(work in progress)

Consider some global shifts happened in IT during last decades:

• Service-Oriented Model
• Virtualization
• Automation
• Faster Networks

All of that allows Clouds exist

Consider also

• Fuzzy Organization Boundaries – Remote Workers
• More Complicated Software
• High salary for IT professional
• Business must change faster 

All of that lead to Clouds concept

Imagine ideal Data Center – where everything is automated and where you can find any service… 
How much it will cost to build that Data Center?

TBC…

Cognitive Search – Azure Search with AI – 15 minutes video by Scott Hanselman and Rob Caron

Follow the blogs:

Chris McNulty, Microsoft – Enrich your SharePoint Content with Intelligence and Automation

Eric Dixon, Microsoft – Intelligent Search: Adding AI to SharePoint Search

David Lavenda, Harmon.ie – Is Microsoft Search the Solution to Finding Information in Office 365?

[Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.WSSProfileSynch]::ScheduleSiteForFullSynchronization()

[Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.WSSProfileSynch]::ClearSyncDataForContentDatabase()

Microsoft “cloud first” initiative led us to the situation where SharePoint on-prem (SharePoint 2019) is just a branch (sub-project) of SharePoint Online project.

So “Hybrid” SharePoint environment is just a combination of two similar products – one in on-prem and the other one – in the cloud.

TBC…

Agile vs Waterfall

Here are some resources to study, learn, improve your skills on Microsoft SharePoint, SQL, Office 365, Azure:

Officially free:

• Microsoft Learn 
• Channel9 – case studies, recordings from Webinars, Conferences, Events etc. from SharePoint professionals 
• Office 365 training – for user, power users, site collection administrators
• MS Ignite 2017 – tons of on-demand video sessions
• Office Blogs – news etc. on SharePoint, Office 365 and Office
• Technet – documentation, articles
• MSDN Office Development
• SharePoint help Center
• (decomissioned) MVA (Microsoft Virtual Academy) – courses on all Microsoft technologies (including SharePoint) for users, developers and IT Pro

SharePoint gurus:

• https://www.youtube.com/user/ToddKlindtNetcast (Todd Klindt)
• http://www.toddklindt.com/ (Todd Klindt)
• http://www.andrewconnell.com/ (Andrew Connell)
• http://www.wictorwilen.se/ (Wictor Wilen)
• http://www.srinisistla.com/blog/ (Srini Sistla)
• http://blah.winsmarts.com/ (Sahil Malik)
• http://www.harbar.net/ (Spencer Harbar)
• http://www.askwictor.com/ (Wictor Wilén)
• http://blogs.technet.com/b/wbaer/ (Bill Baer)
• http://blog.geektrainer.com/search/label/SharePoint  (Christopher Harrison)
• http://www.jeremythake.com/ (Jeremy Thake)
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint_strategery/ (Brian Pendergrass aka bspender)
• http://blog.falchionconsulting.com/  (Gary Lapointe)
• https://absolute-sharepoint.com/microsoft-certification-study-guides – SharePoint/Microsoft 365 study guide (Vlad Catrinescu)
• https://www.helloitsliam.com – (Liam Cleary)
• https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/stefan_gossner – (Stefan Gossner)
• https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/pla/ – Product Line Architecture (PLA) Team Blog
• https://eightwone.com/ – Michel de Rooij with focus is on Exchange, Office 365, and PowerShell
• https://www.eliostruyf.com/ – Elio Struyf
• http://www.techmikael.com/ – Mikael Svenson – SharePoint and search

Courses on SharePoint (for money):

• http://www.pluralsight.com/tag/sharepoint
• www.cbtnuggets.com/
• http://www.lynda.com/
• https://www.opsgility.com/ (3-month free subscription for free Visual Studio Dev Essentials members)
• http://www.skillsoft.com/

SharePoint Certification:

• https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/sharepoint-certification.aspx
• Microsoft Certification Roadmap 2015

SharePoint career builder/study guides:

https://absolute-sharepoint.com/microsoft-certification-study-guides – SharePoint/Microsoft 365 study guide (Vlad Catrinescu)

http://sharepointkitchen.blogspot.in/2014/05/sharepoint-interview-questions.html

There is a course on Pluralsight: Penetration Testing SharePoint by Liam Cleary.

Here are some fundamentals every SharePoint architect should know on “how to protect SharePoint environment”, from this course and from my personal experience.

Security basics

• audit environment, document it (annual, semi-annual)
• permission matrix and authentication flow (semi-annual, monthly) – using 3-rd party tools
• test environment security

Protect from the Scans

• Monitoring
• Access control (accounts, passwords, least permissions, audit)
• Port restriction (enable only required ports and protocols)
• Server firewall (including SQL, SharePoint, OOS, Workflow) + Isolation
• Local Computer Policies
• Network firewall (incl. edge firewall and internal firewall)

IIS – web.config

• <authentication …>
• <microsoft.identityModel>
• <location path …><allow users …>
• viewlsts.aspx – protect using <location path …><allow users …> on IIS level
• … CallStack …
• <CustomErrors …>
• <appSettings>

IIS

• Site – Authentication – Specific user
• Certificates – Binding

Central administration

• Web Applications – Web Application – User policies
• Web Applications – Web Application – Anonymous policies
• Web Applications – Web Application – Blocked file types
• Service Applications – Service Application – Administrators/Permissions
• Security – Farm Administrators

Roles

Architect, Support – should have farm-level access
Developer, Designer, End User, External – should not have farm-level access

Use personalized account for administration/support (do not use farm account or install account)

BTW, My opinion: Do not allow Developers any access to production farm.
The rights/responsibilities and dev workflow should be:

• SharePoint Developer: Dev farm for development, Dev-Test farm for self-testing
• SharePoint Tester: Test-farm for testing
• SharePoint Administrator: Pre-production farm and Production farm

If somebody combine roles – use different accounts and separation of roles.
 

SharePoint updates

• security updates
• public updates, cumulative updates (download)
• service packs, feature packs

Some useful PowerShell commands:

$subnet = "192.168.214"
$range = 223..225
$range | %{$ip = $subnet + '.' + $_; Test-Connection -Count 1 -ComputerName $ip -Quiet } | ?{$_ -eq $true} | %{Write-Host $ip " - Test OK"}

$port = 3389
foreach ($byte in $range) {
    $ip = "{0}.{1}" -F $subnet, $byte
    Write-Host "Testing NetConnection to $ip`:$port `- " -NoNewline
    $tnc = Test-NetConnection -ComputerName $ip -Port $port -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -WarningAction SilentlyContinue
    Write-Host $tnc.TcpTestSucceeded
} 

Links:

• https://www.exploit-db.com
• http://angryip.org/ – network scanner
• https://nmap.org/ – free security scanner
• http://sparty.secniche.org/ – MS Sharepoint and Frontpage Auditing Tool
• https://www.metasploit.com/ – Penetration Testing Software
• https://www.cvedetails.com/ – Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures