Introduction

There are a lot of SharePoint books out there, and you might be wondering, why another? We know that different people buy books for different reasons. In this book, we cater to the busiest of professionals. We respect your time and understand that many of you don’t have time to read an 800-page tome. You need quick answers to real questions such as “How do I apply a cumulative update?” or “What steps are needed to configure network load balancing?” The answers we give are concise and come with easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions. In some cases, we also answer the why questions that are common with complex products like SharePoint. As you read, you’ll find many notes, tips, and warnings, helping you avoid the common and not-so-common pitfalls.

One of our goals was to focus on topics needed most by today’s administrators. We include content that is not found elsewhere or is scattered among too many places to easily put together. In the book, you will learn how to:

• Build and scale your SharePoint environment to meet user demand
• Preserve and protect SharePoint content
• Deliver an effective search platform
• Keep your SharePoint servers healthy
• Manage SharePoint using Central Administration and PowerShell

While this book can be read from cover to cover, each chapter is fairly discrete, so in many cases, you can flip right to the section you need. Where relevant, we refer you to other sections, chapters, or external links for more information. This is a hands-on guide, and our ultimate goal is for this to be the one book that you carry around in your backpack. Bring it into the server room or war room. Annotate it, flag its pages—use it like any good multitool.

What You Need

Other than an open and eager mind, there is nothing specific that you will need before delving in. Of course, as you start to build and deploy SharePoint environments, you’ll need physical or virtual hardware and software that SharePoint requires. This is spelled out for you in Chapter 1.

In most chapters, you will find PowerShell cmdlets (pronounced “command-lets”) that can be used to perform administrative tasks. For these, you must use a specially configured PowerShell interface called SharePoint 2010 Management Shell. This is the same PowerShell engine that is part of Windows Server 2008, but it auto-registers all of the SharePoint cmdlets that can be used. You can find the shortcut here: Start ⇒ All Programs ⇒ Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products ⇒ SharePoint 2010 Management Shell. Since you’ll use SharePoint 2010 Management Shell regularly, you might want to pin the shortcut to the Start menu or link to it from your taskbar.

Who Should Read This Book

Whether you are a seasoned SharePoint administrator or just now starting out in SharePoint, you’ll find useful content in here. As much as possible, we avoid making assumptions about any SharePoint background you may or may not have.

Those with a SharePoint background will probably use the book more as a reference guide. Those of you who are starting out are encouraged to read the first four chapters to get your footing with terminology and essential concepts. From there, you can move into any other chapter with relative ease.

If you are a SharePoint designer or developer, we cover many relevant concepts, but most of the material is focused on the needs of IT professionals.

Since SharePoint is built on top of many other systems, there are other products and technologies you should understand to get the most out of this book. You will benefit from the following:

• Rudimentary knowledge of Active Directory and Domain Name System (DNS)
• Experience working with Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2
• Overall familiarity with IIS and SQL Server
• Basic understanding of Windows networking

How to Contact the Authors

We welcome feedback from you about this book or other books you’d like to see from us in the future.

To reach Randy or get more information about his work, visit his website at www.synergyonline.com/randy. You can also follow him on Twitter (@tweetraw).

Milan can be reached via his blog at www.synergyonline.com/milan or on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/milangross.

Sybex strives to keep you supplied with the latest tools and information you need for your work. Please check their website at www.sybex.com, where we’ll post additional content and updates that supplement this book if the need arises. Enter SharePoint Instant Reference in the Search box (or type the book’s ISBN—9781118022344), and click Search to get to the book’s update page.