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Features are SharePoint Server 2010–specific declarative (XML) programming elements. Features configure, associate, define, create, and copy.

Features are most commonly used for the following:
- To define the columns that make up list types and the fields that the columns are based on
- To copy Web parts and master pages to their respective galleries
- To associate Visual Studio workflows with a list or site
- To modify and extend the configuration of the SharePoint Server 2010 user interface
- To serve as a control panel that allows code and configuration changes to be turned on and off in the browse

Note: Features can affect four different scopes: farm, Web application, site collection, and site. Site-scoped and site collection–scoped features can be controlled by information workers, which allows farm administrators to delegate responsibility for them

Feature Location:

Features are XML files and must be contained in a folder in C:\Programs Files\CommonFiles\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\FEATURES

Basic Know-how:

Features are generally composed of two types of files: a feature header file and one or more element files. Because the feature files are simply XML and because they are located in TEMPLATE\FEATURES, they can be easily inspected by browsing to the appropriate folder and examining the contents of the files. Feature header files are generally named Feature.XML

Feature Life Cycle

There is a four-stage feature life cycle
- Features are installed, activated, deactivated, and uninstalled
- Features can be manipulated with Stsadm.exe, Central Administration,and Windows Power Shell
- Features are deployed using solution packages with either full-trust or sandboxed deployment mechanisms

How to install a Feature:

Features are deployed with solution packages and should be automatically installed when deployed. Although it is uncommon to have to manually install features, you should know what the installation process does to install features

To install a feature, the necessary feature files must already be deployed to the TEMPLATE\FEATURES directory on all servers in the farm. Installing a feature simply makes it available to be activated. Any installed feature that does not have the property Hidden=True can be seen and activated through the SharePoint Server 2010 user interface

Features must be installed using either Stsadm.exe or Windows Power-Shell.

Stsadm.exe is located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN. To install a feature using Stsadm.exe, use the following
command:

stsadm.exe -o installfeature {-filename | -name } [-force]

To install a feature using Windows PowerShell, use the following command:

Install-SPFeature -Path [-AssignmentCollection ] [-Confirm []] [-Force ] [-WhatIf []] []

How to Activate/Deactivate features:

To activate or deactivate a farm-scoped feature using Central Administration, do the following:

- Browse to Central Administration, System Settings, Manage Farm Features
- Click either the feature’s Activate or Deactivate button
- To deactivate a feature, confirm the deactivation

Activating Web application–scoped features in Central Administration has changed considerably and is now accomplished using the new management Ribbon

To activate a Web application–scoped feature, do the following:
- Browse to Central Administration, Application Management, Manage Web Applications
- Click the row that contains the Web application that the feature should be activated on
- Click the Web Application tab in the management Ribbon
- Click the Manage Features button in the management Ribbon
- Click either the feature’s Activate or Deactivate button
- To deactivate the feature, confirm the deactivation

Activating and Deactivation Features in Site Collection

If a feature has been installed to the farm and scoped to a site collection, a site collection administrator can then either activate or deactivate the feature. To activate or deactivate a site collection–scoped feature, do the following:
- Open the appropriate site collection in the browser
- From the Site Actions drop-down menu, click Site Settings
- Click the Site Collection Features hyperlink in the Site Collection Administration group,If the Site Collection Administration group contains a Go To Top Level Site Settings hyperlink, click on it to go to the top-level site, and then click the Site Collection Features hyper-link.
- Click the Activate or Deactivate button
- To deactivate a feature, confirm the deactivation

Activating and Deactivation Features in a Site

If a feature has been installed to the farm and scoped to a site, a site owner can activate and deactivate the feature. To activate or deactivate a site-scoped feature, do the following:
- Open the site in the browser.
- From the Site Actions drop-down menu, click Site Settings
- Click the Manage Site Features hyperlink in the Site Actions group
- Click the Activate or Deactivate button
- Confirm the deactivation

Activating and Deactivation Features using STSADM.EXE

Features can also be activated and deactivated from the command line using Stsadm.exe. Activate or deactivate features using the appropriate stsadm.exe command:

stsadm.exe -o activatefeature {-filename | -name | -id } [-url ] [-force]|

Or

stsadm.exe -o deactivatefeature {-filename | -name | -id } [-url ] [-force]

