Section 1: Understanding Architecture in SharePoint Server 2013
This section introduces the architectural features that underpin SharePoint Server 2013, for both on-premise and online deployments. This includes an exploration of the features that are new in SharePoint Server 2013, along with those that have been removed. This section covers the basic structural elements of a farm deployment, and the different deployment options that are available in SharePoint 2013.
Topics :
Core Components of the SharePoint 2013 Architecture
New Features in SharePoint Server 2013
SharePoint Server 2013 and SharePoint Online Editions
Lab 1: Reviewing Core SharePoint Concepts
Reviewing Core SharePoint Concepts
Reviewing Core SharePoint Concepts
Section 2: Designing for Business Continuity Management
This section covers high availability and disaster recovery in SharePoint 2013. When designing high availability and disaster recovery strategies for a SharePoint farm, it is important to understand the different approaches required by each logical tier in the farm. High availability for the database tier requires understanding of how SQL Server provides high availability and the associated requirements. High availability for the application tier can be straightforward for some service applications, while other applications, such as Search, require additional planning and configuration for high availability. The web front end tier will also require additional planning and configuration for high availability, and architects should consider the new SharePoint 2013 request management feature. SharePoint farm disaster recovery has always required considerable planning and understanding of the necessary components and backup tools available. In this regard SharePoint 2013 is no different, and farm administrators should create a disaster recovery plan that states how content and configurations are backed up, how data can be restored, and what backup schedules are required.
Topics :
Designing Database Topologies for High Availability and Disaster Recovery
Designing SharePoint Infrastructure for High Availability
Planning for Disaster Recovery
Lab 1: Planning and Performing Backups and Restores
Creating a Backup and Restore Plan
Testing the Backup and Restore Process
Section 3: Testing the Backup and Restore Process
Service applications were introduced in SharePoint 2010, replacing the Shared Service Provider architecture of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Service applications provide a flexible design for delivering services, such as Managed Metadata or PerformancePoint, to users who need them. There are several deployment topologies available to students when they plan ttheir service application implementation. These range from a simple, single-farm, single-instance service application model to more complex, cross-farm, multiple-instance designs. What remains most important is that students create a design that matches the needs of their organization's users in terms of performance, functionality, and security.
This section covers the service application architecture, how to map business requirements to design, and the options for enterprise scale, federated service application architectures.
Topics :
Planning Service Applications
Designing and Configuring a Service Application Topology
Configuring Service Application Federation
Lab 1: Planning a Service Application Architecture
Planning a Service Application Topology
Lab 2: Federating Service Applications between SharePoint Server Farms
Creating a Service Application Instance
Establishing Trust Relationships between SharePoint Farms
Publishing and Consuming Service Applications
Section 4: Configuring and Managing Business Connectivity Services
Most organizations store information in a variety of disparate systems. In many cases, these organizations want to be able to view and interact with information from these disparate systems from a single interface. This reduces the need for information workers to constantly switch between systems and creates opportunities for power users or analysts to aggregate data from multiple sources.
In SharePoint 2013, Business Connectivity Services (BCS) is a collection of technologies that enable students to query, view, and interact with data from external systems. In this section, students will learn how to plan and configure various components of BCS.
Topics :
Planning and Configuring Business Connectivity Services
Configuring the Secure Store Service
Managing Business Data Connectivity Models
Lab 1: Configuring BCS and the Secure Store Service
Configuring the Business Data Connectivity Service Application
Configuring the Secure Store Service
Lab 2: Managing Business Data Connectivity Models
Configuring a Secure Store Service target application
Importing and Configuring BDC Models
Section 5: Connecting People
When we talk about connecting people in SharePoint 2013 we are really talking about taking people out of their isolated workspaces and giving them the ability and tools to collaborate with other people in the organization such as their work colleagues, peers and executives. It is about finding people with expertise and identifying shared interests and about creating networks of people that share common goals.
In this section, students will learn about the concepts and ways of connecting people in SharePoint 2013. We will examine user profiles and user profile synchronization, social interaction features and capabilities, and communities and community sites in SharePoint 2013.
