Wes Bryan, Product Team lead at Bamboo Solutions, led an informal "Cabana" session yesterday at the Best Practices SharePoint Conference (BPSPC), providing a demo of the free SharePoint Analyzer tool. Of the session's attendees, just one had already downloaded the tool, but hadn't yet had a chance to spend much time with it, so all of the attendees were anxious to see what features the tool offered. Since none of the attendees had used Microsoft's Best Practices Analyzer, there was particular interest in seeing how Bamboo had embedded that tool into the SharePoint Analyzer.
Throughout his overview and demo, Wes fielded questions from the participants, with Bamboo Principal Architect Jonas Nilsson and your faithful correspondent also occasionally joining the discussion to provide additional insights. In the interest of sharing the questions (and their answers) fielded during the session for those who were unable to attend, here's what I captured:
"When was SharePoint Analyzer released, and have there been any releases since then?"
Beta 1.0 of SharePoint Analyzer was released in early November, with version 1.1 following in December, and version 1.2 was released on Sunday.
"Are Web Parts included in the discovery process?"
Yes, fully featured information on all Web Parts installed in your environment will be discovered, up to and including the pages on which they're deployed and whether they're hidden or closed. In the case of Bamboo Web Parts, we're also able to notify you when there is a newer version available than the one you're running.
"What sort of footprint does SharePoint Analyzer have?"
Wes explained that, since it's a small client application, the footprint is negligible in general. Jonas added that since certain tasks (such as Web Part discovery, though once discovered, that information is cached) require querying the Object Model, his recommendation would be against running such farm-wide queries during peak usage time.
"Can you see your search scopes in SharePoint Analyzer?"
Wes answered that no, this isn't functionality that's currently available, but notes that it's definitely a feature request worthy of consideration.
"Can you add best practices to the rule file manually?"
Yes, the current beta version uses Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer rules by default, but adding rules is as straightforward as modifying the XML rules file accordingly. Future versions of the tool will include a more robust set of default rules, ideally the product of community-approved best practices, with input from a wide variety of SharePoint thought leaders. (This plan met with an enthusiastic response from all session attendees.)
"Is the beta version safe to run on production servers?"
Absolutely, with the only caveat being the aforementioned caution against running farm-wide queries involving the Object Model during peak usage times, as doing so will likely slow down performance.
In response to Wes's request for input as to additional functionality that we ought to consider adding, the general consensus is that folks would need to get their hands dirty before they could start to adequately answer that question, but one thought was whether it might be possible to provide the ability to run the Analyzer without having to install it directly on a server (since doing so isn't always an option for a consultant working with a client).
Additional questions, answers, and ongoing discussions on the tool may be found in the SharePoint Analyzer forum.
Wes and Jonas were doing double-duty on Wednesday at the conference, and they spent the lunch hour which followed our Cabana session preparing to present their joint session on best practices for Web Parts & Code Access Security. Wes himself will be providing that session recap, so be sure to check back soon.
Looking for more Best Practices? See all posts on the Best Practices SharePoint Conference.
Posted
Feb 06 2009, 11:05 AM
by
John Anderson
John Anderson joined Bamboo Solutions as Manager of Content & Syndication in May 2008 after a 12-year career at AOL. New to SharePoint at the time of his hiring, John was tasked with creating a new blog for the just-launched Bamboo Nation community in which he would document his daily SharePoint learning process. Thus was born the end user-centric SharePoint Blank, for which John authored 200 posts within a year, and which he continues to write today. John writes SharePoint Blank in addition to his responsibilities as Bamboo Nation's de facto managing editor and, while he has learned much about SharePoint in his first year, he gleefully awaits the release of SharePoint 2010, and the reset button that release will represent for SharePoint Blank.