itself as the target URL. This is called Postback.

10. Explain the differences between server-side and client-side code?

Server side scripting means that all the script will be executed by the server and interpreted as needed. Client side scripting means that the script will be executed immediately in the browser such as form field validation, clock, email validation, etc. Client side scripting is usually done in VBScript or JavaScript. Since the code is included in the HTML page, anyone can see the code by viewing the page source. It also poses as a possible security hazard for the client computer.

11. Enumerate the types of Directives.

o @ Page directive

o @ Import directive

o @ Implements directive

o @ Register directive

o @ Assembly directive

o @ OutputCache directive

o @ Reference directive

12. What is Code-Behind?

Code-Behind is a concept where the contents of a page are in one file and the server-side code is in another. This allows different people to work on the same page at the same time and also allows either part of the page to be easily redesigned, with no changes required in the other. An Inherits attribute is added to the @ Page directive to specify the location of the Code-Behind file to the ASP.NET page.

13. Describe the difference between inline and code behind.

Inline code is written along side the HTML in a page. There is no separate distinction between design code and logic code. Code-behind is code written in a separate file and referenced by the .aspx page.

14. What is Data Binding?

Data binding is a way used to connect values from a collection of data (e.g. DataSet) to the controls on a web form. The values from the dataset are automatically displayed in the controls without having to write separate code to display them.

15. Describe Paging in ASP.NET.

The DataGrid control in ASP.NET enables easy paging of the data. The AllowPaging property of the DataGrid can be set to True to perform paging. ASP.NET automatically performs paging and provides the hyperlinks to the other pages in different styles, based on the property that has been set for PagerStyle.Mode.

16. Should user input data validation occur server-side or client-side? Why?

All user input data validation should occur on the server and minimally on the client-side, though it is a good way to reduce server load and network traffic because we can ensure that only data of the appropriate type is submitted from the form. It is totally insecure. The user can view the code used for validation and create a workaround for it. Secondly, the URL of the page that handles the data is freely visible in the original form page. This will allow unscrupulous users to send data from their own forms to your application. Client-side validation can sometimes be performed where deemed appropriate and feasible to provide a richer, more responsive experience for the user.

17. What is the difference between Server.Transfer and Response.Redirect?

o Response.Redirect: This tells the browser that the requested page can be found at a new location. The browser then initiates another request to the new page loading its contents in the browser. This results in two requests by the browser.

o Server.Transfer: It transfers execution from the first page to the second page on the server. As far as the browser client is concerned, it made one request and the initial page is the one responding with content. The benefit of this approach is one less round trip to the server from the client browser. Also, any posted form variables and query string parameters are available to the second page as well.

18. What is an interface and what is an abstract class?

In an interface, all methods must be abstract (must not be defined). In an abstract class, some methods can be defined. In an interface, no accessibility modifiers are allowed, whereas it is allowed in abstract classes.

19. Session state vs. View state:

In some cases, using view state is not feasible. The alternative for view state is session state. Session state is employed under the following situations:

o Large amounts of data - View state tends to increase the size of both the HTML page sent to the browser and the size of form posted back. Hence session state is used.

o Secure data - Though the view state data is encoded and may be encrypted, it is better and secure if no sensitive data is sent to the client. Thus, session state is a more secure option.

o Problems in serializing of objects into view state - View state is efficient for a small set of data. Other types like DataSet are slower and can generate a very large view state.

20. Can two different programming languages be mixed in a single ASPX file?

ASP.NET’s built-in parsers are used to remove code from ASPX files and create temporary files. Each parser understands only one language. Therefore mixing of languages in a single ASPX file is not possible.

21. Is it possible to see the code that ASP.NET generates from an ASPX file?

By enabling debugging using a <%@ Page Debug="true" %> directive in the ASPX file or a statement in Web.config, the generated code can be viewed. The code is stored in a CS or VB file (usually in the \%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.0.nnnn\Temporary ASP.NET Files).

22. Can a custom .NET data type be used in a Web form?

This can be achieved by placing the DLL containing the custom data type in the application root's bin directory and ASP.NET will automatically load the DLL when the type is referenced.

