Introducing the SharePoint 2013 Application Model

SharePoint 2013 introduces a new mechanism for custom code deployment known as "Apps". Mostly targeted at online solutions, the purpose of the App model is to overcome the severe limitations of the 2010 isolated execution model (also known as the "Sandbox") and provide developers with a way to run rich web applications in SharePoint without negatively impacting the underlying infrastructure. Much has already been made about this new model and a lot more will be written about it over the coming year as 2013 gets released and adoption spreads. Before we get too far off the beaten track into a debate about whether or not developers should or should not be using the new App model, it's helpful to first understand why Microsoft chose this path and what it really means for both new application developers coming onto the platform and existing developers who need to support the next release.

Background

At its core, SharePoint has always been an application platform. While it has been possible since 2001 to create custom components for SharePoint (does anyone even remember digital dashboards?), it wasn't until the 2003 release of Windows SharePoint Services that developers really began to take notice of the capabilities that the platform offered. In those days, custom code was pretty much confined to web parts, with some limited interaction with deeper system layers. Due to the complexities of code deployment and lifecycle management, mostly due to lack of good tooling, custom production code in SharePoint wasn't all that common. Nevertheless, it was at this point that some real weaknesses began to appear in the structure, namely that one bit of bad code could effectively bring the system to a standstill. In most cases, this was relegated to a single page being inoperable due to a misbehaving web part but in some instances things like malfunctioning event receivers could wreak havoc throughout an entire deployment...

Read more from Eric Shupps


Articles

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Ten Steps to Optimize SharePoint Performance

Webcasts

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Secrets of SharePoint Part 5: Configuring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Optimal Performance
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Creating End User SharePoint Solutions for Performance and Scalability
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint 2010 Performance Enhancements for Administrators
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for the ASP.NET Developer
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Following Best Practices and Avoiding Common Errors with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Development
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Performance and Capacity Planning Essentials
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Troubleshooting Common Performance Problems in SharePoint 2010

Videos

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Channel 9 Interview with Eric Shupps
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint TechTalk - Different Views on Social Computing
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Post-Deployment Planning and Management

Podcasts

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Pod Show - Design for Performance
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Pod Show - Test Driven Development
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Run As Radio - Eric Shupps Improves SharePoint Performance

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on ConferenceHound
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Talk TechNet
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on Channel 9
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on Planet SharePoint
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on Lanyrd
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy MVP Profile
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Entity Framework Certificate Chain Errors

During the process of constructing a data access layer for a SharePoint project I kept running into SSL errors trying to construct my data model using the Entity Framework. I began the project with an Azure database which, surprisingly enough, worked like a champ – Visual Studio 2010 picked right up on my connection string and imported my DB structure without incident. When I tried to switch over to a SQL instance on my development SharePoint farm, however, things took a turn for the worst. Every time I tried to connect to the database in order to generate my model I received the following error:  

"A connection was successfully established with the server, but then an error occurred during the pre-login handshake. (provider: SSL Provider, error: 0 – The certificate chain was issued by an authority that is not trusted.)"

After wasting a bunch of time searching around the interwebs for a solution, it became apparent that the self-signed certificate on the remote SQL instance was the cause of my headaches. Self-signed certs are fine on a local box but no good at all when you try to access the SSL port from a different machine. Trouble is, I couldn't run Visual Studio on the actual server as the Azure components don't play nice with SharePoint, so switching over to the same box with the cert on it wasn't an option. After some fiddling around with the entity framework connection string (not the database connection string), I was able to actually get data from a database that matched the Azure schema on my dev SQL instance by adding "trustServerCertificate=True" to the connect parameters (thanks to Wade Wegner). That was a step in the right direction, proving that VS actually could communicate with SQL regardless of SSL certificates, but I had created a new database schema and needed to generate an entirely new entity model – all attempts to do so were still blocked by the database import wizard on the last step..

