Free Microsoft E-Books Windows Server 2012, SQL Server 2012, Programming windows 8 and more...

Good morning Friends!! :)

I was browsing through some community forums and I hit upon this pile of  free e-books..so thought to share it over here in my blog..

* Windows Server 2012
* SQL Server 2012
* Programming Windows 8
   ..

You can find more e-books and articles over here

 

Merry Xmas!!

Dear Friends,

Wish you and your family A Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year in Advance!!! Keep Daxing.... :)

Troubleshooting SSRS Report Error - An item with the same key has already been added

Error:

While building one of the SSRS Reports, I ran into this error "An item with the same key has already been added" while loading my datasets from Visual Studio.

Solution:

Thanks to this blog, it came to my rescue.

Configuring and Implementing Sharepoint 2010 RBS (Remote Blob Storage) with SQL Server 2012 - Part 2

Good day Friends!

A while ago, I blogged on Configuring and Implementing Sharepoint 2010 RBS (Remote Blob Storage) with SQL Server 2012 - Part 1

In Part1, I gave an introduction on RBS, Benefits of implementing RBS in your enterprise, Installing the required components of RBS, Configuring and Setting up RBS for Sharepoint Content database.

In this post, I will try and cover the steps involved in Enabling RBS on a Second content database, Troubleshooting RBS, General Links and References and finally how it can be a part of your enterprise (along with Dynamics AX ERP)

A. Enabling RBS on a Second Content database

While enabling RBS for a second content database, Follow the similar steps which I mentioned in Part 1 except for the msiexec part, run the following command:

msiexec /qn /i rbs.msi REMOTEBLOBENABLE=1 FILESTREAMPROVIDERENABLE=1 DBNAME=WSS_Content_IntranetBlob FILESTREAMSTORENAME=FilestreamProvider_1 ADDLOCAL=EnableRBS,FilestreamRunScript DBINSTANCE=CD

Finally we need to run this Powershell Script to activate RBS on Second content database

            $cdb = Get-SPContentDatabase –WebApplication  <URL>
            $rbss = $cdb.RemoteBlobStorageSettings
            $rbss.Installed()
            $rbss.Enable()
            $rbss.SetActiveProviderName($rbss.GetProviderNames()[0])

B. Troubleshooting


Error# 1
Initially, for testing purpose I installed and configured RBS with Sharepoint Foundation 2010 on one of my test vm's, Everything went well but when I try to upload a document, it throws the below exception:

Exception: Microsoft.Data.SqlRemoteBlobs.BlobStoreException: There was a generic database error.

Solution:

Tried completely uninstalling RBS from Sharepoint Foundation and re-configured once again the Content database for RBS but still no luck :(.

Then I turned on to my ultimate weapon ;-) SQL profiler to identify the queries running behind the scenes whilst uploading a document to sharepoint library.

As usual, SQL Profiler didn’t let me down and it showed me the stored proc which was getting executed:

exec [mssqlrbs_filestream].[rbs_fs_sp_initialize] @schema_suffix=N'1',@filegroup_name=N'RBSFileStreamProvider',@data_filegroup_name=N'PRIMARY',@allow_remote=0,@schema_version=@p5 output,@share_prefix=@p6 output

I copied this statement from the Profiler and opened a new query window via SSMS and fired the query and I got the same error, I debugged the stored proc and found that the stored proc definition just took 3 input parameters, while sharepoint was sending 4 parameters, modified the stored proc to cater for @allow_remote parameter and that did the trick!!! :). Not a pretty way to fix it up, but I guess this would be a bug with Foundation 2010 version running on my VM.

C. References

Thought to post some useful links/references which can be handy while configuring RBS:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee748631%28v=office.14%29.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/pramodbalusu/archive/2011/07/09/rbs-and-sharepoint-2010.aspx
http://stevemannspath.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/bang-two-pound-four-remote-blob-storage.html
http://sharepoint.nauplius.net/2011/03/enabling-rbs-on-multiple-content.html
http://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=174
 

D. Conclusion

To summarize, I believe RBS is the answer if you want to externalize your storage rather than cluttering your database and even this concept can be extended to Microsoft Dynamics AX (Document Management) wherein we end up storing huge BLOB type data in SQL.

Book Review - Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Security How-To

Last month, I posted an introductory review on Dynamics AX 2012 Security How - To

I went through this book and here's my detailed review:

As the name suggests, this is a practical hand book (running into 77 pages) and which covers on how-to (manage security in Dynamics AX 2012).

a. This book starts by covering the basic concepts about Security Architecture in AX 2012, Application Security Fundamentals, Server Security, Role based security, Custom Authentication and Pluggable Authentication

b. Next, it covers step by step instructions on How to Create a new user, Import users from Active Directory, Setting up user options and user relations

c. It also covers Adding new security roles, assigning users to different roles, adding privileges to an existing role

d. Developing Extensible Data Security policy, Configuring Permissions in AOT

Conclusion

Overall, I would rate this book (3/5) as it's just a basic book showing how to manage security in Dynamics AX 2012. It would have been refreshing if the book covered how-to's looking at a broader perspective like Securing SQL Server Database (for Dynamics AX), SSRS Security and AIF Security. Also, it would have been handy if it highlighted some real time errors/problems faced while implementing security and troubleshooting tips.

Dynamics AX 2012 R2 Download Link

Dynamics AX 2012 R2 is out!

Thanks to mfp for posting the link to download Dynamics AX 2012 R2.

List of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Tables and Table Groups

Dear Friends,

Hope you all had a good weekend!

A few days ago, I was searching for some System tables in Dynamics AX 2012 and I came across this handy link which lists all tables and table groups in AX categorized under the following types:

a. Framework Tables
b. Group Tables
c. Main
d. Miscellaneous
e. Parameter
f. Reference
g. Transaction
h. TransactionHeader
i. TransactionLine
j. Worksheet
k. WorksheetHeader
l. WorksheetLine

(Have a look at the Pivot sheet in the excel workbook).

Below is the download link
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17093