23. List the event handlers that can be included in Global.asax?

o Application start and end event handlers

o Session start and end event handlers

o Per-request event handlers

o Non-deterministic event handlers

24. Can the view state be protected from tampering?

This can be achieved by including an @ Page directive with an EnableViewStateMac="true" attribute in each ASPX file that has to be protected. Another way is to include the statement in the Web.config file.

25. Can the view state be encrypted?

The view state can be encrypted by setting EnableViewStateMac to true and either modifying the element in Machine.config to or by adding the above statement to Web.config.

26. When during the page processing cycle is ViewState available?

The view state is available after the Init() and before the Render() methods are called during Page load.

27. Do Web controls support Cascading Style Sheets?

All Web controls inherit a property named CssClass from the base class System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebControl which can be used to control the properties of the web control.

28. What classes are needed to send e-mail from an ASP.NET application?

The classes MailMessage and SmtpMail have to be used to send email from an ASP.NET application. MailMessage and SmtpMail are classes defined in the .NET Framework Class Library's System.Web.Mail namespace.

29. Why do some web service classes derive from System.Web.WebServices while others do not?

Those Web Service classes which employ objects like Application, Session, Context, Server, and User have to derive from System.Web.WebServices. If it does not use these objects, it is not necessary to be derived from it.

30. What are VSDISCO files?

VSDISCO files are DISCO files that enable dynamic discovery of Web Services. ASP.NET links the VSDISCO to a HTTP handler that scans the host directory and subdirectories for ASMX and DISCO files and returns a dynamically generated DISCO document. A client who requests a VSDISCO file gets back what appears to be a static DISCO document.

31. How can files be uploaded to Web pages in ASP.NET?

This can be done by using the HtmlInputFile class to declare an instance of an tag. Then, a byte[] can be declared to read in the data from the input file. This can then be sent to the server.

32. How do I create an ASPX page that periodically refreshes itself?

The following META tag can be used as a trigger to automatically refresh the page every n seconds:

33. How do I initialize a TextBox whose TextMode is "password", with a password?

The TextBox’s Text property cannot be used to assign a value to a password field. Instead, its Value field can be used for that purpose.

ID="Password" RunAt="server" />

34. Why does the control's PostedFile property always show null when using HtmlInputFile control to upload files to a Web server?

This occurs when an enctype="multipart/form-data" attribute is missing in the

tag.

35. How can the focus be set to a specific control when a Web form loads?

This can be achieved by using client-side script:

document.forms[0].TextBox1.focus ()

The above code will set the focus to a TextBox named TextBox1 when the page loads.

36. How does System.Web.UI.Page's IsPostBack property work?

IsPostBack checks to see whether the HTTP request is accompanied by postback data containing a __VIEWSTATE or __EVENTTARGET parameter. If there are none, then it is not a postback.

37. What is WSDL?

WSDL is an XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are described abstractly, and then bound to a concrete network protocol and message format to define an endpoint. Related concrete endpoints are combined into abstract endpoints (services). (Source: www.w3.org)

38. What is UDDI?

UDDI stands for Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration. It is like an "Yellow Pages" for Web Services. It is maintained by Microsoft, IBM, and Ariba, and is designed to provide detailed information regarding registered Web Services for all vendors. The UDDI can be queried for specific Web Services.

39. Is it possible to generate the source code for an ASP.NET Web service from a WSDL?

The Wsdl.exe tool (.NET Framework SDK) can be used to generate source code for an ASP.NET web service with its WSDL link.

Example: wsdl /server http://api.google.com/GoogleSearch.wsdl.

40. Why do uploads fail while using an ASP.NET file upload control to upload large files?

ASP.NET limits the size of file uploads for security purposes. The default size is 4 MB. This can be changed by modifying the maxRequestLength attribute of Machine.config's element.

41. Describe the difference between inline and code behind.

Inline code is written along side the HTML in a page. Code-behind is code written in a separate file and referenced by the .aspx page.

