Quick Tip Consolidating logs

If you have multiple web front ends and application servers then you know that it's painful looking through the logs. Just a quick trick that I can up with is to move the logs into one spot.
I know that you can create a shared drive and map it to all the wfe and apps but this can slow down performance so I just created a little cmdlet and run it from the App server.

My logs directory run the following


Another good practice is to move your logs from the C drive to a different drive (physical if possible). The C drive already has a lot of resource competing this will free it up and make sure that everything is still working. My general experience is when the C drive is full basically you're app is a ticking time bomb and it's going to blow up soon.

To change the logs go to Central Admin > find log and change the location to a separate (physical drive is the best) drive.

Content Type Hub Sync & Lookup lists

After the first blog post of Content Type & the Managed Metadata Service I went and checked my content type in the subscription site and discovered a fields missing. It was missing the lookup field.

To help find the cause I went to (Root Site) > Site Actions > Site Settings

Click on the content type publishing error log and you'll see a log of issuse .

To resolve the issuse I tried to export the lookup list by saving it as a list template and moved it to the subscription site. I had some trouble with this so I just recreated the list with the same name and data and IT WORKED. I was surprise because I thought it would not work because usually lookup list field use the GUID to the lookup list. The field and the data came it fine.

To keep the lists in sync there a lot of third party solutions.

SharePoint 2010 Content Type Hub & the Managed Metadata Service

SharePoint 2010 Content Type Hub & the Managed Metadata Service

What is it about:

With SharePoint 2007 I can across users that wanted to deploy content type across multiple site collections. The reasons for this is numerous (governance, size of content database, etc).

Fictitious Scenario:

MediaXYZ just installed SharePoint 2010, they have four departments but they all work print materials. As the print material (e-magazines, brochures, and papers) goes through a life-cycle starting in Global Strategy -> Design -> Marketing -> Sales.

Problem:

Each department works independently of each other but management want everyone to have the same metadata and structures for the document types to make searching easier. In MOSS 2007 a content type would be used to accomplish this but it would not go beyond the site collection unless you used a feature to deploy it to multiple site collections.

Structures:

Web Application and Web Site Collections
Global Strategy	http://office10/sites/GlobalStrategy
Design	http://office10/sites/Design
Marketing	http://office10/sites/Marketing
Sales	http://office10/sites/Sales

Create the following content type only in http://office10/sites/GlobalStrategy

Content Type - Print Material
Print Type	Choice [Magazine, Paper, Brochure]
Client	Single line
Client Type	Choice [Pharmaceutical, Real-Estate, Software]
Main Topic	Single line
Publish Date	Date
Volume	Single line

Solution-Overview:

In SharePoint 2010 has a new service that saves us from this insanity of features or custom code. The new service is called the Managed Metadata service application. Basically a site is designated
as the content type hub and content types from the site collection are published throughout the other site collections. The best thing about this solution is if the content type changes then all that needs to be done is to republish the content type in the hub site.

Solution-Implementation:

Since Global Strategy is the primary spot for the content type it will be designated the content type hub.

SharePoint Administrator
to the front line PLEASE!

Central Administration > Services Applications

Make sure the Managed Metadata service is associated with a web application (if needed I will post this).

DON'T click on the link for the Managed Metadata Service, click beside the name.

Next click on the properties button at the top

Set the following information to your farm specification.

In the Content Type hub section put the URL (http://office10/sites/GlobalStrategy) of the site collection that the content type will be published from. Also check off Report syndication import errors.

Click OK and return back to the Service Applications now click beside the Metadata Service Connection (Remember DON'T click on the hyperlink) next click the properties button.

Now the connection will be set click checkbox next to "Consumes content types from the Content Type
Gallery at http://office10/sites/GlobalStrategy".

Go to the http://office10/sites/GlobalStrategy/_layouts/mngctype.aspx and there will be a new option will be available when you go to the content type. The new link "Manage publishing for this content type" click and publish the content type.

(The first time the Publish option will be available select that one)

!!!!WARNING!!!!

The content type will NOT SHOWUP right away because content publisher and the content subscription are based on timer jobs.

Time for Timer ....

Kicking off the timer jobs go to
Monitoring > Review Job Definitions

Look for the following timer jobs, click on each link and click the "run now" button.

Now go to each site collection and there should be the content type Print Material.

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