Installing SharePoint 2013 Prerequisites

You must install some software prerequisites before installing SharePoint Server 2013; otherwise, the SharePoint installation will fail.

These prerequisites can be installed through a variety of methods.

Install prerequisites using the Microsoft SharePoint Products Preparation Tool

The Microsoft SharePoint Products Preparation Tool, also known as the prerequisite installer, can automatically download and install all of the prerequisites for you. As part of the prerequisite installation process, the tool needs to connect to the Microsoft Download Center, so Internet access is required.

To run the Microsoft SharePoint Products Preparation Tool:

1. Log on as the Setup user account.

2. In the folder where you downloaded the SharePoint 2013 software, locate and run

prerequisiteinstaller.exe.

3. On the Welcome to the Microsoft SharePoint Products Preparation Tool page, click Next.

4. On the License Terms for software products page, review the terms, select the I accept the terms of the License Agreement(s) check box, and then click Next.

5. On the Installation Complete page, click Finish.

During the scanning and installation process, the tool scans for each prerequisite. If a prerequisite is not found, the tool downloads, installs, and configures the prerequisite. If an error occurs, such as a download failure, the tool stops and produces an error message that indicates which prerequisite failed. You can find details of the failure in the error log, which is located in the %TEMP% folder. The tool displays a link to the log. After you fix the issue, you must rerun the tool and repeat the process until all prerequisites are successfully installed and configured.

Installing SharePoint Server 2013

The deployment stages for SharePoint 2013 include preparation, installation, and configuration of your

SharePoint 2013 farm.

1.   Accounts Required for SharePoint 2013 Installation

·         SharePoint, SQL Server, and Active Directory

SharePoint has close relationships with and dependencies on Microsoft SQL Server and Active

Directory.

Active Directory provides identity and authentication services. In other words, it stores user accounts (user names and passwords) and validates account logons. These services support users logging on to SharePoint sites. They also support the accounts used by SharePoint and SQL services themselves.

SQL Server stores almost all of the configuration and content of a SharePoint farm. SQL Server services, like all Windows services, run using an identity. SharePoint services also run with Active Directory credentials. The credentials are used by SharePoint to access data in SQL Server. These accounts must have SQL logins so that SQL can authorize the access.

These SQL logins are created automatically by SharePoint during setup and the creation of web applications.

·         Service and administrative accounts

Before installing SharePoint, you must ensure that there are appropriate accounts, logins, and permissions to support the interdependencies between SharePoint, SQL Server, Active Directory, and the SharePoint server itself.

·         SQL Server service account

SQL Server services use identities, or accounts. Like most Windows services, you can use a special identity such as System, Network Service, or Local Service, but it is a highly recommended best practice to use a domain user account. If SQL Server is installed on a different computer to where SharePoint is installed, it is required to use a domain account.

·         Setup user account

The setup user account is used by a human being to install and configure SharePoint. During setup and configuration, SharePoint creates SQL databases and logins, and modifies the server itself (for example, creating local groups). SharePoint setup and configuration uses the credentials of the setup user account to perform such tasks, so it must be a securityadmin and dbcreator on the SQL Server, and it must be amember of the local Administrators group. It must also be a member of the db_owner fixed database role on any databases affected by any Windows PowerShell cmdlets that you run.

The only SQL login that you must manually create is the login for the setup user account, which actually performs the initial setup of the farm.

·         Server farm account

During installation and configuration, the setup user account assigns an account to the SharePoint farm, which is the service account representing the SharePoint farm.

The server farm account is also referred to as the database access account and is used by SharePoint to configure and manage the server farm. It is also the identity used by the Central Administration site’s application pool, and the identity used by the Timer service.

The SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard automatically assigns the account the permissions it needs.

The server farm account is automatically added as a SQL Server login on the computer that runs SQL

Server. The account is added to the following SQL Server security roles:

ü  dbcreator fixed server role

ü  securityadmin fixed server role

ü  db_owner fixed database role for all SharePoint databases in the server farm

·         Application pool accounts

Each web application runs in an application pool. The application pool identity is a domain user account

That is functionally equivalent to a service account, with permissions to access the content database for

the web application on the SQL Server.