51. Describe the role of inetinfo.exe, aspnet_isapi.dll andaspnet_wp.exe in the page loading process.

inetinfo.exe is theMicrosoft IIS server running, handling ASP.NET requests among other things.When an ASP.NET request is received (usually a file with .aspx extension), the ISAPI filter aspnet_isapi.dll takes care of it by passing the request tothe actual worker process aspnet_wp.exe.

Can you explain the difference between an ADO.NET Dataset and an ADO Recordset?

Valid answers are:

A DataSet can represent an entire relational database in memory, complete with tables, relations, and views.
A DataSet is designed to work without any continuing connection to the original data source.
Data in a DataSet is bulk-loaded, rather than being loaded on demand.
There's no concept of cursor types in a DataSet.
DataSets have no current record pointer You can use For Each loops to move through the data.
You can store many edits in a DataSet, and write them to the original data source in a single operation.
Though the DataSet is universal, other objects in ADO.NET come in different versions for different data sources.

53. What’s a bubbled event?

When you have a complex control, like DataGrid, writing an event processing routine for each object (cell, button, row, etc.) is quite tedious. The controls can bubble up their eventhandlers, allowing the main DataGrid event handler to take care of its constituents.

What data types do the RangeValidator control support?

Integer, String, and Date.

Explain what a diffgram is, and a good use for one?

The DiffGram is one of the two XML formats that you can use to render DataSet object contents to XML. A good use is reading database data to an XML file to be sent to a Web Service.

What is the transport protocol you use to call a Web service?

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is the preferred protocol.

What is ViewState?

ViewState allows the state of objects (serializable) to be stored in a hidden field on the page. ViewState is transported to the client and back to the server, and is not stored on the server or any other external source. ViewState is used the retain the state of server-side objects between postabacks.

What does the "EnableViewState" property do? Why would I want it on or off?

It allows the page to save the users input on a form across postbacks. It saves the server-side values for a given control into ViewState, which is stored as a hidden value on the page before sending the page to the clients browser. When the page is posted back to the server the server control is recreated with the state stored in viewstate.

What are the different types of Session state management options available with ASP.NET?

ASP.NET provides In-Process and Out-of-Process state management. In-Process stores the session in memory on the web server. This requires the a "sticky-server" (or no load-balancing) so that the user is always reconnected to the same web server. Out-of-Process Session state management stores data in an external data source. The external data source may be either a SQL Server or a State Server service. Out-of-Process state management requires that all objects stored in session are serializable.

Differences Between XML and HTML?

Anyone with a fundamental grasp of XML should be able describe some of the main differences outlined in the table below

XML	HTML
User definable tags	Defined set of tags designed for web display
Content driven	Format driven
End tags required for well formed documents	End tags not required
Quotes required around attributes values	Quotes not required
Slash required in empty tags	Slash not required

Give a few examples of types of applications that can benefit from using XML.

There are literally thousands of applications that can benefit from XML technologies. The point of this question is not to have the candidate rattle off a laundry list of projects that they have worked on, but, rather, to allow the candidate to explain the rationale for choosing XML by citing a few real world examples. For instance, one appropriate answer is that XML allows content management systems to store documents independently of their format, which thereby reduces data redundancy. Another answer relates to B2B exchanges or supply chain management systems. In these instances, XML provides a mechanism for multiple companies to exchange data according to an agreed upon set of rules. A third common response involves wireless applications that require WML to render data on hand held devices.

What is DOM and how does it relate to XML?

The Document Object Model (DOM) is an interface specification maintained by the W3C DOM Workgroup that defines an application independent mechanism to access, parse, or update XML data. In simple terms it is a hierarchical model that allows developers to manipulate XML documents easily Any developer that has worked extensively with XML should be able to discuss the concept and use of DOM objects freely. Additionally, it is not unreasonable to expect advanced candidates to thoroughly understand its internal workings and be able to explain how DOM differs from an event-based interface like SAX.

What is SOAP and how does it relate to XML?

