SharePoint server Applications Testing Interview Questions

 

Q. What are Various Tools available for SharePoint Testing?

Ans. Some of the Tool available for Testing are:

* SharePoint 2007 Test Data Population Tool (available at CodePlex)

* Sporm ( available at Codeplex)
* Can also Use Typemock Isolator for Testing sharePoint object model.

Q. How will you set up a Platform for Testing SharePoint WebParts?

Ans. We would need to install :

1. WSS 3.0

2. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 installed.

3. Windows Server 2003 or 2008.

4. Visual Studio 2005 or 2008.

Q. How would you plan Testing WebParts.

Ans. A Tester would need to verify by adding,deleting and moving webparts on a webpart page.Also, a Tester should verify the Web Part properties, Webpart ToolPane and that nothing fails on the Page.

Q. How will you Test the Performance of a SharePoint Website?

Ans. Various Tools are available in the market to do that. Some of them are

* Fiddler – a very handy and light weight tool that can provide quick overview of you web site performance. It can also records scripts that you can use in VSTS.

* neXpert - an add-on to Fiddler which automates the classic performance best practice checks and produces a HTML report on the issues found in a Fiddler capture.

* Visual Round Trip Analyzer - Web page performance visualizer and analyzer tool.

* Also, Can use SharePoint Capacity Planning * Also, Can use SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool from Microsoft.

 

Q. How would you plan Testing WebParts.

Ans. We can Test a SharePoint site for various customizations that will be done by a developers or a designers.

For e.g. some important steps for Testing Custom WebParts are:

* Verify that you can add the Web Part properly to a sharepoint page, and nothing fails.

* Verify that the Web Part handles all of its exceptions.

* Verify that the Web Part works correctly regardless of where the Web Part Page is located.

* Verify that the Web Part can access its resources in different setup configurations.

* Verify that Web Part properties displayed in the tool pane are user-friendly.

* Verify that the Web Part renders appropriately based on user permissions.

* Verify that the Web Part previews properly.

* Verify that adding several instances of the same Web Part to a Web Part Page (or in the same Web Part zone) works correctly.


Q. How would you Test Design and Layout changes in SharePoint?

Ans. Some of the changes that we need to check are :

* See if companies Logo is displayed correctly. Verify that it shows up on each and every page of the Site.

* Verify that every page in SharePoint including list and library pages(AllForms.aspx) uses the same master Page.

* Verify that the application Pages such as "settings.aspx" also inherit the company branding layout( or master Page).

* Verify that any page can be edited sucessufuly, and the user can add/remove webparts from the Page.

* Verify the any New page created, inherits the custom Branding Layout or master Page.

* Verify that the branding( master page or look and feel) or layout does not fail if a user adds a Content editor webpart with custom Css in the webpart.

* Verify design in Various browsers.

 

SharePoint server Applications Testing Interview Questions

 

Q. What are Various Tools available for SharePoint Testing?

Ans. Some of the Tool available for Testing are:

* SharePoint 2007 Test Data Population Tool (available at CodePlex)

* Sporm ( available at Codeplex)

* Can also Use Typemock Isolator for Testing sharePoint object model.


Q. How will you set up a Platform for Testing SharePoint WebParts?

Ans. We would need to install :

1. WSS 3.0

2. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 installed.

3. Windows Server 2003 or 2008.

4. Visual Studio 2005 or 2008.


Q. How would you plan Testing WebParts.

Ans. A Tester would need to verify by adding,deleting and moving webparts on a webpart page.Also, a Tester should verify the Web Part properties, Webpart ToolPane and that nothing fails on the Page.


Q. How will you Test the Performance of a SharePoint Website?

Ans. Various Tools are available in the market to do that. Some of them are

* Fiddler – a very handy and light weight tool that can provide quick overview of you web site performance. It can also records scripts that you can use in VSTS.

* neXpert - an add-on to Fiddler which automates the classic performance best practice checks and produces a HTML report on the issues found in a Fiddler capture.

* Visual Round Trip Analyzer - Web page performance visualizer and analyzer tool.

* Also, Can use SharePoint Capacity Planning * Also, Can use SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool from Microsoft.

 

Q. How would you plan Testing WebParts.

Ans. We can Test a SharePoint site for various customizations that will be done by a developers or a designers.

For e.g. some important steps for Testing Custom WebParts are:

* Verify that you can add the Web Part properly to a sharepoint page, and nothing fails.

* Verify that the Web Part handles all of its exceptions.

* Verify that the Web Part works correctly regardless of where the Web Part Page is located.

* Verify that the Web Part can access its resources in different setup configurations.

* Verify that Web Part properties displayed in the tool pane are user-friendly.

* Verify that the Web Part renders appropriately based on user permissions.

* Verify that the Web Part previews properly.

* Verify that adding several instances of the same Web Part to a Web Part Page (or in the same Web Part zone) works correctly.


