SharePoint Administration

One of the nice things about attending the Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC) is the chance to sit down with development engineers to learn about the software they’re working on. Karim Batthish introduced me to Allie Bellew because he wanted me to know about a new feature that’s coming in Outlook 2013. The problem that they are trying to solve is to provide users with quicker access to data when working in cached mode. As you might recall, Outlook 2013 changes its cached model to allow users to selectively keep a certain amount of data cached in the local OST while the remainder is held in the online mailbox. The theory here is that as we deal with larger and larger mailboxes, it doesn’t make much sense to keep everything cached because users really only need access to their most recent data. In any case, Outlook 2013 includes “hybrid mode”, which means that it’s got the ability to switch between cached and online data to display information to the user faster. The gate is 400ms, measured when the user logs on and connects to Exchange and updated when the user switches folders. If the network connection is good enough, Outlook can switch into hybrid mode to fetch data from the server and if not, access the OST. The thought might cross your mind that it’s always going to be faster to access information from a local source, especially when the OST is held on a SSD. This is true: local cached information is always faster and Outlook prefers to get data from the OST if possibl...More

SharePoint 2013 Preview arrived without SharePoint Designer's Design View. Was it good riddance or a huge mistake?...More