The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) uses XML to define a protocol for the exchange of information in distributed computing environments. SOAP consists of three components: an envelope, a set of encoding rules, and a convention for representing remote procedure calls. Unless experience with SOAP is a direct requirement for the open position, knowing the specifics of the protocol, or how it can be used in conjunction with HTTP, is not as important as identifying it as a natural application of XML.

Can you walk us through the steps necessary to parse XML documents?

Superficially, this is a fairly basic question. However, the point is not to determine whether candidates understand the concept of a parser but rather have them walk through the process of parsing XML documents step-by-step. Determining whether a non-validating or validating parser is needed, choosing the appropriate parser, and handling errors are all important aspects to this process that should be included in the candidate's response.

What are possible implementations of distributed applications in .NET?

.NET Remoting and ASP.NET Web Services. If we talk about the Framework Class Library, noteworthy classes are in System.Runtime.Remoting and System.Web.Services.

What are the consideration in deciding to use .NET Remoting or ASP.NET Web Services?

Remoting is a more efficient communication exchange when you can control both ends of the application involved in the communication process. Web Services provide an open-protocol-based exchange of informaion. Web Services are best when you need to communicate with an external organization or another (non-.NET) technology.

What’s a proxy of the server object in .NET Remoting?

It’s a fake copy of the server object that resides on the client side and behaves as if it was the server. It handles the communication between real server object and the client object. This process is also known as marshaling.

What are remotable objects in .NET Remoting?

Remotable objects are the objects that can be marshaled across the application domains. You can marshal by value, where a deep copy of the object is created and then passed to the receiver. You can also marshal by reference, where just a reference to an existing object is passed.

What are channels in .NET Remoting?

Channels represent the objects that transfer the other serialized objects from one application domain to another and from one computer to another, as well as one process to another on the same box. A channel must exist before an object can be transferred.

What security measures exist for .NET Remoting in System.Runtime.Remoting?

None. Security should be taken care of at the application level. Cryptography and other security techniques can be applied at application or server level.

What is a formatter?

A formatter is an object that is responsible for encoding and serializing data into messages on one end, and deserializing and decoding messages into data on the other end.

Choosing between HTTP and TCP for protocols and Binary and SOAP for formatters, what are the trade-offs?

Binary over TCP is the most effiecient, SOAP over HTTP is the most interoperable.

What’s SingleCall activation mode used for?

If the server object is instantiated for responding to just one single request, the request should be made in SingleCall mode.

What’s Singleton activation mode?

A single object is instantiated regardless of the number of clients accessing it. Lifetime of this object is determined by lifetime lease.

How do you define the lease of the object?

By implementing ILease interface when writing the class code.

Can you configure a .NET Remoting object via XML file?

Yes, via machine.config and application level .config file (or web.config in ASP.NET). Application-level XML settings take precedence over machine.config.

How can you automatically generate interface for the remotable object in .NET with Microsoft tools?

Use the Soapsuds tool.

Asp.NET 2.0 Job Interview Questions

1. What are the new Data Controls in Asp.net 2.0?

Data access in ASP.NET 2.0 can be accomplished completely declaratively (no code) using the new data-bound and data source controls. There are new data source controls to represent different data backends such as SQL database, business objects, and XML, and there are new data-bound controls for rendering common UI for data, such as gridview, detailsview, and formview.

2. What are the new Navigation Controls in Asp.net 2.0?

The navigation controls provide common UI for navigating between pages in your site, such as treeview, menu, and sitemappath. These controls use the site navigation service in ASP.NET 2.0 to retrieve the custom structure you have defined for your site.

3. What are the new Login Controlsin Asp.net 2.0?

The new login controls provide the building blocks to add authentication and authorization-based UI to your site, such as login forms, create user forms, password retrieval, and custom UI for logged in users or roles. These controls use the built-in membership and role services in ASP.NET 2.0 to interact with the user and role information defined for your site.

4. What are the new Web Part Controls in Asp.net 2.0 ?

Web parts are an exciting new family of controls that enable you to add rich, personalized content and layout to your site, as well as the ability to edit that content and layout directly from your application pages. These controls rely on the personalization services in ASP.NET 2.0 to provide a unique experience for each user in your application.