Q. How would you Test Design and Layout changes in SharePoint?

Ans. Some of the changes that we need to check are :

* See if companies Logo is displayed correctly. Verify that it shows up on each and every page of the Site.

* Verify that every page in SharePoint including list and library pages(AllForms.aspx) uses the same master Page.

* Verify that the application Pages such as "settings.aspx" also inherit the company branding layout( or master Page).

* Verify that any page can be edited sucessufuly, and the user can add/remove webparts from the Page.

* Verify the any New page created, inherits the custom Branding Layout or master Page.

* Verify that the branding( master page or look and feel) or layout does not fail if a user adds a Content editor webpart with custom Css in the webpart.

* Verify design in Various browsers.

 

 

Windows Powershell Interview Questions for SharePoint 2010

Q. What is Windows Powershell ?

Ans. Windows PowerShell is a new Windows command-line shell designed especially for system administrators. In the SharePoint administration context, Windows PowerShell is another administration tool that supersedes the existing Stsadm.exe.
Q. How is Windows Powershell different from Stsadm ?

Ans. Unlike stsadm, which accept and return text, Windows PowerShell is built on the Microsoft .NET Framework and accepts and returns .NET Framework objects. In addition to that it also gives you access to the file system on the computer so that you can access registry,digital signature certificate etc..Q. What are cmdlet's?

Ans. Windows PowerShell introduces the concept of a cmdlet which are simple build in commands, written in a .net language like C# or VB.Q. Can you Create PowerShell scripts for deploying components in SharePoint ?

Ans. If you are creating a webpart with VS 2010 then you can deploy it using ctrl + f5. However, to activate the webpart feature you can write a powershell script (.ps1) and execute it after dpeloyment.
Q. Where is Powershell located in SharePoint ?

Ans. On the Start menu, click All Programs -> Click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products -> Click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.
Q. If you need going to install a webpart or any custom solution in SharePoint 2010 using PowerShell What permissions do you need?

Ans. In order to use Windows PowerShell for SharePoint 2010 Products, a user must be a member of the SharePoint_Shell_Access role on the configuration and content database. In addition to this, the user must also be a member of the WSS_ADMIN_WPG local group on the computer where SharePoint 2010 Products is installed.
Q. How to list all the commands in PowerShell ?

Ans.
Get-Command * commands gets you all the Powershell commands. For more commands refer msdn site.

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Interview Questions

        
Q. What is SharePoint 2010?
SharePoint 2010 is the business collaboration platform for the Enterprise & the Web that enables you to connect & empower people through an integrated set of rich features. Whether deployed on-premises or as hosted services, SharePoint 2010 helps you cut costs with a unified infrastructure while allowing you to rapidly respond to your business needs.
Q. How would you re-deploy the old custom solutions in SharePoint 2010.What Changes are needed to the old Solution files.

Ans. SharePoint 2010 object model contains many changes and enhancements, but our custom code will still compile and, will run as expected. You should however, rewrite and recompile any code that refers to files and resources in "12 hive".
Q. What are the security improvements in SharePoint 2010 ?

Ans. In SharePoint 2010 a variety of security methods have been introduced.

Claims-Based Authentication - Claims based authentication is based on identity. and trust.

Code Access Security - in which you can specify your own code access
security (CAS) policy for your web parts.

Sandbox Solutions - Sandbox Solutions which when deployed to the server, SharePoint runs in a special process that has limited permissions.

Cross-Site Scripting - Introduced to prevent Cross - Site Scripting (XSS) attacks.
Q. Whats New with SharePoint WebParts?

A developer can create two types of webparts using Visual Studio 2010.

1. Visual Webparts - Allows you to Drag and Drop the controls from the Toolbox to WebPart Design surface. You can of course write your custom code in the code file. You can also package and deploy your webparts directly to Sharepoint from VS by pressing Clt+F5. Visual studio 2010 also provides you with three different views for developing webparts. The views are split view, design view and Source view(as we have in designer 2007).

Note : The Visual Webpart project Item basically loads a User Control as a WebPart.


2. ASP.Net WebParts - Where a developer can build up User Interface and logic in a class file. You do not have designer for drag and drop of controls. This webpart inherits from standard ASP.Net webpart. For Deployment we can again use ctrl+f5 to deploy this webpart.

Q. What are the Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SharePoint.

Ans. Visual Studio 2010 includes SharePoint-specific project types and project item types, and includes powerful packaging, deployment, and debugging features that help increase your efficiency as a SharePoint 2010 developer.

Some of the Templates avaiable are :
1.Visual Web Part project template.
2. List defination template.
3. Content Type template.
4. Empty Project template.
5. Event Receiver template.
6. some workflow template.
7. the Site Definition template
and many more....

Q. What are SharePoint Sandboxed soultions ?

Ans. SharePoint 2010 provides a new sandboxed environment that enables you to run user solutions without affecting the rest of the SharePoint farm. This environment means that users can upload their own custom solutions without requiring intervention from administrators, and without putting the rest of the farm at risk. This means that the existing sites\pages or components will not be effected by the newly added soultion.

