Microsoft Enterprise Project Management Content Publishing News : EPM

New performance best practices white paper

robert.m.hoover — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:20:00 GMT

Performance and capacity planning best practices

This download contains two white papers:

Performance testing white paper
Performance and capacity planning best practices white paper

Performance testing white paper

This white paper contains a description of an actual performance testing lab for Microsoft Office Project Server 2007.

The first chapter (“Running a Project Server 2007 Performance Test Lab”), describes how to run performance tests against a Office Project Server 2007 deployment by using Visual Studio Team System 2008 and a set of community-based tools built for the purpose.

The second chapter (“Test Environment”), documents the specifics of the lab environment that was used for the tests we ran for collecting data for this white paper.

The third chapter (“Test Results”), describes in detail the test scenarios that were conducted, and it summarizes the data collected for every scenario.

The paper is available from the Microsoft Download Center.

Download size: 4 MB

Performance and capacity planning best practices white paper

The purpose of this guide is to extend the Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Performance Testing Lab white paper by providing best practices and recommendations.

This paper examines a wide array of system objects, including:

Platform-related objects — including the farm, shared service providers, application pools, web applications, databases, disks, network, memory, CPU, logs, and performance counters
Data-related objects — including projects, tasks, assignments, resources, custom fields, and security
User-related objects — including localization, workloads, queue job processor threads, and interface feeds

For each system object, the following information is provided:

Definition — The definition of the object
Guidelines for acceptable performance — The best practices and supporting statements
Calculation factors — The performance and scalability calculations to support the best practices
Scope of impact — A list of objects affected in the system when best practices are not implemented

Hyper-V Security Guide

robert.m.hoover — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:38:00 GMT

The Solution Accelerators team has just released a new Hyper-V Security guide that may prove helpful in designing secure Project Server deployments in Hyper-V.

The guide is available for download here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2220624b-a562-4e79-aa69-a7b3dffdd090&displaylang=en

Secure your virtualized server environment with the Hyper-V Security Guide

For organizations that seek cost-effective operations, the benefits of virtualization are more evident than ever. Microsoft Hyper-V technology allows consolidation of workloads that are currently spread across multiple underutilized servers onto a smaller number of servers. This capability provides you with a way to reduce costs through lower hardware, energy, and management overhead while creating a
more dynamic IT infrastructure.

Virtualization technologies are causing enterprise organizations to shift their thinking about IT. The Hyper-V Security Guide can help you elevate the security of virtualized Windows Server® environments to address your business-critical needs. This accelerator provides IT professionals like you with recommendations to address your key security concerns around server virtualization. The guide provides authoritative guidance that relates to the following strategies for securing virtualized environments:

Hardening the Hyper-V role. The guide provides prescriptive guidance for hardening the Hyper-V role, including several best practices for installing and configuring Hyper-V with a focus on security. Among these best practices are measures for reducing the attack surface of Hyper-V as well as recommendations for properly configuring secure virtual networks and storage devices.

Delegating virtual machine management. The ability to safely and securely delegate administrative access to virtual machine resources within an organization is essential. The guide highlights several available methods to administer different aspects of a virtual machine infrastructure and ways to control administrative access to
different servers and at different levels.

Protecting virtual machines. The guide also provides prescriptive guidance for securing virtual machine resources, including best practices and detailed steps for protecting virtual machines by using
a combination of file system permissions, encryption, and auditing.

Virtualization Learning Snacks

robert.m.hoover — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:51:00 GMT

Here are some Silverlight "learning snacks" from Microsoft Learning that provide some basic information around Microsoft's Virtualization solution. These are great for anyone that may need to present a Virtualization case to business decision makers in their organization.

Microsoft Virtualization (15 minutes) New

The Microsoft Virtualization solution consists of four virtualization technologies: server, application, presentation, and desktop. Together, these technologies provide you with a complete desktop-to-datacenter virtualization solution that can help you create a dynamic IT infrastructure. This free Learning Snack highlights various features and benefits of the four virtualization technologies. It also takes a closer look at server virtualization and how it is implemented and managed in the Windows Server 2008 operating system.

