On November 18, 2008, AvePoint will release DocAve v5.1, the latest version of its award-winning infrastructure management solution for SharePoint.  This release builds upon the success of the recent v5 launch, adding powerful new modules and enhancements to the award-winning platform.

DocAve v5.1 Migrator Suite now supports Exchange Public Folder and Lotus QuickPlace

·         DocAve Migrator Suite now provides fully-mapped live and scheduled migration from Exchange Public Folder and Lotus QuickPlace.  Now DocAve Migrator Suite delivers seamless business-process aware migration solutions for Lotus Notes & QuickPlace, Documentum eRoom, Exchange Public Folders, and File System.  DocAve’s Migrator Suite lets administrators efficiently migrate content and other collaborative assets into SharePoint with precision and speed – while preserving all business-critical metadata. 

DocAve Now Restores from SQL Server Database Backups

·         DocAve has always offered administrators item-level granularity when it comes to both backups and restores.  But often, administrators want to restore with the same granularity from their SQL Server database backups – and now DocAve delivers!  Target any SharePoint object – down to the item-version – directly from your SQL Server backup, and restore it to your production environment in seconds.

DocAve’s Criticality Matrix Sandbox let Administrators Develop and Test Backup Strategies

·         With the release of the Business Criticality Matrix – an intelligent backup plan builder leveraging business importance and usage frequency analyses at the site-level – DocAve forever changed the way backup planning was done.  Now with the Matrix Sandbox, you can build and test these customized strategies before deploying them to production.  One small step for DocAve, one giant leap for optimized data protection.

Auto-Coalescing of Differential Backups into Fulls!

·         Now DocAve can combine all of your differential backups into complete full backups – helping administrators fully optimize their storage and system resources.  DocAve delivers real-time status reports and email notifications on coalesced backup generation, so you know exactly when and how your backups are completed.

New End-User File System Migration Web Part

·         Now you can put the power of DocAve's award-winning File System Migrator in the hands of your end users!  This new File System Migration Web Part lets users upload content to Sharepoint without losing any permissions or metadata from their original file system.  Any end-user with “full control” rights over the document library they wish to migrate can perform the task independantly – with drag and drop ease!

New User-Clustering Provides A Clear Window Into Permissions

·         DocAve’s pioneering User-Clustering Web Part lets users and administrators identify and analyze end-users based on permissions rights via a graphical topology display that groups user-sets by both discrete authority and permissions parity.  With DocAve’s User-Clustering Web Part, users can quickly and deftly ensure that colleagues have access to exactly the content they need to succeed.

DocAve Software Platform wins Best of Tech-ED 2008 award

Barcelona, Spain

November 3-5, 2008

Tech.Ed EMEA 2008 IT Professionals

Chicago,IL

November 5, 2008

The Chicago Microsoft SharePoint Business Strategies Group November Meetup

Las Vegas, NV

November 10-13, 2008

SharePoint Connections

Orlando, FL

November 17-19, 2008

ECM SharePoint 2008 Conference

New York, NY

November 5 and 25, 2008

DocAve v5 “Hands-On” Lab at Microsoft Technology Center

Reading, UK

November 19 & 20, 2008

DocAve v5 Workshop

Manchester, UK

November 20, 2008 (first in the series in EMEA region)

Scoring with SharePoint

New York, NY

January 21, 2009

2009 IMAGINE Event – SharePoint in the Real World

Burlingame, CA

January 27-29, 2009

The SharePoint Technology Conference 2009

San Diego, CA

February 2-4, 2009

SharePoint Best Practices Conference

View all upcoming events

 PRO’S CORNER

Should I Be Thinking of 64-bit SharePoint Now?

With Microsoft probably releasing the next version of SharePoint on only 64bit for production use then the time is now to consider how your company will plan and prepare for this change. One of the obvious questions that I always get asked is ‘should we wait until the next version of SharePoint until going 64bit’. This article is therefore going to address some of those pros and the odd con for looking at 64bit today.

Currently most companies actually have a lot of 64bit hardware but have installed 32 bit operating systems and 32 bit SharePoint, Why - Because it works J SharePoint 2007 64bit has no issues being installed on Windows 2003 Server 64 bit the important thing to understand is that you also need to have all the supporting software components on 64 bit as well such as the .Net Framework. This raises the first of the Cons for 64 bit, 32 bit code does not always work at its best if at all when transferred to 64 bit ASP .Net so you would need to have a test process for making sure custom code such as web parts that have been designed for 32 bit can be re engineered for 64bit.  This is potentially a big job if you have used lots of custom code. You also need to consider Line of business applications that SharePoint may be working with and that also need to be tested for 64bit compatibility. Let’s consider some of the benefits gained by moving to 64bit SharePoint.