Users can deploy the below four things as sandboxed soultions :
1. WebParts.
2. Event Receivers.
3. List Definations.
4. Workflows.
Q. What are Requirenments for SharePoint 2010.

Ans. SharePoint Server 2010 will support only 64 - bit. It will require 64 bit Windows Server 2008 or 64 bit Windows Server 2008 R2. In addition to this, it will require 64 bit version of SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit version of SQL Server 2005.


Q. What is LINQ. How is it used in Sharepoint ?

Ans. LINQ is a feature of the programming languages C# 3.0 and Visual Basic .NET. LINQ allows you to query in an object-oriented way, supports compile-time check, gives you intellisense support in Visual Studio and defines a unified, SQL like syntax to query any data source. But unlike other languages and query syntaxes which vary from one type of data source to another, LINQ can be used to query, in principle, any data source whatsoever. It is commonly used to query objects collections, XML and SQL server data sources.

The LINQ to SharePoint Provider is defined in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq namespace. It translates LINQ queries into Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) queries.
Q. What Changes are made in SharePoint 2010 to enforce Referential Integrity?

Ans. In SharePoint 2010, Referential Integrity is enforced using two options, available with Look-up columns.

While creating a Look-up column, you can either choose a) Restrict Delete or b) Cascade Delete to define a relationship between the Look-up list and the list containing the look-up Column.
Q. Whats Ribbon in SharePoint 2010?

Ans.The Ribbon Bar, is one of the finest improvements that Microsoft added to Office 2007 . SharePoint 2010 follows the same path. The ribbon basically, is a toolbar that appears across the top of each page in SharePoint.

The top-level elements in the Ribbon are tabs. Each tab organizes a set of groups (like Edit.Browse) and contains a set of controls. The controls inside the groups include buttons, drop-down menus, check boxes, combo boxes, split buttons, and galleries. In short, the users now can see the options like checkOut,Check In, Edit Page,Publish Page, delete page under edit tab, on the top of the Page itself.

Performance : Now lets talk about the Performance of the ribbon in SharePoint 2010.
Cashing : The Out-of-Box ribbon in heavily Cashed. So the controls are downloaded once and are used for the rest of the site.

Client OM - In terms of Architecture, ribbon Xml defines the UI but the behavior is all controlled by the javascript. You can definitely have Client or server controls in the ribbon according to your need.

CSS UI - Ribbon has all Css layout for UI and does not uses any tables.

Clustered Images - All the Images displayed in the ribbon like icons and stuff are Clustered images, thus they reduce the round-trip to the server.

Dynamic scalling and Pop-ups - All the pop-ups are displayed dynamically.

Lastly, the big question How does Ribbon works ? - A file called CMDUI.XML stays at the web front end which contains the Out-of-Box site wide Ribbon implementation i.e. all the Ribbon UI for the entire site. In addition to this you have a CustomAction for each ribbon component. These CustomActions have CommandUIExtentions block which has CommandUIDefinitions and CommandUIHandlers which make up the activity of the ribbon component. So, when the ribbon is loaded the CommandUIDefinition merges with Out-of-Box definition in the CMDUI.XML

Q . Whats New in SPALerts ?

Ans. In SharePoint 2007, alerts were send only through e-mails, but in SP2010 users can also send an alert to mobile devices as SMS Message. A New property DeliveryChannels is introduced to indicate, whether the alert is delivered as E-mail or as an SMS Message.
Q. What are the Hardware and Software requirements for SharePoint 2010.

Ans.

Hardware requirements :

# Processor 64-bit, four-core, 2.5 GHz minimum per core.

# RAM 4 GB for developer or evaluation use, 8 GB for single server and multiple server farm installation for production use.

# Hard disk 80 GB for installation

For production use, you need additional free disk space for day-to-day operations. Add twice as much free space as you have RAM for production environments.


Software requirements :

# The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 Standard with SP2. If you are running Windows Server 2008 without SP2, the Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2010 Preparation Tool installs Windows Server 2008 SP2 automatically.



Q. What Has Changed with SSP in SharePoint 2010.

Ans. In SharePoint 2010 Shared Service Providers (SSP's) are replaced by Service Applications. Services are no longer combined into a SSP. They are running independent as a service application. The service application architecture is now also built into Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, in contrast to the Shared Services Provider (SSP) architecture that was only part of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

A key benefit here is that all services are installed by default and there is no SSP setup.

Additional improvements for the service application model include:
• The services architecture is extensible, allowing third-party companies to build and add services to the platform.

• Services are managed directly in Central Administration (rather than a separate administration site).

• Services can be monitored and managed remotely.

• Services can be managed and scripted by Windows PowerShell™.

• Shared services communications take place over HTTP(S). Shared services do not directly access databases across farms.