Activating and Deactivation Features using Windows PowerShell

Windows PowerShell uses a slightly different naming system than Stsadm.exe and
the user interface. Instead of using the activate and deactivate parameters, Windows PowerShell use the verbs Enable and Disable. To activate (enable) or deactivate(disable) features with Windows PowerShell, use the appropriate cmdlet:

Enable-SPFeature -Identity  [-AssignmentCollection ][-Confirm []][-Force ] [-PassThru ] [-Url ][-WhatIf []] []

Or

Disable-SPFeature -Identity [-AssignmentCollection ][-Confirm []][-Force ] [-Url ] [-WhatIf []][]

Planning of backup & restore process becomes very critical when you are handling the large content volume in SharePoint 2010 due to some of the limitations of the content backup and performance issues. Let's say you have the terabytes of data in your SharePoint 2010 Farm and you create the backup/restore policy.

The following things are important to consider:
- Farm backup and recovery using Central Administration or stsadm/powershell command processes 600GB of data for 6 hours
- SQL Server backup processes 600GB of data for 6 hours
- System Center Data Protection Manager processes terabytes of data for 6 hours
- SQL FILESTREAM provider does not support SQL Server snapshots backupRemote Blob Storage (RBS) should be installed on source and destination backup servers
- Use "Backup Compression" feature of SQL Server 2008 R2 that increases the performance
- Web application and service application settings are not included in a configuration backup, so backup/restore them manually
- Workflows are not included into export sites or lists
- It's not recommend to backup SharePoint Server 2010 site collection that are larger than 85 GB
- Restore process using Central Administration will not automatically start all of the service applications
- SharePoint Server 2010 backup backs up the Business Data Connectivity service external content type definitions but does not back up the data source itself
- The search index is not stored in SQL Server. If you use SQL Server tools to back up and restore search, you must perform a full crawl after you restore the content database.
- SharePoint Server 2010 allows to backup and restore the Farm Configuration settings, however neither SQL Server nor Data Protection Manager are able to do it


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You may have dismissed SharePoint 2007 as the web content management system for your internet presence, but with the update to SharePoint 2010, and its improvements to web content management, maybe it's time to reconsider?

The growth of SharePoint within organizations is well documented. However many organizations have been apprehensive in adopting SharePoint as a Web Content Management system for their public internet presence due to the difficulty in customizing SharePoint Server 2007 effectively

With the release of SharePoint 2010 Microsoft has made a concerted effort to position SharePoint as a leader in the WCM space, prompting organizations that already have deployed SharePoint in an Intranet or Extranet environment to consider the feasibility of adopting the platform. Although many of the technical improvements have already been discussed in various articles the question that most organizations are now considering is if it is worth moving from their established WCM platform to SharePoint. The recent release of the Gartner WCM Magic Quadrant for 2010 has shown that the new version of SharePoint has improved its capabilities in this area.

In this article We try to provide some guidance into some of the advantages, disadvantages and various questions that organizations should be considering when contemplating this move to SharePoint 2010


Technology Rationalization

It is the dream of every CIO and administrator to reduce the amount of systems that an organization possess and standardize on a platform that will be robust, scalable and ultimately support business goals. If an organization has made a considerable investment internally on the SharePoint platform, most commonly through an Intranet/Extranet/Collaboration presence, then having a completely separate platform for an Internet presence can be a huge hindrance

By standardizing on SharePoint for all types of Web management there are huge savings that can occur. Savings in hardware, licensing and operational costs can amount to huge sums to an organization. The ability to only have one platform to develop customizations on, one governance model or one common set of skills needed for employees is a very attractive proposition

If this course of action does occur however, an organization should make sure that firstly SharePoint will fulfill their requirements for a WCM platform. Also if rationalization does occur it could be a considerable amount of time before cost savings are realized. Training staff in a new technology, the cost of transferring from one platform to another or simple change management activities can be sizeable for an organization and should be considered before moving to SharePoint 2010