Topics :
Managing User Profiles
Enabling Social Interaction
Building Communities
Lab 1: Configuring Profile Synchronization and My Sites
Configuring Profile Synchronization
Configuring My Sites
Lab 2: Configuring Community Sites
Creating a Community Site Infrastructure
Configuring Community Site Participation
Section 6: Enabling Productivity and Collaboration
This section covers how SharePoint 2013 extends the ability of users to work collaboratively and increase productivity through seamless integration with external software platforms, additional SharePoint collaboration features, and the provision of flexible tools, with which users can develop their own solutions to business problems.
Topics :
Aggregating Tasks
Planning and Configuring Collaboration Features
Planning and Configuring Composites
Lab 1: Configuring Project Sites
Creating Project Sites
Configuring Project Sites
Engaging Project Teams
Lab 2: Configuring Workflow
Configure Windows Azure Workflow and SharePoint Workflow Services
Creating and Testing a Workflow
Section 7: Planning and Configuring Business intelligence
Business Intelligence (BI) continues to be an important area for large enterprise organizations. The key to successful BI is the ability to integrate the components that deliver the right information, to the right people, at the right time. SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise Edition provides a range of integrated solutions that enable both users and administrators across an organization to develop BI solutions to fit their business requirements. These BI tools extend beyond SharePoint to provide consistent information management from personal data analysis environments, which use Office Excel, through to departmental or organizational data repositories, which use SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS).
In this section students will see how SharePoint 2013 can deliver BI solutions for their business.
Topics :
Planning for Business Intelligence
Planning, Deploying and Managing Business Intelligence Services
Planning and Configuring Advanced Analysis Tools
Lab 1: Configuring Excel Services
Provisioning Excel Services
Configuring External Data Access
Configuring Data Connections
Lab 2: Configuring PowerPivot and Power View for SharePoint
Configuring PowerPivot for SharePoint
Configuring Power View for SharePoint
Section 8: Planning and Configuring Enterprise Search
The Search service remains a cornerstone of the SharePoint platforms success. In SharePoint 2013 there have been major changes to the components that make up the service, to increase performance and configurability.
The configuration options in SharePoint Search now enable students to provide greater search result effectiveness by fine-tuning the service in various ways. The introduction of new functionality, such as result types and the increased move towards search-driven navigation mean that the role of the Search administrator has become even more important for business success. Search now enables students to delegate more of this management to site collection administrator and site owner levels, improving Search flexibility without increasing the administrative burden on a few Search service application administrators.
To help students in their management of a Search environment, SharePoint 2013 now incorporates Search analytics and reporting into the Search service, rather than in a separate service application, as was the case in SharePoint Server 2010. The reports available will help students to monitor the service and optimize its configuration.
Topics :
Configuring Search for an Enterprise Environment
Configuring the Search Experience
Optimizing Search
Lab 1: Planning an Enterprise Search Deployment
Planning a Search Solution
Lab 2: Managing Search Relevance in SharePoint Server 2013
Configuring a Thesaurus
Configuring Entity Extractors and Refiners
Configuring Query Spelling Correction
Configuring Company Name Extraction
Section 9: Planning and Configuring Enterprise Content Management
Enterprise content management (ECM) is a set of technologies and features that administrators use to provide some control over sites and content. This could include control over how information is stored, how long information is kept, how information is visible to users while in use, and how information growth is kept under control.
Planning support for your ECM requirements requires a clear understanding of content requirements and how that content supports the organization. This means that, as a best practice, many different organizational roles should have input into the ECM strategy and supporting features.
Topics :
Planning Content Management
Planning and Configuring eDiscovery
Planning Records Management
Lab 1: Configuring eDiscovery in SharePoint Server 2013
Creating and Configuring an eDiscovery Center
Discovering and Preserving Content
Querying and Exporting Content
Lab 2: Configuring Records Management in SharePoint Server 2013
Configuring In-Place Records Management
Section 10: Planning and Configuring Web Content Management
The web content management capabilities in SharePoint Server 2013 can help an organization to communicate and integrate more effectively with employees, partners, and customers. SharePoint Server 2013 provides easy-to-use functionality to create, approve, and publish web content. This enables students to get information out quickly to intranet, extranet, and Internet sites and give their content a consistent look and feel. You can use these web content management capabilities to create, publish, manage, and control a large and dynamic collection of content. As part of ECM in SharePoint Server 2013, web content management can help to streamline the process for creating and publishing web sites.