• Most new services are built on the Windows Communications Framework. They have optimization built into their protocol, using binary streams instead of XML for data transfer. Test results show improvements in network throughput with this change.

Q. What are the advantages of Service Applications over SSP ?

Ans. The key limitation of the SSP architecture was that it was configured by using a set of services, and all Web applications associated with the SSP bore the overhead of all the services even if they weren't being used. To change the service configuration for a particular Web application, a new SSP would have to be created.

The service application architecture on the other hand, allows a set of services to be associated with a given Web application and a different set of services to be associated with another Web application. Also, the same service application can be configured differently in different Web applications; therefore, Web sites can be configured to use only the services that are needed, rather than the entire bank of services.

Q. Can we create a Single set of Services that will be shared across the farm?

Ans. Similar to the SSP model in Office SharePoint Server 2007, a single set of services can be shared by all sites in a farm. By publishing a service application (from the sharing group, under Service application tab), you can share it across server farms. This capability does not apply to all service applications, and some services can be shared only within a single server farm.

Q. What are Managed Accounts?

Ans. To reduce the load of managing various service accounts in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, the concept of managed accounts has been introduced. Much like managed accounts in Windows Server 2008, they allow SharePoint Server to take control of all the service accounts you use. After SharePoint Server has control of these accounts, it can either manage their passwords — automatically changing them as necessary — or it can notify you when an accounts password is about to expire, allowing you to make the change yourself.

Q. What are the Methods of Backup and Recovery in SharePoint 2010?

Ans. Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 provides a broad range of levels for performing backups, including the entire farm, farm configuration information, site collections, subsites, or lists.

SharePoint Server 2010 uses two different tools to configure backup and recovery.

1. Central Administration : Central Administration provides a user interface where SharePoint Administrators will be prompted via menu structures to select the information that needs to be backed up. (see the Image below)


2. Windows PowerShell : Windows PowerShell is a command line tool that provides SharePoint administrators a way to perform backup and recovery with additional options such as file compression or working with SQL snapshots.

Listed below are a few of the benefits available when working with Windows PowerShell:

• Windows PowerShell scripts can be developed and scheduled (with Windows Task Scheduler), whereas Central Administration is used for single-use backups and restores.

• Windows PowerShell has the advantage of running against SQL snapshots instead of the production database. One of the parameters of the Windows PowerShell command will cause a SQL snapshot to be generated, and then Windows PowerShell will run the action against the snapshot instead of the production database. This will reduce the resource impact of the backup operation on the production environment.

• With Windows PowerShell, SharePoint administrators will have more granular control of options for the backup or restore.


Q. How to Move content Databases using PowerShell ?

Ans. To attach\detach an existing content database use

Mount-SPContentDatabase "<ContentDb>" –DatabaseServer "<DbServer>" –WebApplication http://WebapplicationName

<ContentDb> is the content database to be attached.

<DbServer> is the name of the database server.

http://WebapplicationName is the name of the Web application to which the content database is being attached.

To detach a content database:

Dismount-SPContentDatabase "<ContentdBName>"
Q. How to Export a Site or List in SharePoint 2010?

Ans. SharePoint Server 2010 provides several new features that provide a granular level of backup for various components of site content. This includes content at the site, subsite, and list level.

Through Central Administration(Granular level Back-up) a SharePoint Administrator can configure a backup of a subsite or list. An Administrator can choose a site and a specific list to be exported.The administrators can also choose to export security and select the different versions that will be exported with the list.
Q. What is Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint ?

Ans.SharePoint 2010 provides a new set of technologies known as Business Connectivity Services for retrieving, editing, updating, and deleting data from external systems(for e.g. data from ERP or CRM database). BCS enhances the SharePoint platform's capabilities with out-of-box features, services and tools that streamline development of solutions with deep integration of external data and services.


Q. How is BCS Different from BDC in SharePoint 2007 ?

Ans. Even though the BDC made it relatively easy to create read-only solutions that display data in the Business Data List Web Part, it was not so simple to create a solution that enabled users to make changes and write that data back to the external store.

BCS, on the other hand, provides you with Read-Write capable connectivity from Client and Server to Database, WCF/Web Services and .Net Sources. A Developer can now use SharePoint Designer 2010 and VS 2010 rapid development tools to access external data. Q. How would you create an Information Site in SharePoint 2010?

Ans. In SharePoint 2010 You can create a Read-Only Farm/site or site-collection by setting the Content database as Read-only.
In SharePoint 2010 You can create a Read-Only Farm/site or site-collection by setting the Content database as Read-only.

In a read-only farm, only content databases are read-only. All other databases, including the configuration database, Central Administration content database, and search database, are read/write.
The site collection that is associated with a read-only content database is automatically set to be read-only.
The user experience of a read-only site is characterized by the following:
* Common tasks that do not require writing to the content database are fully available.
* Most of the common tasks that require writing to the content database are not available, either because they have been disabled in the user interface or because the user is no longer allowed to apply changes.
* Some common tasks that require writing to the content database appear to be available, but return errors.

