Recovering from Access Denied [The File Exists (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070050)]

This week I restored a local virtual development environment, which I hadn't used for a couple of months. I wanted to reactivate this virtual image because it has a complete installed MOSS environment tailored for a development task. However, when I tried to access any of the local SharePoint sites within the image, be it Central Admin or a provisioned site; for each I received an Access Denied. The error: The file exists. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070050). Really annoying, because I needed to quickly be up-to-speed.

Luckily, I was not the first to run into this particular problem. Especially this blog shed light on the problem cause, and on how to solve it. In the process of reactivating the image, I was required to re-associate the local account within Active Directory. As result, AD issued a new Security ID (SID) for that account. And SharePoint internally checks on this SID, not on username, to determine whether an account is to be granted access. The SID is for that purpose administrated per SharePoint site in its content database.

The solution is thus to replace in the SharePoint content databases the invalid old SID with the new issued SID. In essence, this involves the following repair steps:

1. Use the dsquery command to determine the AD context information of your account
2. Use this to query for the AD Object, and derive the Security ID from it (property objectSid)
3. Convert the binary SID into HEX
4. Open a SQL Server Query tool, and replace in every SharePoint content database the invalid SID by the determined correct SID

Our proposition on SAP + SharePoint integrated HPW

I've written a leaflet on combining the strengths of SAP and SharePoint for a seamless integrated High Performance Workplace. This leaflet is published on our company website. For convenience I also include it here.

Unlock the value of SAP business processes within a SharePoint based HPW

For your enterprise/organization, the SAP environment is part of the company’s most important and valuable assets. However the business processes and functionality within this SAP environment are often not widespread distributed to the employees. This hinders the adoption and application of Self Service processes. By unlocking the structural SAP business processing within the familiar workplace of nowadays information workers, the application and operation of such functionalities appears familiar even for the casual user. More and more, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is the platform underlying the enterprise portal.

Since the start of TopForce in 1999, we have come across numerous SAP installments at diverse customers. Mostly large enterprises and government organizations, but also mid-range sized companies. In this period, we have gained a lot of experience and insights on the strengths of the SAP products and environment: SAP ERP, CRM, XI/PI, ESS, MSS, Enterprise Portal, NetWeaver platform. As a portal consultancy organization, we also have knowledge and hands-on experience with the potentials of the Microsoft SharePoint platform. Since the introduction of the 2007 version it has rapidly become the rising star as platform of choice for deploying enterprise portals. The combination of these two puts TopForce in an excellent position to foresee the issues to deal with when unlocking SAP business processing within a SharePoint front-end. In 2007 SAP appointed TopForce as Special Expertise Partner Duet™. In the Netherlands we are the only licensee to implement Duet™ on top of SAP business processing for incorporation within the Microsoft Office end-user environment.

Our vision

Our well-established 5-layer architecture forms the basis for any service oriented architecture in which TopForce is involved. The strength of this architecture is that it completely decouples the presentation aspects

of any application, from the business processing and responsibilities. Exactly what is also needed to deliver a robust and future proof integration between SAP business processes at the back-end within the visual scope of your enterprise portal.

For the specific business situation of unlocking SAP business processing to your enterprise portal, we have expanded the 5-layer architecture into our conceptual integration architecture. Inputs for this integration architecture are the HPW concepts, and guiding principles on both business and IT level to delimitate the solution space.

Our approach

The driving force behind any IT project is the business gains one wants to achieve. For TopForce this is the starting point also on projects to unlock the SAP business functionalities by including them within the enterprise HPW. Which business processes are most viable to unlock via the enterprise portal to the employees? What kind of user interaction and design should best be applied to facilitate the requested User eXperience, even for the casual user? Also part of this initial analysis phase is to examine the current IT landscape, and the active or available integration mechanisms. The next step is to design the outline of the solution, and map this on our defined integration architecture. Hereby keeping a strong eye on the current IT environment and the medium-time IT roadmap of the enterprise. This design is then implemented within the IT landscape, typically involving configuration and development activities at both the SAP side to expose its processes, as within the SharePoint/portal side to incorporate the user interaction. A best practice here is to follow small steps, delivering in quick results and wins.

Our building blocks

The most significant parts here are the TopForce 5-layer architecture for realizing the HPW, and the detailing of this into our referential integration architecture. Also we have ready-to-employ technical building blocks for realizing a loosely-connected integration between the structural SAP business back-end, and the SharePoint based enterprise portal as the information worker’s familiar HPW.

