App Catalog in SharePoint 2013

Nothing but a special site collection which holds all apps. (custom or third-party apps)
Users can install apps from app catalog to their sites.
Each web application can have only one app catalog site collection / one app catalog per SharePoint Online tenant
There can be multiple app catalogs in a farm.

App Catalog Creation:
1. CA --> Apps --> app management --> manage app catalog
2. Select web application from the drop down and click "Create a new App Catalog site"
3. Provide the details and click on.

App Catalog Creation For Office 365:
Sign in to Office 365 --> SharePoint admin center --> Apps --> App Catalog --> Create a new app catalog site


Below are the libraries which are created by default inside app catalog site collection

1. Apps for SharePoint
• This is the library where we upload our app so that it will be available across the web application.
2. Apps for Office
3. App Requests

Adding an app from app catalog to our site collection:

Site owner access should be there to add an app.
Navigate to Site collection --> Site contents --> add an app
Now you can select your app which you uploaded in your app catalog --> click --> Trust It

Read What is App In Sharepoint

User Experiance (UX) in Sharepoint 2013

SP 2013 made infrastructure changes to speed up the rendering of pages like

·         Web server caching improvements

o   In SP 2010, Each SharePoint server had its own cache.

o   If another server get the second request, the content retrieved from the content database, even though the content was still in the memory of the first server.

o   SP 2013 uses distributed cache so that no connection to content DB for second request.

o   SP 2013 distributed cache service (DCS) uses Windows Server AppFabric 1.1 catching model.

o   DCS uses the following ports (22233, 22234, 22235, 22236)

o   Below components of SharePoint 2013 that use distributed

§  Feeds: This cache stores activities and conversations for use by the newsfeeds on a user’s My Site.

§  Logon Tokens:

§  Search: Used by the Content Search Web Part (CSWP) new in SP 2013.

o   It can start from CA à Services On Server à start the Distributed Cache service.

o   Server from which above service is started is known as cache host. And a group of cache host known as cache cluster.

o   To have Distributed Cache working on more than one server, the first server with Distributed Cache needs to have its firewall set to allow for inbound Internet Control Message Protocol.

o   When start the this service in a new SP server it joins the cache cluster. And distributed cache spans to all cache hosts.

o   Memory for Distributed Cache service is 10 percent of total physical memory by default

o   Half of above memory used for data storage known as cache size.

o   Other half used for memory management.

o   DCS can run in one of the following two modes

§  Dedicated Mode –  (Recommended)

·         DCS is started and all other services are stopped on the server.

·         Not more than 16 GB of memory should be allocated to the DCS with at least 2 GB of memory reserve for other services.

·         More than 16 GB of memory to the DCS might slow the response of the server.

§  Colocated Mode – (Not Recommended)

·         Distributed Cache service is started along with other services on the server.

·         All nonessential services should be shut down to reduce the memory competition while using this mode.

·         Not recommend to start any of below service with DCS.

o   SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2012

o   Search service

o   Excel Services in SharePoint

§  Project Server services

o    Don’t use applications to manage the DCS. AppFabric provides administrative tools on the Start menu or use the SharePoint 2013 Management Shell.

o   DCS can be affected by unplanned shutdown or power failure of server which can leads to unrecoverable state.

o   Few PowerShell commands to manage DCS.

§  Add-SPDistributedCacheServiceInstance

§  Clear-SPDistributedCacheItem

§  Get-SPDistributedCacheCllientSetting

§  Remove-SPDistributedCacheServiceInstance

§  Set-SPDistributedCacheClientSetting

§  Stop-SPDistributedCacheServiceInstance

§  Update-SPDistributedCacheSize

·         Introduction of a minimal download strategy

o   SP 2013 improves the page load performance by downloading those portions which actually changed.

o   This new feature is active by default at web level and works with AjaxDelta control in master page.  (Not enable for publishing sites)

o   By activating, it sets the object EnableMinimalDownload property of web.

o   This can be disable in two other ways to prevent the use of MDS.

§  Add “PageRenderMode” control in master page and set RenderModeType to standard.

§  All controls in Microsoft.Sharepoint.dll have the attribute “MdsCompliantAttribute” which must be set to use MDS. But controls under Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.dll don’t have that attribute.

§  If you have migrated to SP 2013, then your custom controls will not automatically have this attribute. Need to recompile, reinstall the solution files.

o    

·         A new Theme engine

o   In SP 2010: on publishing sites we could create new themes by using word 2010, PowerPoint 2010 or theme builder and uploading .thmx file into theme gallery.

o   In SP 2013: Themes are based on HTML5. So MS office no longer helpful for this.

o   We can change image, colors, master pages and also see preview before apply it.

o   By default 18 themes are available.