Q. What Has Changed with SSP in SharePoint 2010.

Ans. In SharePoint 2010 Shared Service Providers (SSP's) are replaced by Service Applications. Services are no longer combined into a SSP. They are running independent as a service application. The service application architecture is now also built into Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, in contrast to the Shared Services Provider (SSP) architecture that was only part of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

A key benefit here is that all services are installed by default and there is no SSP setup.
To know more about Service Applications refer this blog post . Service Applications in SharePoint 2010.

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Interview Questions

Q. What is SharePoint 2010?
SharePoint 2010 is the business collaboration platform for the Enterprise & the Web that enables you to connect & empower people through an integrated set of rich features. Whether deployed on-premises or as hosted services, SharePoint 2010 helps you cut costs with a unified infrastructure while allowing you to rapidly respond to your business needs.
Q. How would you re-deploy the old custom solutions in SharePoint 2010.What Changes are needed to the old Solution files.

Ans. SharePoint 2010 object model contains many changes and enhancements, but our custom code will still compile and, will run as expected. You should however, rewrite and recompile any code that refers to files and resources in "12 hive".
Q. What are the security improvements in SharePoint 2010 ?

Ans. In SharePoint 2010 a variety of security methods have been introduced.

Claims-Based Authentication - Claims based authentication is based on identity. and trust.

Code Access Security - in which you can specify your own code access
security (CAS) policy for your web parts.

Sandbox Solutions - Sandbox Solutions which when deployed to the server, SharePoint runs in a special process that has limited permissions.

Cross-Site Scripting - Introduced to prevent Cross - Site Scripting (XSS) attacks.
Q. Whats New with SharePoint WebParts?

A developer can create two types of webparts using Visual Studio 2010.

1. Visual Webparts - Allows you to Drag and Drop the controls from the Toolbox to WebPart Design surface. You can of course write your custom code in the code file. You can also package and deploy your webparts directly to Sharepoint from VS by pressing Clt+F5. Visual studio 2010 also provides you with three different views for developing webparts. The views are split view, design view and Source view(as we have in designer 2007).

Note : The Visual Webpart project Item basically loads a User Control as a WebPart.


2. ASP.Net WebParts - Where a developer can build up User Interface and logic in a class file. You do not have designer for drag and drop of controls. This webpart inherits from standard ASP.Net webpart. For Deployment we can again use ctrl+f5 to deploy this webpart.

Q. What are the Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SharePoint.

Ans. Visual Studio 2010 includes SharePoint-specific project types and project item types, and includes powerful packaging, deployment, and debugging features that help increase your efficiency as a SharePoint 2010 developer.

Some of the Templates avaiable are :
1.Visual Web Part project template.
2. List defination template.
3. Content Type template.
4. Empty Project template.
5. Event Receiver template.
6. some workflow template.
7. the Site Definition template
and many more....

Q. What are SharePoint Sandboxed soultions ?

Ans. SharePoint 2010 provides a new sandboxed environment that enables you to run user solutions without affecting the rest of the SharePoint farm. This environment means that users can upload their own custom solutions without requiring intervention from administrators, and without putting the rest of the farm at risk. This means that the existing sites\pages or components will not be effected by the newly added soultion.

Users can deploy the below four things as sandboxed soultions :
1. WebParts.
2. Event Receivers.
3. List Definations.
4. Workflows.
Q. What are Requirenments for SharePoint 2010.

Ans. SharePoint Server 2010 will support only 64 - bit. It will require 64 bit Windows Server 2008 or 64 bit Windows Server 2008 R2. In addition to this, it will require 64 bit version of SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit version of SQL Server 2005.


Q. What is LINQ. How is it used in Sharepoint ?

Ans. LINQ is a feature of the programming languages C# 3.0 and Visual Basic .NET. LINQ allows you to query in an object-oriented way, supports compile-time check, gives you intellisense support in Visual Studio and defines a unified, SQL like syntax to query any data source. But unlike other languages and query syntaxes which vary from one type of data source to another, LINQ can be used to query, in principle, any data source whatsoever. It is commonly used to query objects collections, XML and SQL server data sources.

The LINQ to SharePoint Provider is defined in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq namespace. It translates LINQ queries into Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) queries.
Q. What Changes are made in SharePoint 2010 to enforce Referential Integrity?

Ans. In SharePoint 2010, Referential Integrity is enforced using two options, available with Look-up columns.

While creating a Look-up column, you can either choose a) Restrict Delete or b) Cascade Delete to define a relationship between the Look-up list and the list containing the look-up Column. Read Details at SharePoint 2010 Referential integrity - Using LookUp Column

Q. Whats Ribbon in SharePoint 2010?

Ans.The Ribbon Bar, is one of the finest improvements that Microsoft added to Office 2007 . SharePoint 2010 follows the same path. The ribbon basically, is a toolbar that appears across the top of each page in SharePoint.