Intro to Windows Server 2008 Virtualization (3 minutes)

This Snack explains the new virtualization features in Windows Server 2008 and lists the system requirements. It also demonstrates the steps necessary to install Windows Server virtualization.

Green IT and Virtualization (8 minutes)

Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental and business benefits of adopting a Green IT environment. This Learning Snack highlights how virtualization facilitates a Green IT environment. It describes the Hyper-V server role and the System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) tool, which help create and support a virtualized infrastructure in Windows Server 2008.

EPM University

robert.m.hoover — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 02:01:00 GMT

I just wanted to quickly call out a recent post from Jan Kalis on the Project Programmability blog about our EPM training offerings at EPMU.

The post is located here: http://blogs.msdn.com/project_programmability/archive/2009/03/27/do-you-epmu.aspx

Newly Published Project Server Content 11/08

robert.m.hoover — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:19:00 GMT

Enterprise disaster recovery for Project Server 2007

This series of articles describes procedures and best practices for backing up and restoring Office Project Server 2007 using SQL Server tools.

Deploy cumulative updates (Project Server 2007)

This article describes how to install Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 cumulative updates.

Plan for disaster recovery in Project Server 2007

This series of articles describes best practices for planning a disaster recovery solution for Microsoft Office Project Server 2007. It has been updated to include specific guidance about when to use SQL Server tools and when to use SharePoint Products and Technologies tools.

Planning for fault tolerance and availability in Project Server 2007

This article provides planning guidance for fault tolerance and availability in a Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 deployment.

Cube building process overview

This article describes the process for building OLAP cubes and available cubes. It has been updated to provide further guidance and best practices around using the cubes.

Office Project Server 2007 Technical Library in Compiled Help format

The entire library for Office Project Server 2007 is now available as a downloadable .chm file. This download includes all content in the library as of November 6 2008. This download will be updated monthly.

Plan for administrative and service accounts (Project Server)

This article describes the accounts required for a Office Project Server 2007 deployment. It has been updated to specify that service accounts require permission to log on interactively on the computers running the service in question.

Deploy Project Server 2007 to a server farm environment

This article describes how to deploy Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 in a farm environment. It has been updated to reflect the fact that SQL Server connections over named pipes are not required for Office Project Server 2007.

Microsoft Project Server 2007 IT Professional TechNet Webcast Series

robert.m.hoover — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:30:00 GMT

I just wanted to pass on word that starting October 1^st, 2008, Michael Jordan (Lead Architect – MCS EPM Global Practice | WW COE for EPM) will present a series of Project Server 2007 webcast on TechNet targeted at IT Professionals.

These 60 minutes webcasts will present in details key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007 specifically:

· Solution Overview and System Elements

· Solution Elements and Data Flow

· Workload Scenarios and Reference Architecture

· Network Communication

· Server Administration

· Maintenance and Monitoring

· Deployment into a SharePoint Server Intranet Farm

· Disaster Recovery

· Virtualization

You need to register for the free of charge webcast by clicking the link; then you get emailed a link to sign on and participate in the web cast on its date and time (please note only the first two webcast are available for registration at this stage).

Each TechNet webcast is recorded for later viewing which should be through the same registration URL.

For a listing of all EPM webcasts on TechNet check the following: http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/epm.aspx

Webcast Title

Abstract

Date

Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 - Solution Overview and System Elements

In this webcast, we introduce the Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 solution and the main product components. We describe key concepts such as high availability and scalability, which should be taken into account when planning and deploying Project Server 2007. This introductory webcast is part of a webcast series targeted at IT professionals. In the series, we present in detail key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007. We discuss the main considerations when planning for high-availability deployments—when to scale up and out, points of failure, and software/hardware boundaries.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008