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DocAve in sync with SharePoint 2010 SP1

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calendar07/11/2011
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As avid members of the SharePoint ecosystem, I am sure you are all aware of the release of SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1(SP1) on June 28. As expected, weeks prior to June 28, many SharePoint forums were rife with discussion/comments on the new functionality that was going to be part of SP1 (in addition to public and cumulative updates through April 2011). In terms of important new functionality in SP1, there are 3: Site Recycle Bin, Shallow Copy, & StorMan.Aspx. As we, at AvePoint, were understanding these new features, we were pleased (actually, more than pleased) to realize that each one of them validated the technology choices that we have made with regard these new functionalities. This should be very comforting for the thousands of customers that rely on AvePoint to provide them with state of the art SharePoint infrastructure management solutions. So, what is it about the new SP1 features that are reassuring to us? Let's discuss each one briefly: Shallow Copy This functionality is basically a less resource intensive way of moving site collections with externalized unstructured data (or externalized BLOBs) between content dbs. Previously, whenever you moved a site collection with externalized BLOBs from a content db to another, SharePoint would upload the externalized data into the source content db, move it to the target content db as part of the site collection move and then you would need to use whatever RBS provider tool you have to externalize the BLOB once again. With this feature, Move-SPSite Cmdlet is updated so that when you move site collections with externalized BLOBs between content dbs, the BLOBS are not disturbed except that pointers to it are updated once the site collection has been moved to the new content db thus saving round trip overhead. We had recognized this as a gap back in 2007 and engineered our products - Content Manager & Replicator - with DocAve release 4.1 such that externalized BLOBs are not round-tripped when their parent containers (Site Collections, Sites, Lists/Libraries, folders) are moved even if you were to move these containers cross-farm (SP2007 to SP2007 or SP2010 to SP2010)! This is something you will not be able to accomplish if you do not have DocAve. 1.png DocAve Content Manager Site Recycle Bin If you are a SharePoint/IT admin, then you are well aware of the effort needed to restore a site that had been deleted - basically, you would have to restore an entire database before you could restore the particular site back into your SharePoint environment. With the Site Recycle Bin feature in SP1, if you'd like to restore a deleted site, you simply navigate to the top level site's recycle bin (more commonly known as second stage recycle bin) and restore the deleted site from there. Well, since 2009, DocAve 5.2 release included a product called Site Bin which allows you to restore not only a deleted Site but also a deleted Site Collection (so one does not have to revert to PowerShell to restore deleted site collections) And, since this is a free product (bundled in DocAve's Data Protection module), DocAve customers have been secure in the knowledge they are covered against any accidental deletions of sites and more importantly even site collections. 2.png DocAve Site Bin (restore site collection view) 4.png 3.png DocAve Site Bin(restore site view) StorMan.Aspx Those among us that track the evolution of SharePoint closely would know that the StorMan.aspx page which existed in SP2007 was removed in SP2010. Well, with SP1, an improved version of StorMan.aspx is back. This utility page can be accessed via Site Actions--:>Site Settings--:>Site Collection Administration and it enumerates all containers in the site collection, their sizes, % of site collection quota they occupy and when each one was last modified. 5.png StorMan.Aspx DocAve has several out of the box reports that breakdown the contents of site collections or sites according to not only their overall size but also on criteria such as file type distribution, file type size, list or library size, specific user uploaded content, and last accessed time. 6.png DocAve Storage Trends Report (multi-site collection view) 7.png DocAve Storage Trends Report (detailed breakdown view) The key advantage of this DocAve report is that you can scope it across multiple site collections or multiple sites (as opposed to scoping it on a one site collection basis). Such reports equip a farm, site-collection or site admin with ability to make decisions around 2 key aspects of SharePoint - size and usage and ability to take corrective or preemptive actions. 8.pngDocAve Last Accessed Time Report These and other DocAve capabilities demonstrate one of AvePoint’s core values– to use technology and innovative thinking to build products and solutions that dramatically improve SharePoint infrastructure management, deliver increasing ROI, and accentuate user adoption. Various DocAve modules – Data Protection, Administration, Storage Optimization, Reporting, Migration, & Compliance – all bear out this key commitment. Avepoint’s 500+ developer base is a big reason that our customer base is rapidly growing as it is a clear indicator that we are here to stay focused on SharePoint for the long term and that we have the wherewithal to address market needs faster and roll out product releases sooner.
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SharePoint 2010SharePoint Optimization