The top-level elements in the Ribbon are tabs. Each tab organizes a set of groups (like Edit.Browse) and contains a set of controls. The controls inside the groups include buttons, drop-down menus, check boxes, combo boxes, split buttons, and galleries. In short, the users now can see the options like checkOut,Check In, Edit Page,Publish Page, delete page under edit tab, on the top of the Page itself.

Performance : Now lets talk about the Performance of the ribbon in SharePoint 2010.
Cashing : The Out-of-Box ribbon in heavily Cashed. So the controls are downloaded once and are used for the rest of the site.

Client OM - In terms of Architecture, ribbon Xml defines the UI but the behavior is all controlled by the javascript. You can definitely have Client or server controls in the ribbon according to your need.

CSS UI - Ribbon has all Css layout for UI and does not uses any tables.

Clustered Images - All the Images displayed in the ribbon like icons and stuff are Clustered images, thus they reduce the round-trip to the server.

Dynamic scalling and Pop-ups - All the pop-ups are displayed dynamically.

Lastly, the big question How does Ribbon works ? - A file called CMDUI.XML stays at the web front end which contains the Out-of-Box site wide Ribbon implementation i.e. all the Ribbon UI for the entire site. In addition to this you have a CustomAction for each ribbon component. These CustomActions have CommandUIExtentions block which has CommandUIDefinitions and CommandUIHandlers which make up the activity of the ribbon component. So, when the ribbon is loaded the CommandUIDefinition merges with Out-of-Box definition in the CMDUI.XML

Q . Whats New in SPALerts ?

Ans. In SharePoint 2007, alerts were send only through e-mails, but in SP2010 users can also send an alert to mobile devices as SMS Message. A New property DeliveryChannels is introduced to indicate, whether the alert is delivered as E-mail or as an SMS Message.
Q. What Has Changed with SSP in SharePoint 2010.

Ans. In SharePoint 2010 Shared Service Providers (SSP's) are replaced by Service Applications. Services are no longer combined into a SSP. They are running independent as a service application. The service application architecture is now also built into Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, in contrast to the Shared Services Provider (SSP) architecture that was only part of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

A key benefit here is that all services are installed by default and there is no SSP setup.
To know more about Service Applications refer this blog post. Service Applications in SharePoint 2010.
Q. What are the Hardware and Software requirements for SharePoint 2010.

Ans.

Hardware requirements :

# Processor 64-bit, four-core, 2.5 GHz minimum per core.

# RAM 4 GB for developer or evaluation use, 8 GB for single server and multiple server farm installation for production use.

# Hard disk 80 GB for installation

For production use, you need additional free disk space for day-to-day operations. Add twice as much free space as you have RAM for production environments.


Software requirements :

# The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 Standard with SP2. If you are running Windows Server 2008 without SP2, the Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2010 Preparation Tool installs Windows Server 2008 SP2 automatically.



Q. What Has Changed with SSP in SharePoint 2010.

Ans. In SharePoint 2010 Shared Service Providers (SSP's) are replaced by Service Applications. Services are no longer combined into a SSP. They are running independent as a service application. The service application architecture is now also built into Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, in contrast to the Shared Services Provider (SSP) architecture that was only part of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

A key benefit here is that all services are installed by default and there is no SSP setup.

Additional improvements for the service application model include:
• The services architecture is extensible, allowing third-party companies to build and add services to the platform.

• Services are managed directly in Central Administration (rather than a separate administration site).

• Services can be monitored and managed remotely.

• Services can be managed and scripted by Windows PowerShell™.

• Shared services communications take place over HTTP(S). Shared services do not directly access databases across farms.

• Most new services are built on the Windows Communications Framework. They have optimization built into their protocol, using binary streams instead of XML for data transfer. Test results show improvements in network throughput with this change.

Q. What are the advantages of Service Applications over SSP ?

Ans. The key limitation of the SSP architecture was that it was configured by using a set of services, and all Web applications associated with the SSP bore the overhead of all the services even if they weren't being used. To change the service configuration for a particular Web application, a new SSP would have to be created.

The service application architecture on the other hand, allows a set of services to be associated with a given Web application and a different set of services to be associated with another Web application. Also, the same service application can be configured differently in different Web applications; therefore, Web sites can be configured to use only the services that are needed, rather than the entire bank of services.

Q. Can we create a Single set of Services that will be shared across the farm?

Ans. Similar to the SSP model in Office SharePoint Server 2007, a single set of services can be shared by all sites in a farm. By publishing a service application (from the sharing group, under Service application tab), you can share it across server farms. This capability does not apply to all service applications, and some services can be shared only within a single server farm.

