Blogging catchup and mailbox spring clean

Having recently spent some time in India attending training on Microsoft Search Server 2008, and having been quite sick as a result, I've got a bit of a backlog of SharePoint blogging to catch up with. First of all, to comment on Search Server: This is a great product. It significantly builds on the search already offered by WSS and MOSS, streamlines the admin and search interface, adds Ajax functionality and Federation, and comes in a free Express flavour to boot. This is a new, standalone product, but you could potentially also look on it as an expansion/update for your current WSS 3.0 installation. An update for MOSS adding this functionality will be available on a provisional timeframe of mid-2008 (calendar).

MOSS administrators, you may be aware that SQL Database maintenance can be the bane of your existence, as well as being something of a dark art with documentation having been thin on the ground. The good news is that there is now a whitepaper covering all aspects of DB maintenance for SharePoint. Download it here and get cracking on supported database maintenance scenarios.

Securing MOSS is a large topic deserving of more than just a throwaway line on a blog, so I intend to develop some content on the subject in the coming weeks, as workload allows. For now, here's the Roadmap to Security Content for Office Sharepoint Server 2003, which should be on any admin's bookmark list.

Unfortunately, I'm short on time to post much more than this for now, but expect more in the near future...