Service applications, such as Search, are also web applications. Therefore, they also run in an application

pool with a domain user identity.

Web and service application pool accounts are automatically granted the permissions they need during

the provisioning of the application.

Next Post: Installing SharePoint 2013 Prerequisites

SharePoint 2010 to 2013 Migration

This model describes the required steps to upgrade from SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010 to SharePoint Foundation 2013 or SharePoint Server 2013. The database-attach method is the only supported method for upgrading from SharePoint 2010 Products to SharePoint 2013 Products. Information about the Business Data Connectivity service application applies to both SharePoint Server 2013 and SharePoint Foundation 2013. Information about all other service applications and about My Sites applies only to SharePoint Server 2013.

1.   Prepare

·          Gather information and clean up 2010 farm

Gather information from the 2010 farm to help determine the 2013 farm topology. Gather settings and customizations, plus a performance baseline and information about the environment. Clean up your farm to elimination potential upgrade errors. Try out upgrade in a test farm. See the model poster SharePoint 2013 Products – Testing Upgrade for information about how to perform the test upgrade.

·         Prepare 2013 farm

For a database-attach upgrade, you upgrade the data and sites on a separate farm from your original farm. In this step, you set up and configure this new farm. The new farm is used to upgrade the data and sites, and becomes the farm that users will connect to going forward.

Important Review the system requirements and administrative accounts needed for SharePoint 2013 Products.

2.   Upgrade databases

After you have prepared the new environment, you can copy and upgrade databases.

·         Copy databases

To perform a database-attach upgrade, you copy your databases from your original farm to your new farm.

·         Upgrade service application databases

Use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to create new service applications and upgrade the service application databases. You must also create proxies for the upgraded service applications and add the new service application proxies to the default proxy group.

·         Create web applications and apply customizations

Use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to create new service applications and upgrade the service application databases. You must also create proxies for the upgraded service applications and add the new service application proxies to the default proxy group.

·         Create web applications and apply customizations

Create and configure web applications Create a web application for each web application in your 2010 farm. Do not create site collections. Those will be created automatically when you upgrade the content databases.

Reapply customizations Install necessary customizations for your environment: solution packages, custom site definitions, style sheets, Web Parts, Web services, features, solutions, assemblies, Web.config changes, form templates, and so on.

Verify Use the Test-SPContentDatabase cmdlet in Windows PowerShell to verify that the new environment has all of the components you need before you upgrade any databases.

·         Upgrade content databases

Now that the databases are available in the new farm, you can attach and upgrade them. Although this upgrades the data, it does not upgrade the user interface for the sites contained in the databases. Use the Mount-SPContentDatabase cmdlet in Windows PowerShell to upgrade the databases.

3.   Upgrade sites

Now that the databases have been upgraded, site collection administrators can upgrade their sites. The following steps are performed from the Site Settings page in the site collection.

·         Run site collection health checks

Before upgrading, site collection administrators can use the site collection health checker to identify and address potential issues in their site collections. Health checks are also run automatically before upgrade.

·         Create an upgrade evaluation site collection

Site collection administrators can also request an upgrade evaluation site collection – a separate copy of the site collection upgraded to the new user interface. This site is used to preview the new user interface so that the administrator can address issues before upgrading the site collection.

·         Upgrade a site collection

After verifying that the site is ready, site collection administrators can upgrade their site collection to the new user interface.

SharePoint 2013 Beyond Basics

What is SharePoint?

It is the business collaboration platform for the enterprise and the web

ü  Allows individuals in an organization to easily create and manage their own collaborative Web sites

ü  Simplifies how people find and share information across boundaries, and enabling better informed decisions

ü  It seamlessly integrates with Windows and MS Office

ü  It does not refer to a specific product or technology

ü  If we are using the word “Microsoft SharePoint” is like using the word “Microsoft Office”

SharePoint History

SharePoint 2013 Architecture

Logical Structure

Sites

Saving and synchronizing content

When deployed, a user's My Site document library is the default location for files that Microsoft Office 2013 client applications save. A discovery service identifies the URL of the user's My Site and offers it as the default location in addition to other locations available for saving files. This promotes the concept of storing files in the document library of a user's My Site where items can be managed, governed, shared, and moved. This helps reduce the amount of content that other systems, such as email or personal drives, store

.