Q. What are Managed Accounts?

Ans. To reduce the load of managing various service accounts in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, the concept of managed accounts has been introduced. Much like managed accounts in Windows Server 2008, they allow SharePoint Server to take control of all the service accounts you use. After SharePoint Server has control of these accounts, it can either manage their passwords — automatically changing them as necessary — or it can notify you when an accounts password is about to expire, allowing you to make the change yourself.

Q. What are the Methods of Backup and Recovery in SharePoint 2010?

Ans. Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 provides a broad range of levels for performing backups, including the entire farm, farm configuration information, site collections, subsites, or lists.

SharePoint Server 2010 uses two different tools to configure backup and recovery.

1. Central Administration : Central Administration provides a user interface where SharePoint Administrators will be prompted via menu structures to select the information that needs to be backed up. (see the Image below)


2. Windows PowerShell : Windows PowerShell is a command line tool that provides SharePoint administrators a way to perform backup and recovery with additional options such as file compression or working with SQL snapshots.

Listed below are a few of the benefits available when working with Windows PowerShell:

• Windows PowerShell scripts can be developed and scheduled (with Windows Task Scheduler), whereas Central Administration is used for single-use backups and restores.

• Windows PowerShell has the advantage of running against SQL snapshots instead of the production database. One of the parameters of the Windows PowerShell command will cause a SQL snapshot to be generated, and then Windows PowerShell will run the action against the snapshot instead of the production database. This will reduce the resource impact of the backup operation on the production environment.

• With Windows PowerShell, SharePoint administrators will have more granular control of options for the backup or restore.

For more info See : Windows PowerShell Tutorial


Q. How to Move content Databases using PowerShell ?

Ans. To attach\detach an existing content database use

Mount-SPContentDatabase "<ContentDb>" –DatabaseServer "<DbServer>" –WebApplication http://WebapplicationName

<ContentDb> is the content database to be attached.

<DbServer> is the name of the database server.

http://WebapplicationName is the name of the Web application to which the content database is being attached.

To detach a content database:

Dismount-SPContentDatabase "<ContentdBName>"

See more Commands at
Windows Powershell Common Commands

Q. How to Export a Site or List in SharePoint 2010?

Ans. SharePoint Server 2010 provides several new features that provide a granular level of backup for various components of site content. This includes content at the site, subsite, and list level.

Through Central Administration(Granular level Back-up) a SharePoint Administrator can configure a backup of a subsite or list. An Administrator can choose a site and a specific list to be exported.The administrators can also choose to export security and select the different versions that will be exported with the list.

Upgrading SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010

Here we will discuss how to upgrade custom solutions that were created in VS 2008 for SharePoint 2007 using VseWss. Later in the post we will discuss some issues or Changes that need to be done to make different customizations work in SharePoint 2010. Lets start with how to upgrade VseWss created projects.

Upgrading VseWss projects - Upgrading custom solutions built using VseWss for SharePoint 2007 is much easier than any other custom build or developer build solutions, where developers might need to recode and re-compile to make it work in SharePoint 2010. For all Vsewss projects, Visual Studio 2010 has an option to automate the import(or conversion) process using VseWss Import Tool.
So, here is what we will do
1. To begin with, download and install the VseWss Import Tool for Visual Studio 2010.
2. After you install the package, you will see a new Template called "Import VseWss Project" in your VS 2010.
3. Once you select the Import project template you will be prompted to specify the SharePoint site and also an option for deploying your
migrated project as full trust or sandbox solution.
4. Next you will see a wizard where you can browse and select your project that you need to convert and also that will kick off the conversion
process. simple Enough!
Next lets discuss what needs to be modified in the Code to make it work in SharePoint 2010

Features :IF you have multiple features in your project for e.g. one feature for each deployed component you can integrate all these into one
feature file according to the new package designer in VS 2010. Also, if you have any feature receivers in your solutions you might need to remove that as well.
12 hive - IF any of your code is referencing to 12 hive folders that needs to be changed to reference to 14 hive folder. Only hard coded paths!

Master Page - IF your Custom master page is using CSS classes from Styles folder in 12 hive, you will have to re-write that Css
as almost all of the classes in Core.css and other custom files have changed. Also, You need to add two new place holders
"PlaceholderQuickLaunchTop" and "PlceholderQuickLaunchBottom" to your master page. Don't forget to remove any Publishing, Site actions,
log-in or sign in controls as they are now handled by the Ribbon.
Custom Actions - If you have Custom Actions in your solution then it needs to be Changed to be Custom Commands for the ribbon. And yes ribbon does not support server side calls so you will have to try Cilent object model.
.Stp or Site Templates - If you are going to import stp files or site templates then it might be a shock that stp is no longer supoorted in Sharepoint 2010.
So how do you import stp files. Well, below are the Steps :
1. First you need to create a site in SharePoint 2007 using your .stp template.
2. Then, backup the database for that site and restore it on SharePoint 2010 environment.
3. After you do that just Open up the site and fix any issues ( like 12 hive referencing files etc).
4. Now, you can Save this Site (from Settings page -> Save as Template) and it will give you a .wsp solution for the site.
This solution can then be re-used as a Site Template.
Side Note – If you want to deploy this Site template solution as a farm you will need to open the above .wsp solution in VS 2010 and
change the Scope as "Farm".
Themes - They are completely kicked out. You can only use them with legacy UI until you got to SharePoint 2010 UI.
Customized or Unghosed Pages – If your custom solutions like a master page was modified by designer and and sits in a Content database, it will
not work untill you reset the page to be in uncustomized state ( Not sure how will they do this! ). You can also re-open it in SharePoint designer 2010
and then save it.
Httpmodules or httpHandlers - IF you need to move your httphandler in SharePoint 2010 you need to re-register them to apply to IIS 7.

