Short Tom Blog

I have just updated my Visio stencil for Trinity with the latest for SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft servers.

The stencil now includes the following servers stencils all with branded logos:

SharePoint	Search	SQL	Miscellaneous
SP2010	FAST Search Server for SP2010	SQL 2008	Forefront TMG
SP2010 Foundation	Search Server 2010 Express	SQL 2008 Mirroring	Forefront UAG
MOSS 2007	Search Server 2010	SQL 2008 Clustering	Forefront Protection for SharePoint
WSS V3	Search Server 2008 Express	SQL 2005	ISA 2006
SPS2003	Search Server 2008		Exchange 2010
WSS V1			SMTP
Project Server 2010
InfoPath Forms

The stencil can be downloaded from here

When on client sites, I often get asked “What do the Indexer Performance settings actually mean?”

They are relating to the Office SharePoint Server Search service setting for the server running the Index role.

For those that don’t know, this is access via Central Admin >Operations > Services on Server.  Select the Server doing the Indexing and select the Office SharePoint Server Search service.

The Indexer Performance setting affects the number of threads for Server running the Office SharePoint Server Search service in Indexing mode uses when crawling content.

Taken from TechNet, the following Table shows a  what the indexer values actually mean.

Note -  Crawler impact rules override the Indexer Performance setting, so you can throttle te search more if you want.

The setting you choose depends very much on your circumstances. Things like:

• Server farm deployment (Single Server, small farm, large farm)
• Server hardware Spec (specifically of your Index server)
• Use of SharePoint (Collaboration, Content Browsing, etc.)

I have always took the stance of if you have a dedicated Index server, use it for that, so set it to Maximum.  Single server deployments of MOSS, are more tricky.  I would recommend Reduced, maybe Partially Reduced dependent on the use of your SharePoint server, e.g.  Heavy Collaboration – Reduced, Medium Content Browsing -Partially reduced.

On a day to day basis, I'm troubleshooting SharePoint, SQL and Windows Server issues.  Amongst some of my Trinity Colleagues, I have become well known for my 1st port of call fix for any issue, the TSUF.

Let me explain, TSUF stands for Tom Short Universal Fix.  This actually means a server reboot, a power cycle, the 1 finger power button salute, “turning it off and on again”.

Having come from a support background, starting off on 1st line, I know the power of a reboot.  Many a in the past time I have uttered the priceless words “Have you tried turning off and back on again?” and many times it has worked.

So now I am trying to spread the gospel of the TSUF outside my close circle of colleagues.

The TSUF Fixes Everything*

I would like to let people know that I’m a serious IT Consultant\Engineer and always carefully evaluate and investigate any issues before acting the appropriate manner.  It just seems that many times the TSUF is applied and resolves the issue. 

I have done some research and I can confirm that my studies have shown that when the TSUF is applied, 75% of the time it works every time*.

*not actually correct. 

On my last SharePoint deployment, I came across a very peculiar issue.

When I opened the SharePoint Central Admin (SCA) site, selected the Operations tab and the Services on Server link was missing. when I typed in the URL directly (http://SCA/_admin/Server.aspx) I was prompted with an access denied page. Strange as I had farm administrator permissions??? I also noticed other links were missing, like Outgoing e-mail settings.

Bit of background, the SharePoint environment as all built on Windows Server 2008 R2 with UAC enabled to the highest level, requiring username and password to run all UAC tasks.

So I worked out, I had just opened Internet Explorer and clicked a favourite to SCA rather than via the official Central Admin link (START > Programs > Microsoft Office Server > SharePoint 3.0 Central Admin).

This link runs PSCONFIGUI.exe to query the SharePoint Config database to see where the SCA is running and which is a UAC task. opening it via the official Central Admin link gave me all the SCA options again.