Read more from Eric Shupps

Articles

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Ten Steps to Optimize SharePoint Performance

Webcasts

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Secrets of SharePoint Part 5: Configuring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Optimal Performance
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Creating End User SharePoint Solutions for Performance and Scalability
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint 2010 Performance Enhancements for Administrators
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for the ASP.NET Developer
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Following Best Practices and Avoiding Common Errors with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Development
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Performance and Capacity Planning Essentials
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Troubleshooting Common Performance Problems in SharePoint 2010

Videos

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Channel 9 Interview with Eric Shupps
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint TechTalk - Different Views on Social Computing
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Post-Deployment Planning and Management

Podcasts

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Pod Show - Design for Performance
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Pod Show - Test Driven Development
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Run As Radio - Eric Shupps Improves SharePoint Performance

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on ConferenceHound
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Talk TechNet
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on Channel 9
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on Planet SharePoint
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on Lanyrd
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy MVP Profile
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy About.me
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy Tumblr
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How to Manually Disable Claims Authentication in SharePoint 2010

In a previous post I shared some thoughts regarding changes to authentication providers in SharePoint 2010. As I worked through the issue of removing Claims/FBA and reverting to NTLM I discovered a number of issues that manifested themselves in strange ways. The first problem I encountered was the inability for a Farm account to make changes to the Authentication Providers settings in Central Administration. The System Account couldn't even view the dialog – each attempt resulted in a 403 error. This was bad news as a lot of things happen behind the scenes when changing authentication settings in this dialog – not the least of which is propagation of changes to all the web servers. This meant I would have to undo all of the Claims settings manually and repeat them on each server. Not my idea of a fun afternoon...

Read more from Eric Shupps

Articles

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Ten Steps to Optimize SharePoint Performance

Webcasts

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Secrets of SharePoint Part 5: Configuring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Optimal Performance
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Creating End User SharePoint Solutions for Performance and Scalability
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint 2010 Performance Enhancements for Administrators
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for the ASP.NET Developer
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Following Best Practices and Avoiding Common Errors with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Development
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Performance and Capacity Planning Essentials
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Troubleshooting Common Performance Problems in SharePoint 2010

Videos

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Channel 9 Interview with Eric Shupps
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint TechTalk - Different Views on Social Computing
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Post-Deployment Planning and Management

Podcasts

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Pod Show - Design for Performance
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Pod Show - Test Driven Development
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Run As Radio - Eric Shupps Improves SharePoint Performance

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on ConferenceHound
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Talk TechNet
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on Channel 9
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on Planet SharePoint
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on Lanyrd
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy MVP Profile
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy About.me
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy Tumblr
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy Speakerfile
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy Facebook
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy LinkedIn
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy Google+
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy Twitter

Access Denied Errors After Changing Authentication Provider Settings

Sometimes, we SharePointers take things for granted because we work with the platform on a daily basis and intuitively understand how things are supposed to function. Accidental site administrators, power users, and the poor folks in IT who've had SharePoint dumped in their lap through no fault of their own, can easily get frustrated by all the ins and outs when something they think should work just doesn't...

Read more from Eric Shupps

Articles

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Ten Steps to Optimize SharePoint Performance

Webcasts

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Secrets of SharePoint Part 5: Configuring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Optimal Performance
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Creating End User SharePoint Solutions for Performance and Scalability 
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint 2010 Performance Enhancements for Administrators 
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for the ASP.NET Developer
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Following Best Practices and Avoiding Common Errors with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Development
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Performance and Capacity Planning Essentials
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Troubleshooting Common Performance Problems in SharePoint 2010

Videos

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Channel 9 Interview with Eric Shupps
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint TechTalk - Different Views on Social Computing
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Post-Deployment Planning and Management

Podcasts

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Pod Show - Design for Performance
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - SharePoint Pod Show - Test Driven Development
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Run As Radio - Eric Shupps Improves SharePoint Performance

Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on ConferenceHound
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy - Talk TechNet
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on Channel 9
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on Planet SharePoint
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy on Lanyrd
Eric Shupps eshupps SharePoint Cowboy MVP Profile