5. What are Master Pages?

This feature provides the ability to define common structure and interface elements for your site, such as a page header, footer, or navigation bar, in a common location called a "master page", to be shared by many pages in your site. In one simple place you can control the look, feel, and much of functionality for an entire Web site. This improves the maintainability of your site and avoids unnecessary duplication of code for shared site structure or behavior.

6. What are Themes and Skins in 2.0, explain usgae scenario?

The themes and skins features in ASP.NET 2.0 allow for easy customization of your site's look-and-feel. You can define style information in a common location called a "theme", and apply that style information globally to pages or controls in your site. Like Master Pages, this improves the maintainability of your site and avoid unnecessary duplication of code for shared styles.

7. What is a profile object, why is it used?

Using the new personalization services in ASP.NET 2.0 you can easily create customized experiences within Web applications. The Profile object enables developers to easily build strongly-typed, sticky data stores for user accounts and build highly customized, relationship based experiences. At the same time, a developer can leverage Web Parts and the personalization service to enable Web site visitors to completely control the layout and behavior of the site, with the knowledge that the site is completely customized for them. Personalizaton scenarios are now easier to build than ever before and require significantly less code and effort to implement.

8. What is Configuration API?

ASP.NET 2.0 contains new configuration management APIs, enabling users to programmatically build programs or scripts that create, read, and update Web.config and machine.config configuration files.

9. What is MMC Admin Tool?

ASP.NET 2.0 provides a new comprehensive admin tool that plugs into the existing IIS Administration MMC, enabling an administrator to graphically read or change common settings within our XML configuration files.

10. Explain the use of Pre-compilation Tool?

ASP.NET 2.0 delivers a new application deployment utility that enables both developers and administrators to precompile a dynamic ASP.NET application prior to deployment. This precompilation automatically identifies any compilation issues anywhere within the site, as well as enables ASP.NET applications to be deployed without any source being stored on the server (one can optionally remove the content of .aspx files as part of the compile phase), further protecting your intellectual property.

11. How is application management and maintenance improved in Asp.net 2.0?

ASP.NET 2.0 also provides new health-monitoring support to enable administrators to be automatically notified when an application on a server starts to experience problems. New tracing features will enable administrators to capture run-time and request data from a production server to better diagnose issues. ASP.NET 2.0 is delivering features that will enable developers and administrators to simplify the day-to-day management and maintenance of their Web applications.

12. What are Provider-driven Application Services? explain in detail?
ASP.NET 2.0 now includes built-in support for membership (user name/password credential storage) and role management services out of the box. The new personalization service enables quick storage/retrieval of user settings and preferences, facilitating rich customization with minimal code. The new site navigation system enables developers to quickly build link structures consistently across a site. As all of these services are provider-driven, they can be easily swapped out and replaced with your own custom implementation. With this extensibility option, you have complete control over the data store and schema that drives these rich application services.

13. Explain Server Control Extensibility with reference to Asp.net 2.0 ?
ASP.NET 2.0 includes improved support for control extensibility, such as more base classes that encapsulate common behaviors, improved designer support, more APIs for interacting with client-side script, metadata-driven support for new features like themes and accessibility verification, better state management, and more.

14. What are the Data Source Controls?
Data access in ASP.NET 2.0 is now performed declaratively using data source controls on a page. In this model, support for new data backend storage providers can be easily added by implementing custom data source controls. Additionally, the SqlDataSource control that ships in the box has built-in support for any ADO.NET managed provider that implements the new provider factory model in ADO.NET.

15. What are Compilation Build Providers?
Dynamic compilation in ASP.NET 2.0 is now handled by extensible compilation build providers, which associate a particular file extension with a handler that knows how to compile that extension dynamically at runtime. For example, .resx files can be dynamically compiled to resources, .wsdl files to web service proxies, and .xsd files to typed DataSet objects. In addition to the built-in support, it is easy to add support for additional extensions by implementing a custom build provider and registering it in Web.config.

