Introduction to Administration Tools

• Comparing editions and versions of SharePoint
• Taking advantage of the Three-Tier Administration Model
• Managing SharePoint from the command line with STSADM, PSCONFIG and PowerShell

Implementing a SharePoint Server Farm

Creating a distributed server environment

• Exploiting the Shared Services architecture
• Configuring and starting Excel and search services
• Assigning databases to a remote SQL Server
• Adding front-end Web servers

Building a resilient and scalable server farm

• Introducing Network Load Balancing (NLB) for scalability
• Ensuring fault tolerance using SQL mirroring and clustering

Securing the SharePoint Environment

Incorporating alternative authentication techniques

• Enabling NTLM for Intranet access
• Logging in on the Internet with ASP.NET forms
• Configuring Kerberos authentication
• Managing URLs using Access Paths

Encrypting network traffic with SSL

• Creating a certificate with Certificate Authority
• Applying a certificate to a SharePoint Web application

Controlling administration privileges

• Assigning users to Web application policies
• Defining the owner of a site collection
• Enabling self-service site management

Managing permissions with People and Groups

• Setting up Groups of users
• Assigning rights to permission levels and permission levels to Groups
• Inheriting permissions between sites
• Controlling anonymous access
• Assigning permissions to permission levels

Customising SharePoint Sites

Adapting sites to user requirements

• Web Parts
• Site templates
• Features
• Themes
• CSS
• Installing custom components with solutions
• Scanning document libraries and lists using antivirus software

Maintaining MOSS Services

Managing indexing and search

• Defining content sources and crawl schedules
• Installing PDF IFilter
• Improving search results with authoritative pages, keywords and scopes

Accessing enterprise data with the Business Data Catalog (BDC)

• Uploading application definition metadata
• Displaying BDC data in connected Web parts
• Authenticating users with SSO

Computing data on the server with Excel Services

• Designating trusted file locations
• Displaying results using the Excel Web Access Web Part
• Passing parameters to Excel Services

Working with reports and forms

• Deploying HTML forms on the Internet
• Distributing reports with Report Center
• Displaying headline information using KPIs

Optimising and Troubleshooting

Monitoring and maintaining SharePoint

• Baselining with performance logs
• Enabling diagnostic logging
• Viewing activity in audit reports and usage logs
• Cleaning up unused sites

Maximising performance

• Running the Best Practices Analyser
• Defining an effective page and object caching strategy
• Reducing data through quotas

Backup and Recovery

Keeping safe backups

• Creating a central administration full farm backup
• Scheduling site collection backups with STSADM
• Third-party and SQL Server backup tools
• Backing up the transaction log using T-SQL

Recovering from disasters

• Retrieving items from the Recycle Bin
• Reinstating a server after total failure of the configuration database
• Recreating a corrupt Web application