Tags: SAP NetWeaver Microsoft SharePoint integration interoperability HPW

Expectations on DUET 3.0

With the forthcoming release of SharePoint 2010 in sight, it is clear that this will be the foundation application platform for other Microsoft products. Project Server, Business Intelligence strategy, Dynamics CRM, and so on. In context of SAP / Microsoft interoperability, it is interesting to watch what will happen with the DUET^TM offering, a joint SAP and Microsoft product. The DUET versions so far (1.0, 1.5) cannot be considered a success story in real practice. A lot of licenses are out there in the market (1 million licenses at 500 customers in the last 2 years), but almost no concrete applications. There are several reasons for that:

• The minimal set so far of supported SAP business packages / functionality
• The lack of development support in the current DUET^TM versions; to custom extend the minimal set
• The extra complexity and costs within the IT infrastructure due to the separate DUET server

SAP nor Microsoft have yet published the future roadmap of DUET^TM, nor recommitted themselves recently to continue this. However, several signals indicate that it will be continued, and that it will be re-architectured. For instance, at the SAP TECHED this week within Vienna it was told that DUET 3.0 will be based on SharePoint 2010. Talk of an unexpected surprise J. At the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 last week in Vegas, DUET was not or only marginally mentioned. I expect this to be intentionally, because DUET is a joint SAP + Microsoft happening; and they will use a common podium to present the [near] future roadmap of DUET^TM.

Information that is already leaking out:

• No more dedicated DUET server to handle the communications between SAP NetWeaver and Microsoft Office; but relying on the SharePoint 2010 platform/server to handle this
• UI aligned with next version of Office; Office 2010
• SAP potentially shifting away from Java in favor of ABAP (wonder why that could be…)
• Functionality around reporting and sales management, time management scenario’s

Given the foreseen dependency on a.o. SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010, it will be clear that I do not expect the appearance of DUET 3.0 before around the end of 2010. Also interesting is in what sense DUET 3.0 will be dependent on the SAP NetWeaver (SAP’s Business Process Platform) roadmap: new capabilities, functional and technical. Once again, it is a joint uptaking by SAP and Microsoft; and it therefore requires alignment with the technology and business roadmaps of both companies. No simple action, but since the companies have a common interest here and a common opponent (Oracle), I’ll certainly expect them to come up with something significant. They simple have to.

Some interesting related and recent links:

• [Blog Steve Fox] SAP TECHED 2009
• [Blog Kristian Kalsing] The new DUET architecture
• [Blog Josh Greenbaum] DUET Lives! SAP and Microsoft’s Office Interface Still Alive and Kicking
• DUET 1.x & SAP: Architectural overview
• [Blog Kent Weare] TechEd 2009 - Day 5

Tags: SAP NetWeaver Microsoft SharePoint DUET integration interoperability HPW

My take on SPC 2009 and SharePoint 2010

Most substantial impression after attending SharePoint Conference 2009, is that the next version of SharePoint [2010] incorporates lots of modifications, improvements and extensions. SharePoint 2010 really has it in it to become a full-blown application platform. Of the large collection of changes and additions, the following are most significant for me (from a consultant + developer perspective):

• Sandbox deployment model - enables us to push managed code to hosted SharePoint environments
• Improvements in the UI - improved usage model and experience, more attractive Web2.0-kinda layouts, integration/embedding of the Office Ribbon, cross-browser support (via XHTML)
• BDC evolution into BCS - symmetric client and server usage model, bidirectional transfer from+to LOBsystem, largely improved BDC Designer (SPD and VS) for defining the external system connections, part of SharePoint Foundation iso Server license, ...
• SharePoint Workplace 2010 - Groove evolution provides SharePoint functionality and usage model when offline; and transparently synchronizes upon reconnect
• InfoPath Forms handling - performance and robustness improvements, new and improved controls (e.g. DateTimePicker, PeoplePicker), improved rules management, modify list/library forms via InfoPath Editor,
• Modifications to "My Site" - new visual organizational browser, direct status updates (cq LinkedIn, Facebook), knowledge mining, social tagging, ...
• ALM extensions - new Visual Studio project templates, transparent deployment to SharePoint environment, TFS integration, navigate SharePoint from within VS 2010 context via Server Control, ...
• VS 2010 development experience - graphically design a webpart, Client-side Javascript Object Model, Developer Dashboard
• SharePoint Designer 2010 - transitioned into a fully functional tool within the SharePoint solution creation lifecycle, navigation focus around SharePoint artifacts, administrator able to restrict usage, export to solution package (WSP)
• Seamless combine work of business analyst / functional designer and developer - the outline of a solution can first be prototyped in SPD, and then moved into VS 2010
• Search extensions - improvements in the User Experience, Social Search enabled, incorporation of FAST Search (in the high-end SharePoint edition)
• Data management - validation at list- and item-level, cascading Lookup reference deletes, lookup to multiple item-fields, large list support, LINQ to SharePoint
• SharePoint capabilities OOTB - new and improved functionalities and capabilities; functional + technical
• WCM improvements - adoption of the Ribbon UI, inline editing, in-place positioning within pagelayout ('igoogle'), limiting the number of full-page refreshes upon content owner actions, Multilingual UI enables runtime language-switch, extended granularity Audience targetting, monitor the usage + size of a site
• Composites - Silverlight Web Part, REST, Business Connectivity Services, Access Services, custom workflows in SPD, Visio Services (ao workflow visualizations)

Another important aspect for me was the focus on SAP/MS interoperability. The conference gave me the chance to catch up with leading community members Kristian Kalsing and Matt Ordish. We discussed our past experiences, and future directions + expectations. And we strenghtened our mutual bond...