16. What is Expression Builders, why would you use it?
ASP.NET 2.0 introduces a declarative new syntax for referencing code to substitute values into the page, called Expression Builders. ASP.NET 2.0 includes expression builders for referencing string resources for localization, connection strings, application settings, and profile values. You can also write your own expression builders to create your own custom syntax to substitute values in a page rendering.

17. Is ASP.NET 64-Bit enabled? how?
ASP.NET 2.0 is now 64-bit enabled, meaning it can take advantage of the full memory address space of new 64-bit processors and servers. Developers can simply copy existing 32-bit ASP.NET applications onto a 64-bit ASP.NET 2.0 server and have them automatically be JIT compiled and executed as native 64-bit applications (no source code changes or manual re-compile are required).

18. Explain how Caching in Asp.net 2.0 is different from Caching in Asp.net 1.1?
ASP.NET 2.0 also now includes automatic database server cache invalidation. This powerful and easy-to-use feature allows developers to aggressively output cache database-driven page and partial page content within a site and have ASP.NET automatically invalidate these cache entries and refresh the content whenever the back-end database changes. Developers can now safely cache time-critical content for long periods without worrying about serving visitors stale data.

What is the difference between Postback and Ispostback Property?

Answer: PostBack: Postback is the event which sends the form data to the server. The server processes the data & sends it

back to the browser. The page goes through its full life cycle & is rendered on the browser. It can be triggered by using the server controls.And the IsPostBack property of the page object may be used to check whether the page request is a postback or not. IsPostBack property is of the type Boolean.

Difference between Active Exe and Dll ?

Answer:

1.  EXE can run independaly ,while dll can not.

2.  An exe can contain manu dll, dll are supprting files

    containing all information.

EXE is ae executable file, while Dll is not. Dll cannot be used independantly.

The Dll is a reusable component which can be referred by a EXE.

what is DLL Hell and how it is solved in .NET?

This is a problem everybody faced in asp application which uses dll created in vb6.  Dll process still be in memory even after the objest is destroyed exclusively causing the program to restart.

.NET has a functionality call garbage collection which wakes up every interval of time and clears the objects not been used from the application .

What?s a bubbled event?

when the child control events are handeled by parent control it is called as event bubbling.for ex. when a control in the datagrid is clicked it is handeled by the dtagrid event and not by the control itself which fired it so that time it is called as event ubbling.

How many languages .NET is supporting now? - When .NET was introduced it came with several languages. VB.NET, C#, COBOL and Perl, etc. The site DotNetLanguages.Net says 44 languages are supported.

How is .NET able to support multiple languages? - a language should comply with the Common Language Runtime standard to become a .NET language. In .NET, code is compiled to Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL for short). This is called as Managed Code. This Managed code is run in .NET environment. So after compilation to this IL the language is not a barrier. A code can call or use a function written in another language.

How ASP .NET different from ASP? - Scripting is separated from the HTML, Code is compiled as a DLL, these DLLs can be executed on the server.

Resource Files: How to use the resource files, how to know which language to use?

What is smart navigation? - The cursor position is maintained when the page gets refreshed due to the server side validation and the page gets refreshed.

What is view state? - The web is stateless. But in ASP.NET, the state of a page is maintained in the in the page itself automatically. How? The values are encrypted and saved in hidden controls. this is done automatically by the ASP.NET. This can be switched off / on for a single control

Explain the life cycle of an ASP .NET page.

How do you validate the controls in an ASP .NET page? - Using special validation controls that are meant for this. We have Range Validator, Email Validator.

Can the validation be done in the server side? Or this can be done only in the Client side? - Client side is done by default. Server side validation is also possible. We can switch off the client side and server side can be done.

How to manage pagination in a page? - Using pagination option in DataGrid control. We have to set the number of records for a page, then it takes care of pagination by itself.

What is ADO .NET and what is difference between ADO and ADO.NET? - ADO.NET is stateless mechanism. I can treat the ADO.Net as a separate in-memory database where in I can use relationships between the tables and select insert and updates to the database. I can update the actual database as a batch.