·         IIS benefits from no resource cap (well ok 1TB of physical memory per App Pool and 8TB for the application). In other words a 32 bit web front is limited to around 2GB of actual useable memory plus it does not manage it very well in the first place so if you have busy web servers then your only option in a 32bit model is to scale out by adding additional web front ends. In 64bit however this cap does not exist so it is much easier to have less front ends but more available resources to each of the Web Applications. For example you could have 4 Web Applications each with its own application pool and each of which is consuming 2GB of memory on its worker process

·         Indexing benefits if you have SQL Server on 64bit as well as this allows content to be indexed much faster through the increased resources available for the indexing process. However this is also a double edged sword as you must ensure that whatever content you are indexing has a decent 64 bit I filter. If you try and index content through a badly written 64 bit filter then you actually find that you have worse performance than 32 bit indexing so you must research the index filters before committing to this.

·         You can have mixed models of 32 and 64 bit servers though if you wish. For example leave your SQL and Index server on 32 bit and move your web ends to 64 bit. This enables you to have a phased approach.

·         Windows Server 2008 64 bit and SharePoint Server 2007 64 bit is a great combination for future proofing as you are running SharePoint on the latest OS platform that has many performance and security benefits over 2003 plus providing your SharePoint environment is configured correctly and developed in the right way upgrading to vnext SharePoint is going to much smoother with less pain.

I have written a whitepaper along with Penny Coventry on how to move a 32bit SharePoint and 32bit Server 2003 environment to a Server 08 64bit and SharePoint 2007 64bit environment. You can find it here - http://www.combined-knowledge.com/Downloads%202007.htm

AvePoint Microsoft Technology Centers Forge Global Alliance

AvePoint recently announced a global partnership alliance with the Microsoft Technology Centers (MTCs).  This partnership will let MTCs’ staff of technology experts fully leverage AvePoint’s DocAve Software Platform when assisting organizations in designing a secure, custom SharePoint deployment.  AvePoint engineers and MTC technology architects will collaborate regularly to ensure MTC clients are appraised of – and can experience firsthand – DocAve’s technological strength in the areas of SharePoint backup & recovery, administration, geo-replication, deployment management, high availability, extension archiving, compliance, and migration. AvePoint and the MTCs will also collaborate on joint webcasts, white papers, and events.

As an inaugural collaborative series of events, AvePoint will present two complimentary, one-day “Hands-On” workshops at the Microsoft Technology Center – New York. These workshops will focus on the latest innovations and technologies for managing and protecting SharePoint deployments of any scale and scope. These dynamic events will take place on Wednesday, November 5, and Tuesday November 25, 2008 and will provide attendees with in-depth training on DocAve v5, the latest release of AvePoint’s award-winning infrastructure management software platform for SharePoint.

To learn more about this partnership, please
click here.

To register for the AvePoint/MTC “Hand-On” Labs, please visit:  https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=132717

Sneak Peek at AvePoint’s Upcoming Lineup of SharePoint Utilities

SharePoint Copy & Paste Tool

Moving content around in SharePoint using only native tools can be quite a hassle.  But this is the case no longer!  With AvePoint’s fully-integrated Copy & Paste Tool, SharePoint users can quickly and easily move SharePoint objects anywhere within their SharePoint farm.  This DocAve-independent utility will be available later this month, so if you’ve been waiting for a simple-to-use copy and paste tool for SharePoint, the wait is over!

SharePoint Load Simulator & Stress Tester

For many administrators, having testing and/or development SharePoint environments that are realistic is vital to ensuring their production environment stays optimized.  If their dev and test environments do not look, feel and behave like their production environment, how can they know that their strategies, elements, and designs will actually work when they “go live”?  With AvePoint’s Load Simulator and Stress Tester Tools, administrators can create “reality-based” environments that turn your testing and development environments into true testing grounds. 

·         AvePoint’s Load Simulator is a fully customizable tool to quickly populate any SharePoint environment with elements and content, including Web Applications, Site Collections, Sites, Lists, and Documents.  With Load Simulator, you can see how your SharePoint environment will perform under any content or architecture circumstance. 

·         AvePoint’s Stress Tester is a fully customizable activity generator, so your tested elements can undergo the same grueling workout they’ll experience in production.  

Both of these DocAve-independent tools will be released later this month, and will be available separately or as a bundle!

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