The Next Big Thing - The SharePoint Configuration Analyzer V.Next
Yesterday, I did a quick presentation on the new analysis features in SPSiteManager (See attached PPT to this post)
Those of you following my blog may have noticed that I have stated a few times that SPSiteManager, SPUserUtil, etc.. were going to be combined into one tool in the future which I eluded to as the "Next Big Thing". At the end of the attached PPT, I made that annoucement on what that "Next Big Thing" is all about.
For those who don't have PowerPoint, or the PowerPoint viewer, let me just state it here :)
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The Future of SPSiteManager
We will be rolling in all the following functionality into a future version of the SharePoint Configuration Analyzer
See §https://www.bluedoglimited.com/SharePointThoughts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=183 for some forward thinking on this as well as what's noted in the PPT and noted here:
- §Integrate SPUserUtil features
- §Integrate SPSiteBuilder features
- §Integrate functionality of SPReports
- §List and Document Library “Split” option to aid when lists and document libraries were detected that exceed capacity planning guidelines.
- §Web Part discovery across the farm. §Lots and Lots of feature requests that were punted previously J
The SharePoint Configuration Analyzer
The SharePoint Configuration Analyzer is a tool that you can download from the Microsoft Download Center to analyze and report on your Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services installation and content. SharePoint Configuration Analyzer reports on a wide range of configuration errors and also copies a set of log files, configuration files, and other data to a results folder for further analysis or archiving.
SharePoint Configuration Analyzer is particularly useful for analyzing and troubleshooting Web Parts on your servers. For example, you can configure SharePoint Configuration Analyzer to list each Web Part installed on a virtual server and to report on all of the pages that contain an instance of each Web Part. This is useful when upgrading a Web Part to a newer version or when deleting a Web Part. Before upgrading or deleting the Web Part, run SharePoint Configuration Analyzer with these options selected. Then, by using the usage data, contact all owners of pages containing the Web Part you are about to upgrade or remove, giving them notice of the impending change.
Note: SharePoint Configuration Analyzer is not supported, and is available as is. It does not change the state of your Windows SharePoint Services nor does it repair errors that it reports. SharePoint Configurration Analyzer only copies its analysis results, along with any configuration files, log files, or other data that you requested, to its results folder, as described in this topic and in the SharePoint Configuration Analyzer Help.
SPReports integration
SPReport is a command-line utility that gathers metrics about a site and its subsites, the document library and other lists in each site, and the documents in each document library.
SPReport uses the SharePoint object model to retrieve information about the current configuration and hence, the tool needs to be run locally from a SharePoint Web front-end server. The current version of SPReport cannot be run remotely.
The current release of SPReports is located at: https://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspx?id=8eb2bfa3-aac8-4b5a-b3a2-5accb29970eb
As you can see, there is a lot of overlap between the SharePoint Configuration Analyzer, SPSiteManager, and SPReports.
Each tool noted above grabs a bit of data from here and there, and we've found that most of our customers use a combination of all these tools for all their internal reporting, etc.
We had to write and update SPSiteManager to grab data that was needed because of the lack some metrics in everything we've seen.
Maurice and I have talked about combining and taking SCA to the next level for over a year now, and we think that updating the SharePoint Configuration Analyzer with all this work is the best combination of all worlds and everyone involved is extremely excited about the possibilities and results this initiative will produce.
It's analysis engine can be used non-interatvely like how SPReports and SPSiteManager are used today, but will also provide a GUI for all you GUI fans out there to invoke the same functionality.
We're currently generating the specs and our current goal is to design it to support both the currently released versions of
Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 as well as the next version of Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
I'll be making further blog posts on using the new version of SPSiteManager, SPUserUtil, etc here. These postings will provide recommended guidance on how to use it effectively, but future blog updates on The SharePoint Configuration Analyzer will be placed on SharePointThoughts, so get your RSS aggregators configured to this site if you don't already :)
Have a great day!!!
- Keith Richie