Introducing Bamboo SharePoint Analyzer

Update: Release 1.5 (12/22/09) now available with client-side installation

Introducing Bamboo SharePoint Analyzer

SharePoint Analyzer is the latest beta product available as a free download from Bamboo Labs, our Research and Development incubator.  We developed this tool for two reasons: to provide our customers with the means to easily assess their own SharePoint environment, and to provide our support team with a powerful new diagnostic tool when assisting customers.  SharePoint Analyzer provides the IT Admin a tool which will quickly discover the configuration of a SharePoint installation.  Specifically, you can display the following information about your SharePoint farm:

• The information for the entire farm topology, from Web Applications down to individual lists.
• Server information, including patches and updates.
• Information on databases that are being used as part of your SharePoint deployment.
• Solutions and Features that have been deployed, displayed per Web App, Site Collection or Site scope.
• Services and their status.
• Content of the log files in your SharePoint farm (v1.1)
• Integrate and display reports from MS Best Practice Analyzer (v1.1)
• Display farm access accounts information (v1.1)
• Information about Bamboo products that are used in your farm, and compare with latest version available on the Bamboo web site (v1.1).
• Browse your SharePoint site using the Browser Tab (v1.2).
• Display the XML Schema of SP Lists (v1.2).
• Display the content of SP Lists (v1.2).
• Explore the Central Admin Site (v1.2)
• Display the Single-Sign-On (SSO) settings (v1.3)
• Display farm quotas (v1.3)
• Display Jobs Definitions and Running Jobs (v1.3)
• Display Workflow information for each Web Application (v1.3)
• Display event receiversm property bags and wf templates for each web (v1.3)
• View List/field and features definitions XML schema (v1.3)
• Display List data and Browse to site (v1.3)

SharePoint Site Definitions

Once you have installed SharePoint Analyzer, click on the icon on the desktop or Program menu to run the application.  You will see the desktop application as shown below:

The tree control in the left pane allows you to navigate through your SharePoint farm.  You will be able to do the following:

View SharePoint Topology Information

You can expand and browse through the entire farm to see detailed information on your Web applications, site collections, sites, and even down to the lists level.

Information that is pertinent to the well being of your SharePoint deployment such as services, solutions, and features are available at a glance.

You can use the Browse tab to view SharePoint Web Pages in addition to the ability to view its properties (V1.2). 

You can also view the schema and content of any SharePoint List (V1.2).  Note that the ability to view Web Pages and Contents are security trimmed based on your access account.  The system might prompt for you to log in to browse to those sites.

SharePoint Central Admin (V1.2)

You can view the major contents for the Central Admin Site.

View System Information

You can view the server system information (including all patches and updates), and SharePoint-specific information such as release, service packs, and optional install options.

View Database Information

SharePoint Analyzer will also display all configuration, content and administration databases in your farm.

Display MS Best Practice Analyzer (v1.1)

Bamboo Analyzer 1.1 provides an integration with the Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System application.  When you install Bamboo Analyzer, a copy of the Best Practice will be installed in the directory named BPA, under the Bamboo SharePoint Analyzer installation location.  Out of the box, you should be able to view the results of the analyzer by clicking on the “Run the Analyzer” button.  Additional rules and reports can be customized and selected using the user interface.

To run the MS BPA, click on the "Run the Analyzer" button and view the report.

Display Access Accounts Information (v1.1)

Bamboo Analyzer also discovers and display the most important access accounts in your SharePoint farm. The following access accounts are reported under the Farm>Account Security nodes:

• Farm Administrators.
• All identities used in the farm’s Application Pools
• All accounts use in Shared Services
• Account used in WSS Search and MOSS Search, also include some useful information about Shared Services if you running on MOSS.

Display Log Files (v1.1)

Bamboo Analyzer will be able to discover and display all the log files that are used within your SharePoint farm.  The following log files are shown:

• Windows Log (of the web front end server where Analyzer are running)
• SharePoint Log Files
• IIS Logs
• Database Logs

Note that the log files are displayed with raw information and only for the web front end server where you installed Bamboo Analyzer.  For a better SharePoint log viewing experience, please see the Bamboo Log Manager product from our storefront.

View Bamboo Products

You can view the installed Bamboo Web Parts and Solutions in your farm, and you may also view licensing information (this feature will be coming soon), the location of where the product is installed, and version information.  One of the most interesting features that SharePoint Analyzer provides is the ability for you to find out where a Bamboo Web Part or Feature is being used in your environment.  This feature includes the ability to display the Web pages on which the Bamboo Web Part has been added, and the status of the Web Part on those pages.

Bamboo Product License and Version Information (v1.1)

Analyzer also display the status of Bamboo’s product licensing as well as the current version on your farm compared to the latest version available on the storefront web site.

For each solution, the Code Access Security is also displayed.

SharePoint Analyzer Installation

SharePoint Analyzer is a Windows desktop application that must be installed on your SharePoint Web front-end server.  It requires the following components to run:

• Windows 2003 or Vista OS with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) installed.
• .Net Framework 2.0 or higher.
• For SharePoint Analyzer to work properly, you should have the Farm Admin permission.

SharePoint Analyzer can be downloaded for free in Bamboo Labs.  To install Bamboo SharePoint Analyzer, use the following steps:

1. Unzip the download file in a directory on your server.
2. Click and run the setup.bat program.
3. Select Microsoft Log Parser, and then click Install.  This will install the log parser program that is used to read the system log files.

Select the Bamboo SharePoint Analyzer option, and click Install.  Follow the direction of the installation program.

Limitation and Future Capabilities

This first release of SharePoint Analyzer has a couple of known limitations:

• The "where used" capability of discovering where specific Web Parts are being used can be time consuming, especially for server farm sites that contain large site collections. The data is cached after the first time you run the command.
• You will need Farm Admin credentials in order to discover and see all of the information.
• You must have proper permission to view the Log files.  Very large log files (greater than 1500 pages) will be slow to load.
• Some of the Bamboo Web Parts will generate an error message when being queried for licensing information.  You can safely click OK to bypass the warning messages.

Back in our R&D Labs, we're already working hard to improve SharePoint Analyzer.  Some of the planned features for future releases are:

• Display warning on security and disabled services.
• Flag items that does not conform to standard best practices.
• Display more information and provide additional actions for Central Admin site.  

Do you have any suggestions to help us improve SharePoint Analyzer?  Please visit the SharePoint Analyzer forum and let us know your thoughts.

Update: Release 1.3 (3/6/09) now available. 

(Previously: Update: Release 1.1 (12/23/08) and 1.2 (1/20/09) features now available.)

Related Products

Bamboo Solutions has produced several products that are designed to ease the burden of managing your SharePoint installation.  We suggest that you check out the following products:

• Bamboo Administration Suite
• User Management Solutions Accelerator
• IT Productivity Pack
• System Log Manager