Topics :
Planning and Implementing a Web Content Management Infrastructure
Configuring Managed Navigation and Catalog Sites
Supporting Multiple Languages and Locales
Enabling Design and Customization
Supporting Mobile Users
Lab 1: Configuring Managed Navigation and Catalog Sites
Configuring Product Catalog Sites
Configuring Cross-Site Publishing
Configuring Publishing Sites
Lab 2: Configuring Device Channels
Configuring Device Channels
Section 11: Managing Solutions in SharePoint Server 2013
As a SharePoint administrator, it is important to understand the features that are available in SharePoint 2013. However, there are often specific functional requirements that may be part of SharePoints feature set but are not included in certain site templates. There may also be sites that require repeatable customization of lists or libraries, or custom code deployments that are necessary to add capabilities that are not available out-of-the-box. Developers use features and solutions to add and control these functionality requirements. Administrators, on the other hand, must understand how features and solutions are deployed and managed in order to meet user needs in a SharePoint farm.
Topics :
Understanding the SharePoint Solution Architecture
Managing Sandbox Solutions
Lab 1: Managing Solutions
Configuring Sandboxed Solution Management at the Farm Level
Configuring Sandboxed Solution Management at the Site Collection Level
Deploying Farm Solutions
Section 12: Managing Apps for SharePoint Server 2013
SharePoint apps are new to SharePoint 2013 and provide an additional capability to provide application functionality within the context of SharePoint. SharePoint apps supplement the capabilities of farm solutions and sandbox solutions, while providing a user experience that offers a measure of self-service customization capabilities without putting the stability or security of the farm at risk.
Topics :
Understanding the SharePoint App Architecture
Provisioning and Managing Apps and App Catalogs
Lab 1: Configuring and Managing SharePoint Apps
Configuring a SharePoint Farm to Support Apps
Creating and Configuring a Corporate App Catalog
Deploying and Monitoring Apps
Section 13: Developing a Governance Plan
Governance as it relates to SharePoint can be described as a way of controlling a SharePoint environment through the application of people, policies, and processes. Governance is necessary for all IT systems as a whole, and in particular for SharePoint deployments, which often introduce significant change in business processes, available functionality, and day-to-day working practices.
It is important to understand that governance must reflect the needs of the organization and how it should best use SharePoint. Therefore, the IT department cannot be the only body governing SharePoint; input must come from corporate sponsorship across the organization. The IT department must still act as the technical authority for SharePoint; however, this is just a single part of how SharePoint governance must be brought together from different parts of the organization.
Topics :
Introduction to Governance Planning
Key Elements of a Governance Plan
Planning for Governance in SharePoint Server 2013
Implementing Governance in SharePoint 2013
Lab 1: Developing a Plan for Governance
Creating a Governance Plan
Lab 2: Managing Site Creation and Deletion
Creating and Publishing Site Policies
Enabling and Managing Self-Service Site Creation
Section 14: Upgrading and Migrating to SharePoint Server 2013
Upgrading your SharePoint Server 2010 farm(s) to SharePoint 2013 is a major undertaking, so it is important that students carefully plan the upgrade activities. Students need to ensure that their upgrade pathmoving from version to versionis supported, that students have reviewed the business impact of their upgrade, and that students test their upgrade strategy to ensure business continuity. As with all such activities, preparation is crucial.
In contrast with earlier version of SharePoint, SharePoint 2013 supports only database-attach upgrades for content, but now supports upgrades for some of the databases associated with service applications. You need to plan for these and ensure that students are prepared for any troubleshooting that may be required.
Another change in SharePoint 2013 is the approach to upgrading site collections. These are upgraded separately from the data and service applications. You can also delegate the upgrade tasks to site collection administrators.
Topics :
Preparing Upgrade or Migration Environment
Performing the Upgrade Process
Managing Site Collection Upgrade
Lab 1: Performing a Database-Attach Upgrade
Import the SharePoint 2010 Databases
Migrating and Upgrading a Service Application
Migrating and Upgrading a Content Database
Lab 2: Managing Site Collection Upgrades
Preparing Site Collections for Upgrade
Upgrading Site Collections