·         Improved support for mobile devices

·         Implementation of HTML5 and increased web browser support

workflow manager in sharepoint 2013

Workflow Framework:

Workflow Manager which was originally known as Windows Azure Workflow (WAW) introduced.

It is not installed by default. Default installation of SP 2013 use the same workflows as in 2010.

When workflow manager installed, we can use both as per need.

New workflow framework is not designed to work with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2013.

Workflow manager can be installed on same or separate SharePoint server.

Only SharePoint 2013 workflows can make use of the Workflow Manager farm.

SharePoint 2013 workflows and SharePoint 2013 workflow templates need to be created before you can take advantage of the Workflow Manger farm.

Workflow Manager Architecture:

Workflow Services Manager (WSM) introduced in SP 2013 used for communicating between SharePoint and the Workflow Manager.

WSM uses WSM proxy to connect other SP services & connect to workflow manager using workflow manager client (WMC).

Workflow manager can be installed in same SharePoint servers (colocated model) as well as in separate servers. (federated model)

In case of federated model you need to install WMC in SharePoint servers to communicate with workflow manager.

WSM contains many services as below,

Deployment - Used to deploy/ publish workflow to SharePoint

Messaging – Used when properties of document changed and sends then as message to workflow manager.

Instance – Used to manage workflow instances like status of instance, terminate instance etc.

Interop – This service invoke SP 2010 workflows.

On servers within the workflow farm, within Internet Information Server (IIS) Manager, you will see one application pool, WorkflowMgmtPool, and one site, Workflow Management Site.

When a workflow farm is created, six databases are created on an SQL Server

·         Workflow databases:

o   WFManagementDB

o   WFInstanceManagementDB

o   WFResourceManagemetDB

·         Service bus databases:

o   SBManagementDB

o   SbGatewayDatabase

o   SBMessageContainer01

Installation of workflow manager farm:

Must have following configuration

·         Access to SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1, SQL Server Express 2008 R2 SP1, or SQL Server 2012 where DB can be created

·         Relevant port numbers. Port 12290 and 12291 are default

·         Only works with IPv4 and not in pure IPv6 environments. So a mixed IPv4/IPv6 environment

·         Workflow Manager Installer that matches the build number of SP 2013 with which you want to use it.

·         Service account known as the RunAs account must have read/write permission in SQL

·         Installation account must be added in s=admin group.

Installation:

·         When start installation, installer checks for any prerequisites and installs any that it does not find.

·         After installation, workflow configuration Wizard starts which can also be started manually

·         When creating workflow farm, on very first server it asks for SQL server instance to create the farm databases

·         Also it generate key like passphrase which will required when you join subsequent servers

·         On each farm, edit the Domain Name System (DNS) and install load balancers so that any workflow node can respond to a request from your SharePoint farm.

·         After workflow farm is ready, use PowerShell to register it with SharePoint farm

o   Register-SPWorkflowService –SPSite “SP web app URL” –WorkflowHostUri http://wmnlbname:12291 -AllowOauthHttp

·         Now we can see Workflow Service Application Proxy in SharePoint server.

If you run the above PS command in a server that is not a workflow node then install client version of workflow manager to run command. -AllOAuthHttp protocol needed to communicate between two farms, for production we can use HTTPS

Manage Workflow Farm:

request Management in Sharepoint 2013

There are hardware/ software load balancer used to route the request at a network level to web servers.            

But such configuration not fully solved the problem.

Now SP 2013 comes with this to route requests from application level. By this SharePoint can refuse or redirect HTTP requests individually within the farm to dedicated or different servers in the farm for specific workloads.

It can now recognize the origin of incoming requests like browsers, applications, IP to reduce the priority.

Request Management Rules:

These rules are applied per web applications which are disabled by default.

These rules are either throttling or routing rules.

Throttling rules evaluated before routing rules $ if request matches the criteria, the request is refused.

Throttling and routing rules use the following HTTP request header properties:

·         CustomHeader

·         Host

·         HttpMethod

·         IP

·         SoapAction

·         Url

·         UrlReferrer

·         UserAgent, such as a Microsoft Office OneNote client application

·         EndsWith

·         Equals

·         Regex

·         StartsWith

Creating & Managing Request Management:

No administrative user interface for Request Management. Only using powershell.

