February’s Rip-Roarin’ SharePoint Activities

Holy smokes!  2011 is off to a fast start, and February is already here.  Now that our product release is out (see below), I’m going to make good on my promise to get more “real” blog content out.  Before I do that, though, I want to highlight all of the great SharePoint stuff I’m fortunate enough to be involved with during the month of February.

Idera SharePoint backup 3.0 Release

As some of you know, I’m currently a Product Manager for SharePoint products at Idera.  Although it isn’t something that is strictly community focused, Idera SharePoint backup has been a large part of my life for most of the last year.  We’ve been doing some really cool development and product work, and I want to share a piece of good news: We just released version 3.0 of Idera SharePoint backup!

Idera SharePoint backup is “my” product from a management standpoint, and I’m really proud of all the effort that our team put in to make the release a reality.  There are a lot of people in many different areas who busted their butts to get the product out-the-door: development, quality assurance, information development, marketing, product marketing management, public relations, web site management, sales, sales engineering, and more.

To everyone who contributed to making the release a success: you have my heartfelt thanks.  To the rest of you who might be shopping for a SharePoint backup product, please check out what we’ve put together!

SPTechCon San Francisco

I’ll be heading out to BZ Media’s SPTechCon in San Francisco for most of the week of February 7th.  Although I will be delivering a lightning talk titled “Backup/Restore Knowledge Nuggets: What’s True, What’s Not?” (more-or-less the same talk I delivered at last Fall’s SPTechCon event in Boston) on Monday the 7th, that’s only a small part of why I’ll be at the conference.

The big stuff?  Well, first off is the big “public release” of Idera SharePoint backup 3.0.  I’ll be talking with conference participants, seeing what they like (and what they don’t like), explaining the new capabilities and features, etc.

My good friend (and co-author) John Ferringer and I will also be doing an Idera-sponsored book signing for our SharePoint 2010 Disaster Recovery Guide.  If you’re going to be at the conference and want to get a free (and signed!) copy of our book, come by booth #302 on Wednesday morning (2/9) at 10am during the coffee and donuts.  We’ll be around and easy to find: John will be the thin bald guy, and I’ll be the mostly bald guy next to him shoveling donuts into his mouth.  I have a tremendous weak spot for donuts …

Presenting for the Rochester SharePoint User Group

Rick Black is one of the organizers of the Rochester (New York) SharePoint User Group.  I met Rick late in 2009 at SharePoint Saturday Cleveland in Cleveland, Ohio; he and I were both presenting sessions.  We talked a bit during the event, and we pinged each other now and again on Twitter and Facebook in the time after the event.

At one point in time, Rick tossed out the idea of having me present for the Rochester SPUG.  I told him I’d certainly be up for it; after all, I really enjoy hanging out with SharePoint users and talking shop.  The trick, of course, would be getting me to Rochester.

Recently, I asked Rick if he thought a virtual SPUG presentation might work for his group.  I do quite a bit of time presenting on Live Meeting these days, so I figured it might be an option.  It sounded like a good idea to Rick, so I’m on the schedule to (virtually) present for the Rochester SPUG on Thursday, February 10th, 2011.  I’ll be presenting Saving SharePoint – a time-tested and refined SharePoint disaster recovery talk.  The abstract reads as follows:

In this session, we will be discussing disaster recovery (DR) concepts and strategies for SharePoint in a format that highlights a combination of both business and technical concerns.  We will define some critical planning terms such as “recovery time objectives” and “recovery point objectives,” and we’ll see why they are so important to understand when trying to formulate a DR strategy.  We will also identify the capabilities and limitations of the Microsoft tools that can used for backing up, restoring, and making SharePoint highly available for disaster recovery purposes.  Changes that have arrived with SharePoint Server 2010 and how they affect DR planning and implementation will also be covered.

I’ll be presenting the night that I get home on a red-eye flight from SPTechCon, so I could be a bit weary … but it will be fun.  I’m really looking forward to it!

SharePoint Saturday San Diego

For the last weekend of February, I’ll be heading back out to the west coast for SharePoint Saturday San Diego.  The event itself will be held at the San Diego Convention Center on Saturday, February 26th.  The event has filled-up once already, but Chris Givens (who is organizing the event) was able to add another 75 tickets thanks to some additional support from sponsors.

In addition to my Saving SharePoint session (which is described earlier in this post), I’ll be delivering another session called “Caching-In” for SharePoint Performance.  The abstract for the session reads as follows:

Caching is a critical variable in the SharePoint scalability and performance equation, but it’s one that’s oftentimes misunderstood or dismissed as being needed only in Internet-facing scenarios.  In this session, we’ll build an understanding of the caching options that exist within the SharePoint platform and how they can be leveraged to inject some pep into most SharePoint sites.  We’ll also cover some sample scenarios, caching pitfalls, and watch-outs that every administrator should know.

As always, SharePoint Saturday events are free to the public.  They’re a great way to get a day’s worth of free training, access to SharePoint experts, and plenty of swag and info from vendors.  If you live in or around San Diego and are free on 2/26, consider signing up!

Two trips to the west coast in one month is definitely a first for me, but I’m looking forward to it.  I hope to see you out there!

Additional Reading and References

1. Company: Idera
2. Product: Idera SharePoint backup
3. Company: BZ Media
4. Event: SPTechCon San Francisco
5. Event: SPTechCon SharePoint Lightning Talks
6. Blog: John Ferringer’s My Central Admin
7. Book: SharePoint 2010 Disaster Recovery Guide
8. Twitter: Rick Black (@ricknology)
9. User Group: Rochester SharePoint User Group
10. Events: SharePoint Saturday San Diego
11. Twitter: Chris Givens (@givenscj)

Author: Sean McDonough

I am a consultant for Bitstream Foundry LLC, a SharePoint solutions, services, and consulting company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. My professional development background goes back to the COM and pre-COM days - as well as SharePoint (since 2004) - and I've spent a tremendous amount of time both in the plumbing (as an IT Pro) and APIs (as a developer) associated with SharePoint and SharePoint Online. In addition, I've been a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) in the Office Apps & Services category since 2016. View all posts by Sean McDonough