Platform Capabilities

With the broadness of the feature set in SharePoint 2010, being able to leverage this in an internet scenario is highly palatable and advantageous

Not only can the considerable WCM capabilities of SharePoint be leveraged but other important feature sets can also be utilized. The social toolset can be used to create public internet sites that can make use of SharePoint’s considerable tagging, ratings, blogs, wiki and other social engagement features. The search capabilities can be leveraged to create compelling search experiences. Business Intelligence for real time reporting can be combined with rich online InfoPath forms capabilities to create more consumer driven sites

Other features such as Claims based authentication can be leveraged to allow users to authenticate using a third party provider. Microsoft’s heavy investment into cloud computing also lends itself extremely well in a WCM scenario where potential traffic spikes can be absorbed by the cloud infrastructure

Of course the breadth of SharePoint’s capabilities can also serve as its downfall. If your organization has specific needs that need deep vertical capabilities than you should be considering the cost of implementing this custom functionality on the SharePoint platform. If this is the case then you might be better served with a niche solution, rather than the broader set of features that SharePoint offers

User Rationalization

From an end user perspective there are huge advantages of having one platform for daily activities. The time wasted performing the mental switch from one interface to another is well documented. The reduction of training costs is another advantage of having one platform for interaction. User engagement can also be increased with users feeling confident in being able to contribute content across all possible areas of an organization

In essence users hate and resent having many differing interfaces to generate the same output. It simply doesn’t make sense that authoring a news article on the Intranet is different than authoring one on the Internet for many users. Presenting users with one interface, one set of actions, one set of guiding principles can lead to huge efficiency gains across an organization

Licensing Changes

The new licensing model that Microsoft is now providing for public facing SharePoint sites is much more palatable then it was for SharePoint 2007. In the days of MOSS, the public connector license necessary to expose SharePoint to an anonymous audience was cost prohibitive for many smaller and mid-tier organizations to adopt

This has changed considerably in SharePoint 2010 with the new licensing model that Microsoft has provided. With the various flavors that are available, and the ability to use FAST search in these licenses, it makes for a very attractive proposition cost wise for many clients. Although licensing is still as complex as ever, We would dare say more complex now, at least mid-tier organizations can expose SharePoint out to the world without a huge price tag

Partner Ecosystem

It’s also worth noting that because SharePoint is a Microsoft product that the potential to find resources, training, add-ons and partners to assist an organization in meeting their business objectives in an Internet scenario is increased

The common issue of finding suitably experienced and expert staff in a particular technology can be somewhat alleviated by standardizing on a single platform, with the backing of the huge partner ecosystem that revolves around Microsoft. We expect partners to become even more engaged with SharePoint work in the near future as the demand grows. With the growth in the public web facing presence, Microsoft partners could specialize on this skillset and find themselves in a great position for the future. Of course this would have the added advantage to providing skills necessary for organizations as well

Final Thoughts

We hope that this article does provide some information that should be considered for implementing SharePoint 2010 as your web content management system. As with any product, careful planning and tradeoffs should be considered before making any major platform changes in your organization. However we believe that the ability to standardize on a single platform, a common architecture, governance model and training and user experience can be extremely powerful to an organization. Make sure that you spend a considerable amount of time researching the pros and cons of any such move

In this tutorial, we will show how to develop Provider and Consumer web parts and connect them through an Interface.

The result will be the ability to have two web parts on a SharePoint 2010 page and filter the contents of the consumer web part on the data from the provider web part. This is almost like a master - detail view.

You can view the same functionality by looking at the standard SharePoint web parts. Modify a web part --> select Connections and the "Provide data to..." or "Receive data from..."



and then...



Lets Go:
We will show the detailed steps to:
1 - Develop a Connection Interface
2 - Develop a simple provider web part.
3 - Develop a simple consumer web part.
1 - Develop a Connection Interface.

Open Visual Studio 2010 and create a new project. In the New Project dialog window, select Visual C# --> SharePoint 2010 --> Empty SharePoint Project.
Provide a descriptive name and click on OK.
Select to deploy the solution as a "Deploy as Farm Solution" and click on Finish.
Wait for the solution to be created in Visual Studio.