Create routing rules using powershell -

·         $webapp = Get-SPWebApplication “Web application URL”;

·         $rmsettings = Get-SPRequestManagementSettings $webapp;

·         $MachTargets = @("SP1");

·         $machpool_1 = Add-SPRoutingMachinePool -RequestManagementSettings $rmsettings ' -Name "Machine Pool 1" -MachineTargets $MachTargets;

·         $RMrulecriteria = New-SPRequestManagementRuleCriteria -Property Url '-MatchType Regex -Value ".*\.docx"

·         $DocRule = Add-SPRoutingRule -RequestManagementSettings $rmsettings -Name "DocRule" '-ExecutionGroup 0 -MachinePool $Machpool_1 -Criteria $RMruleCriteria

View routing rules -

·         Get-SPWebApplication “Web application URL” | Get-SPRequestManagementSettings

Shredded Storage in SharePoint 2013

It reduces the amount of data that is saved in the content DB & N/W traffic between WFE and DB server.

Reduce time to take back up of content DB.

SP 2010: When edit MS office: File Sync via SOAP over HTTP (MS-FSSHTTP) protocol locks portions of a file & download file to office document catch (ODC). When save to SharePoint: MS office save changes to ODC, then using MS-FSSHTTP to upload only differential to SharePoint server. Now SharePoint incorporate changes to document on SP server and entire document send to SQL server content DB. Because SharePoint unable to send to SQL server using MS-FSSHTTP.   SharePoint 2013 can now use MS-FSSHTTP to communicating with SQL servers.

Advantages of Shredded Storage:

A user can open a previously cached document, even if the SharePoint server is offline or not available.

Network utilization is reduced, which improves both performance and costs.

Users can start working with the document before it is completely downloaded.

When a user saves a document to SharePoint, the document is uploaded to the server in the background; thus it seems as if the save happens immediately.

In 2010 when you save same document simultaneously, SharePoint user multi master conflict used in co-authoring to merge the changes or resolve the conflict if modification done in same section.

But in 2013 no need to merge the changes. All changes goes to SQL server. It supports all types of files.

There is no concept of duplication. The new version of a file is not a complete copy of a file.

Architecture Change in SP2013 or improvements in 2013

1. Few improvements like 

• Shredded Storage - Refer Here
• In SP 2010: 
• When file uploaded in Sgarepoint only the bits that have chnaged is send from client to WFE. because of incremental update not there in SQL for SP 2010 it will do like 
• pull the entire file from WFE
• Merge the changes back into it
• write entire file back to SQL
• In SP 2013: 
• File is broken in pieces in & stored in SQL
• while update only the updated bits are touched
• No more round trip of file to WFE and back
• SQL improvemnets
• reduced data redundancy using advanced indexing feature of SQL 2008 R2
• support of wide list, i.e single item span multiple rows in the DB to hold data.
• Reduce scenario to invoke full table scan.
• Request Management - Refer Here
• This feature gives SharePoint knowledge of and also more control on incoming requests.
• Nature of incoming requests like user agent, requested URL, Source IP.
• goals of request management are as below:
• RM can route request to WFE with better health.
• can identify harmful requests and can deny immediately
• Can prioritize requests 
• Can send all requests of specific type to specific machine, like search type request.
• Isolated traffic can help troubleshoot errors on one machine
• Can send heavy requests to more powerful WFEs.
• 
• Cache service - Refer Here
• DCS based on windows server AppFabric Distributed Caching.
• SP 2013 supports the version of caching that it ships, you can't independently upgrade it.
• Config DB keeps track of which machines in the farm are running the cache service. 
• Distributed Cache service is installed on each server in the farm when SharePoint is installed
• Sharing
• Themes

2. Service application level changes 

• Office web app is no longer a service application
• It is a separate application and recommended to be installed as separate farm
• Web analytic is also not a service, its part of search now.
• Few new services introduced  
• App Management Service
• Allow to install SharePoint Apps from office marketplace or App catalog
• SharePoint Translation Service
• Does language translation of word, PPT, XLIFF files to HTML
• Work Management Service
• Task aggregation across system like SharePoint, Exchange, Project
• Azure Workflow Server
• Its not exactly a service application
• Provides an externalized host using REST and OAuth to run workflows.

3. Enterprise content Management

• Site –level retention policies
• Discover Center
• eDiscover capabilities
• Team folders to integrate with exchange

4. Web Content Management

• Support the tools and workflow designers use
• Variations & Content Translation
• Search Engine Optimization
• Cross Site Publishing
• Video & Embedding
• Image renditions
• Clean Urls
• Metadata navigation

5. Social

• Micro blogging – share and follow
• Activity Feeds – view activities related to content
• Communities
• Discussions
• Blogs

7. Search

• Personalized search results based on search history
• Rich contextual reviews

8. Business Intelligence Enhancements
9. Mobile
10. Remove API Enhancements
11. Other Considerations 

• Stretched farms are no longer supported in SharePoint 2013. (Stretched means different data centers with less than 1ms latency)
• All servers in the farm must be in the same data center now. (For 100% fidelity in 100% of features)