Working with Cache in MOSS 2007

Quite often we wonder about the configuration when our web sites performance go down and our users start complaining about the slow traffic.
Let me go through a series of postings to understand and implement the caching option available in MOSS 2007.
In real scenarios we may have external-facing sites with the below types of user access:
- Available to the public with anonymous user access

- Only available to some authenticated users like the subscribers, etc.

- Available to both anonymous and authenticated users.

I’ll start with the first one, assuming that we have an open site with an anonymous access setup.
We would start by enabling the output cache for the site collection. To use this feature we need to activate "MOSS Publishing Infrastructure feature" in the site collection features if we have a Team Site. But if we have used a Publishing Portal or Collaboration Portal site template, this feature should be enabled by default.
We have the option to create our own Output Cache profile, but I would try to demonstrate by using one of the existing ones.
1. Click Site Actions->Site Settings->Modify All Site Settings
2. Click "Site Collection Output Cache Profile" under the Site Collection Administration column.

Open the Public Intranet (Purely Anonymous) list item by clicking on it to have the details of the profile visible. There are quite a few settings on this cache, but the key ones for our discussion are Checking for ACL, Vary by User Rights, Duration and Check for Changes. This cache profile is intended for the part of your web site where the content is publicly available. Therefore, the settings for checking ACL (i.e. permission) and vary by user rights are off to optimize performance. When the page is cached, all requests to that page are served from the cache. The cache expires after the specified duration (e.g. 180 seconds), and then the updated content is cached for the next set of users.

So go back to the Site Actions->Site Settings->Modify All Site Settings.
-Click "Site Collection Output Cache" under the Site Collection Administration column.
-You will see the "Site Collection Output Cache Settings" page.

-Enable the Output Cache checkbox.
-Set the anonymous cache profile to Public Internet. This will allow anonymous users to take advantage of output caching for the entire web site.
-Check the two boxes in the page output cache policy section so that you can override specific section of the sub sites or web pages later.Once you have done these steps, output caching is now enabled for the entire site collection, using the specified cache profile for anonymous user.

Note: Enabling debug cache information in the cache profile lets a comment to be left at the end of the HTML markup of the web page indicating if output caching is enabled.

Something like:

Helpful for debugging purposes, and not really mandatory.

So have this implemented and see the difference in the traffic throughput of your web site.

I'll come up with the later posts (series 2 and 3) as and when I get time. Watch out for it !!!

What has Bill Gates to offer as a latest Technology

The latest from Microsoft !!!!

Bill Gates has announced a new vision from Microsoft Stacks which may open a new window towards the Unified Communications.

Announcing the availability of Microsoft RoundTable, an advanced video and VoIP conferencing device that provides a 360-degree view of a meeting room, along with wideband audio and video that tracks the flow of conversation between multiple speakers. With RoundTable and Office Live Meeting or Office Communications Server, meeting participants in different locations will be able to converse and share information as if they were in the same room. RoundTable also enables companies to record meetings for later use.

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/2007/10-16unifiedcommunications.mspx

Download Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 VHD

You may try MOSS 2007 free for a complete month!!!

The fully functional pre-configured VHD provides you a trial software and automatically expires after 30 days.This is a preconfigured virtual machine contained within the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format. Virtual Server 2005 R2 is required to run this VHD. Please refer to the system requirements section for more details.
System Requirements
Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista; Windows XP

This VHD image requires Virtual Server 2005 R2 to be installed on your system. Please refer to the Virtual Server 2005 R2 System requirements page here.
In addition to the System Requirements for Virtual Server 2005 R2, you will need additional disk and memory resources for running the virtual machine. This VHD is pre-configured to use approximately 10GB of hard disk space and approximately 512MB of memory.

Download Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 VHD

Enhance your MOSS User Interface with RAD Controls

It seems that SharePoint development is going to be far more simpler than today.
SharePoint is now having a left and right kind of support from third party vendors as you may read below.

The RadControls for ASP.NET brings in the whole lot of available features from within the context of a rich text box to your SharePoint 2007 projects. You can easily incorporate all the Telerik ASP.NET UI products into Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) v3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007.

This tool from Telerik is available to be downloaded from this url:
http://www.telerik.com/products/sharepoint/

The good point is that these controls seamlessly integrate in both MOSS and WSS. All MOSS 2007 Publishing sites as well as all WSS v3 based sites, including sites created using the Team Site or Blank Site site template can benefit from the enhanced UI which Telerik controls provide.

Telerik RadEditor can be used in the following scenarios: • rich-text filed control in SharePoint forms (in Lists, Wiki, Blogs etc.) • rich-text editor WebPart • Web Content Management (publishing HTML filed) scenario.

Getting the tabbed drop-downs on a team site in MOSS 2007

The tabs on any portal is a standard feature today of any portal.
The Team sites also provide this feature...as with the Publishing sites, but you may need to configure the site to see this working.

1. Create a Blank Team Site (say "Home Site").
2. Create another sub-site under the "Home Site". Click Site Settings -> Create -> Select "Sites and Workspaces" under Web Pages.
3. Provide a Title and URL (say "SubSite A").
4. Select "Yes" in [Use the top link bar from the parent site?] under "Navigation Inheritance".
5. Click Create.
6. The "SubSite A" may not appear on the top link bar, depending your settings.
7. Now click on the "Home Site" on the top link bar.
8. Click Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Navigation.
9. Select the checkbox "Show subsites".
10. Click OK.

There you are !!!

You should now be able to see the "SubSite A" along with the "Home Site" on the Top link bar.

Happy Navigating !

But one more sec...we are not yet done.

Try to do the same by creating a sub site "Subsite B" within the "Subsite A",

you would find that the new subsite appears as a drop down option on the "Subsite A".

Thats the whole story.