Microsoft cloud engineer - SharePoint, Office 365, Azure, DotNet, Angular, JavaScript.
Microsoft cloud engineer - SharePoint, Office 365, Azure, DotNet, Angular, JavaScript.

November 2013

Daily Front End Backup

The below PowerShell can be run once per day via Task Scheduler on just one machine in a SharePoint farm to backup front end configuration.   Yes, SQL backups are wonderful and a must have for user data protection.   However, front end backups are handy for restore scenarios like:

 

  • IIS configuration
  • IIS home folder
  • WPS farm solutions
  • 14/15 hive manual changes  (yeah yeah … not best practice, but you have them too)

 

These front end artifacts might not be in a SQL full BAK.   Also, having troubleshooting options on the front end helps SharePoint admins respond quickly to a recovery without having to wait for DBAs to first restore a database.    Hope that helps.  

Smile

 

Start-Transcript
Write-Host "Starting..."
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
$dest = "d:\backuptest"
$day = Get-Date -Format "yyyy-MM-dd"
("iisconfig","inetpub","farmsol","hive","ipfs") |% {New-Item "$dest\$_-$day" -ItemType Directory -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue} | Out-Null
Write-Host " - IIS config"
Copy-Item "C:\windows\system32\inetsrv\config" "$dest\iisconfig-$day" -Recurse
Write-Host " - IIS home folder"
Copy-Item "C:\inetpub" "$dest\inetpub-$day" -Recurse
Write-Host " - SharePoint farm solutions"
Get-SPSolution |% {$s=$_.SolutionFile;$n=$s.Name;$s.SaveAs("$dest\farmsol-$day\$n")}
Write-Host " - SharePoint hive folder"
$major = (Get-SPFarm).BuildVersion.Major
Copy-Item "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\$major" "$dest\hive-$day"  -Recurse
Write-Host " - InfoPath Forms Services"
Backup-SPFarm -Directory "$dest\ipfs-$day" -BackupMethod Full -Item "InfoPath Forms Services"
Write-Host " - Remove old folders"
$threshold = (Get-Date).AddDays(-2)
$files = Get-ChildItem $dest | Sort-Object LastWriteTime -Descending
$files | ?{ $_.LastWriteTime -lt $threshold } | Remove-Item -Force -Recurse
Write-Host "Operation completed successfully"
Stop-Transcript

SharePoint 2013 MCSE Certified

This weekend I passed exam 070-332 and obtained the “MCSE” certification for SharePoint 2013.   The exams were challenging (in a good way) because that increases the meaning and value of certification.

 

If you haven’t seen Vlad Catrinescu’s Ultimate SharePoint 2013 Certification Guide please go check it out.  That’s a fantastic resource for learning what certifications are available in the marketplace.   I didn’t even realize that Yammer and Business Intelligence have their own multiple exam tracks until I read this.

 

Next I plan to focus on the MCSD developer track starting with exam 070-480 for HTML5.   Certification can be time consuming and easy to lose track of, but it really is helpful to have a structured course of study.   There were so many features I haven’t used directly, but needed to learn about for the exam that helped round out my technical knowledge by opening up new topics.

 

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MSODAL – Microsoft Online Services Diagnostics and Logging

With more people using Office365 every day, it can be helpful to have a few troubleshooting tools nearby.   I had issues sending files over Lync IM and found this helpful download during my research.   It verifies the local PC client configuration and is able to apply minor repairs for common configuration issues.   Something to keep nearby as we all support more Office365 users.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2386684

  • Desktop or Application sharing can’t connect in a Lync Online conference

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh852475.aspx

  • Download MOSDAL (Microsoft Online Services Diagnostics and Logging) Support Toolkit

 

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@ SPJeff

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