Now we will create the web part connection interface which is responsible for exchanging connection information between a provider and consumer web part.
In the Solution Explorer, right-click on your project and select "Add --> New item".
In the Add New Item dialog window, select Visual C# --> Code --> Interface.
Enter ITaskin the Name textbox and click the Add button.
Open ITask.cs in code view and change the visibility of the interface to Public and add the following code inside the interface:
namespace WebPartConnectors
{
   public interface ITask
   {
      int Id { get; }
      string Name { get; }
   }
}

2 - Develop a simple provider web part:
In the Solution Explorer, right click on your project and select Add --> New Item…
Select Visual C# --> SharePoint 2010 Web Part.
Enter ProviderWebPart in the Name textbox and click Add.
Open ProviderWebPart.cs in code view and in the ProviderWebPart class declaration, implement IProject.
public class ProviderWebPart : Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart, ITask

Insert the following code after the ProviderWebPart class declaration.
This code block implements the IProject web part connection interface and adds a local variable to the web part.
DropDownList _objPicker = null;
int ITask.Id
 {
    get
    {
     return int.Parse(_objPicker.SelectedValue);
    }
 }
string ITask.Name
 {
   get
   {
     return _objPicker .SelectedItem.ToString();
   }
 }

Update the CreateChildControls method to contain the following code:

protected override void CreateChildControls()
{
  try
  {
    _objPicker= new DropDownList();
    using (SPSite spSite = new SPSite(SPContext.Current.Web.Url))
    using (SPWeb spWeb = spSite.OpenWeb())
    {
      SPList objList = spWeb.Lists["Tasks"];

      foreach (SPListItem objListItem in objList.Items)
      {
        _objPicker.Items.Add(new ListItem(objListItem.Title, objListItem.ID.ToString()));
      }    
     }
     _objPicker.AutoPostBack = true;
     this.Controls.Add(_objPicker);
  }
  catch (Exception ex)
  {  
    this.Controls.Clear();
    this.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(ex.Message));
  }
}

Insert the following ConnectionProvider property below the CreateChildControls method. This provides the Connection Provider interface point for the ProviderWebPart: [ConnectionProvider("Task Name and ID")]
public ITask NameDoesNotMatter()
{
  return this;
}


Save your solution and build. Ensure that there are no build errors before you proceed.


3 - Develop a simple consumer web part.
In the Solution Explorer, right click on your project and select Add --> New Item…

Select Visual C# --> SharePoint 2010 Web Part.
Enter ConsumerWebPart in the Name textbox and click Add.

Insert the following code inside the ConsumerWebPart class declaration:
ITask _provider = null;
Label _lbl = null;

Update the CreateChildControls method to contain the following code:
protected override void CreateChildControls()
{
try
{
_lbl = new Label();
if (_provider != null)
{
if (_provider.Id > 0)
{
_lbl.Text = _provider.Name + " was selected.";
}
else
{
_lbl.Text = "Nothing was selected.";
}
}
else
{
_lbl.Text = "No Provider Web Part Connected.";
}
this.Controls.Add(_lbl);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
this.Controls.Clear();
this.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(ex.Message));
}
}

Insert the following ConnectionConsumer property below the CreateChildControls method. This provides the Connection Consumer interface point for the ConsumerWebPart:
[ConnectionConsumer("Name and ID")]Edit a page and add the two new web parts.
public void ThisNameDoesNotMatter(IProject providerInterface)
{
  _provider = providerInterface;
}
Save the solution, Build the solution and Deploy the solution.
Go to your target SharePoint 2010 site and refresh the site.



View your two new web parts on the page:



Edit the page again and select the ProviderWebPart and click on Edit Web Part.



Select the ProviderWebPart again, but this time select "Connections" --> "Send Task Name and ID To" --> ConsumerWebPart.



Now, if you select an item from the dropdown list control in the providerwebpart you will see the corresponding data change in the consumerwebpart.

This way you will be able to build master-detail views or web part filters based on selections of other web parts