SharePoint 2010 Object Model - Backward Compatibility

Some Important things about SharePoint 2010 Object model and its backward compatibility.

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 contain object model upgrades that are designed to be compatible with existing solutions developed for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Some namespaces, classes, and methods are now obsolete, but they are still available and will continue to work as expected in your custom code.

You can synchronize your customizations and applications with the upgraded versions of Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 after you have redeployed them.

The object model contains many changes and enhancements, but your custom code will still compile and, with one potential exception, it will run as expected. If in case, any of your customizations rely on list queries that can generate result sets in excess of 5,000 items or that scan all rows of lists that consist of more than 5,000 items, you must change the query size threshold.(See Later in the Post)..
Note: You must Re-compile or re-write your code in below conditions:

* You should rewrite and recompile any code that refers to files and resources in "12" hive.For example, if you have redeployed all of your files into the "14" folder and emptied your "12" folder, any references to files under the "12" folder will not work. You will need to rewrite your code to refer the files in "14 Hive" instead of "12 Hive" to make it work.
* You must recompile custom code written for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 that does not run on IIS (such as console applications and services).
* You should recompile custom code written for Office SharePoint Server 2007 if your solution includes a feature receiver that implements the FeatureInstalled, FeatureUninstalling, FeatureActivated, or FeatureDeactivating methods and you are deploying by using either the Stsadm command-line tool or the timer service.
Lets Look at some of the custom solutions that you would be moving to SharePoint 2010.
Moving Using Solution Packages (.wsp Files)

You can simply deploy them as we did in SharePoint 2007. You dont need to recompile them(unless, your code has references to 12 hive). If however, you want to start upgrading your applications so that they use the most current classes and methods, you should recompile your code. The compiler warnings will tell you which elements of the object model are obsolete, and which newer alternatives you should use.
Moving Using Windows Installer Files
If you deploy your custom solutions by using Windows Installer (.msi) packages, be sure to change them so that your custom files are deployed to their correct locations in the "14" folder. This is especially true if you are deploying files to locations other than the TEMPLATE\FEATURES folder.
Moving Site templates
Site templates are deprecated. If you need to redeploy a site template to either SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010, follow these steps:

1. Create a site from the site template.

2. Install SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010 on your existing server farm or on a new server farm. If you install the upgrades on a new server farm, attach the content database that contains the site that you created to the new farm.

3. On the new installation, choose Save Site as Template from the Site Settings page. This creates a solution package with a .wsp file name extension.

CSS Changes :

When you upgrade to either SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010, you are able to choose either backward compatibility mode or the upgraded user interface. You can however, switch between backward compatibility mode and the new interface at the site-collection level or site level.

Since, the UI has changed significantly in both SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010, any customizations(made to SharePoint 2007 CSS) that rely on specific CSS classes and UI elements will work only in backward compatibility mode.

A property SPWeb.UIVersion is also available for developers, to programmatically get or set the UI version (3 for backward compatibility mode and 4 for the new interface).
Themes:
Themes no longer exist in SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010, so any customizations and design work that you have done with themes will not be imported into the new interface.
Custom Actions and Toolbar Additions:

Most custom actions, including those targeted at links and edit control block (ECB) menus, continue to work as expected in the upgraded interface. Because the toolbar is replaced by the ribbon, most custom actions that add buttons to a toolbar will be
placed in the Custom Commands tab of the ribbon.

Note : Any Custom Action Element that uses the ControlAssembly attribute, the ControlClass attribute, or the ControlSrc attribute, however, will not appear in the new interface.
Site definition :
Migrate sites to a supported, predefined site definition, then apply custom features by using solution deployment.
You can also continue to use a custom site definition. You do not have to create a new site definition based on SharePoint Server 2010.
Event handler : Rewrite and redeploy as a feature.

JavaScript : In some cases, you might have to adjust the scripts to work with the new page model. Verify that it works on an upgraded site, and in both Visual Upgrade modes.

Conclusion:

Because the changes to the API in the upgrades are backward compatible, you should not have to make any changes to your custom code before you redeploy it in either SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010. All deprecated elements of the API continue to be available to you, so that you have time to review the newer elements of the API before incorporating them into your customizations