Community sites

A new site template named Community Sites offers a forum experience to categorize and cultivate discussions with a broad group of people across organizations within a company. You can deploy a stand-alone community (shown). Or, you can activate community features on any site, which provides the core Community Site pages, moderation, membership, and reputation functionality within the existing site without creating a separate Community Site.

Service Applications

Search

Search is better integrated with enterprise infrastructure, based on an entirely new engine that combines the simplicity and great default relevance provided by SharePoint Search with the massive scale and extensibility offered by FAST technology. IT can deploy a scalable search architecture that enables users to search remote data sources, navigate enterprise repositories rapidly, and bring more information within reach through new individual search results that are based on how individuals interact with information in their daily work.

PowerPoint Automation Service

Information is at SharePoint score and making that information in a variety of formats leads to broader collaboration and access to improvements in software. SharePoint Server 2013 provides a new PowerPoint Automation Service, which is similar to the current Word Automation Service. The PowerPoint Automation Service can automate conversion of Microsoft PowerPoint presentations to many formats, which promotes a high degree of accessibility, from converting older Office formats to newer Office formats, or to web pages, or PDFs.

Translation services

Reach more people with new cloud-based translation services that can translate sites and site content. With a full set of API s, REST, and CSOM support, content can be pre-translated when needed, or on the fly by users — asynchronously, synchronously, or streaming,

Work Management

The Work Management Service provides task aggregation across work management systems, including Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange Server, and Microsoft Project Server. For example, users can edit tasks from Exchange Server on a mobile phone, and the Work Management Service aggregates tasks from Exchange Server in the My tasks SharePoint list.

Workflow

SharePoint Server 2013 brings major advancements to workflows: enterprise features such as fully declarative authoring, REST and Service Bus messaging, elastic scalability, and managed service reliability. SharePoint Server 2013 can use a new workflow service built on the Windows Workflow Foundation components of the .NET Framework 4.5. This new service is called Workflow Manager and it is designed to play a central role in the enterprise. Processes are central to any organization and workflow is the orchestrator of processes. The SharePoint 2010 Workflow platform has been carried forward to SharePoint Server 2013. Workflows that you built by using SharePoint Server 2010 will continue to work in SharePoint Server 2013.

Features deprecated in SharePoint 2013

Visual upgrade

The visual upgrade feature in SharePoint Server 2010 is not available in SharePoint 2013. For the upgrade from Office SharePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010, you could choose to use the visual upgrade feature to give site collection owners and site owners the opportunity to preserve the previous user interface temporarily while still upgrading the infrastructure and databases, site collections, and features to the latest version.

Document Workspace site template

When you create a site in SharePoint 2013, the Document Workspace site template is not available.

Personalization Site template

When you create a site in SharePoint 2013, the Personalization Site template is not available.

Meeting Workspace site templates

When you create a site in SharePoint 2013, all five of the Meeting Workspace site templates are not available. This includes the Basic Meeting Workspace, Blank Meeting Workspace, Decision Meeting Workspace, Social Meeting Workspace, and Multipage Meeting Workspace.

Unghosting and customizing CSS files

The following methods are included in SharePoint 2013, but will be removed from the next major release of SharePoint:

Microsoft.SharePoint.SoapServer.Webs.CustomizeCss

Microsoft.SharePoint.SoapServer.Webs.RevertCss

The Webs.CustomizeCss method applies style sheet customization to a particular file.

The Webs.RevertCss method reverts style sheet customization of a file to the default style sheet.

These two methods are stored in Webs.asmx.cs and are defined in Webswsdl.asps.

Imaging Web service

The Imaging Web service provides functionality for creating and managing picture libraries. The Imaging Web service will be removed from the next major release of SharePoint. The Imaging Web service is included and supported in SharePoint 2013.