Last but not least; it's good to see the attention and recognition SharePoint receives. Within Microsoft - Steve Ballmer pronounced SharePoint 2010 as his lovebaby; from analysts; and the massive interest by the conference attendees. We all felt a common excitement about the forthcoming version. 7000 SharePointers (developers, architects, consultants, [power] users) can't be wrong, SharePoint is here to stay and prosper.

Second day at SPC2009, SAP/MS interop community members unite

The most interesting session of the whole conference for me was this day, being 'Revolutionizing the SAP User Experience...with SharePoint', presented by Matthew Ordish. It is in fact the only presentation on the conference on SAP/MS interop. Matthew was pleasently surprised by the number of attendees, at forehand he expected a number of 3 to 4. But instead the room was pretty filled. In combination with talks I had sofar with other conference members this gives me the impression that SAP/MS interop is certainly on the agenda of more people than you would expect. The talk was very good, Matthew really knows his stuff. He had some excellent architectural and conceptual slides, which I plan to reuse. Afterwards me and Kristian (naturally he also went to this talk) spoke and discussed with Matthew, I explained what I'm doing at the SAP/MS interop area within the Netherlands. We joined for lunch to continue our talk and exchange ideas plus experiences on the subject. Very interesting indeed. I certainly include Matthew within my list to contact when I've questions or want to checkout ideas.

Tags: SAP NetWeaver Microsoft SharePoint integration interoperability community

First Conference Day at SPC 2009

The conference launced with keynotes of Steve Ballmer and Jeff Teber. In his enthiousastic presentation Steve showed us some of the larger new or improved capabilities, and what can be achieved with them in nowadays business collaboration applications. Amongst them extended functionality to set up and use SharePoint sites, including all kinds of social interactions (blogs, wiki's, RSS); communities, search which in the high-end SharePoint Server 2010 Search now incorporates the FAST Search algorithmes and functionality, improved people (thus social) search; business intelligence; composite (mash-up) applications; improvements in both the developers as the IT pros experiences. For developers: Microsoft has made another major step on ALM aspects!! Both Steve's as Jeff's talks were validated via a multitude of fun demo's. Jeff came on stage, and took us back to the ancient times of SharePoint birth. It was both fun as reassuring to see that the original vision for SharePoint still holds, also within the forthcoming 2010 edition. Of course a lot of the support and functionality is improved since Tahoe; but the initiating ideas and vision still applies. This is reassuring because it proves that SharePoint is a well-thought service offering from and for Microsoft. One of the most signaficant statements Steve made is that he sees SharePoint actually has an platform. I totally agree on that idea.

After these 2 keynotes the BreakOut Sessions started. Often a pitty to have to make a selection for only one of the parallel breakouts. Luckily Microsoft has promised to on short notice stream the video recording of every individual session via MySPC. It's too much here to repeat what I've heard and learned in the 3 afternoon sessions. However, to me one of the most visuable changes is the way SharePoint looks and behaves. The SharePoint UI look is cleaned up, and again complies with current (web 2.0/3.0) standards. And in the behavioural aspect the most significants aspects are the ribbon and context-aware UI-controls, and the improved User eXperience by applying Ajax technology to make SharePoint operation more (user) performant.

First evening at SPC 2009; Las Vegas

Had an interesting first evening at SPC 2009. At first I hooked up with a former collegaue who with his wife just happens to be now also in Vegas during their holiday trip. Met at starbucks to drink a cup of coffee, and shake hands. Next went up to the Mandalay Bay Conference Center to register. Crowdy lines, lots of attentions, and also a lot of people from the Netherlands. After registration first went for a brief moment to the Welcome Party, and after a couple of beers went on to the EyeCandy bar for tonight's SharePint. There I've an appointment to meet with the well-known (in SAP/MS area) Kristian Kalsing. Crowdy here also, but after a while Kristian detects me and comes over to meet ourselves in person. After getting acquinted (with curtency of bottle of Dutch Heineken), we talk and discuss a lot about our experiences within the SAP/MS area. After a while, when Kristian is off for a moment, I involve 2 Swedish (allthough one of them later on told me he is actually from Norway) in our get together. Exchanged both SharePoint thoughts, as well as ideas on Las Vegas. Very nice to meet fellow SharePointer's this way, and discuss what's on our minds. O yeah, also shortly met an (english, of course) recruiter who told us that his main reason for attending is to get to known SharePoint professionals, and that he typical as 5 job oppertunities available per SharePoint'er. Yeah man, SharePoint really is hot now; and will explode with the arrival of SharePoint 2010.