Web Application Proxy and ADFS configuration

ADFS configuration is quite a complex section in which one small mistake leads to hours of troubleshooting as well as its respective resolution. 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg188612.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/adfs2-step-by-step-guides(v=ws.10).aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/b/canitpro/archive/2015/09/11/step-by-step-setting-up-ad-fs-and-enabling-single-sign-on-to-office-365.aspx

We are facing some weird error while configuring the web application proxy in Windows Server 2012 R2:

ADFS proxy could not be configured. Unable to retrieve proxy configuration data from the federation Server.

While troubleshooting the issue, we found one Microsoft KB which talks about this update:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/3013769

Most probable cause would be: This issue occurs when finding DRS objects times out. The Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) service tries to connect to every global catalog in the forest during DRS discovery. However, the DRS objects cannot be found because DRS is not initialized. Therefore, AD FS proxy times out.

But that didn’t resolves the issue in my case so I tried it from the scratch with the help of http://thesharepointfarm.com/2014/02/sharepoint-and-the-web-application-proxy-role/ - which resolves the issue for me but still didn’t clear as what went wrong!

Another step of troubleshooting that you can check is to check the certificates on ADFS Proxy.

If you have any further queries or questions then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well resolves your issues J

Sharepoint 2013 Multi Tenant Setup

Multi-tenancy refers to the ability to manage and partition data of sites and otherwise shared services or software in order to accommodate multiple tenants. This is in contrast to running multiple instances of a service, or setting up separate hardware. 

In Microsoft products and technologies, multi-tenancy of services creates a hosting environment wherein server farm resources are maximized. Before learning about hosting environments, it is important to understand the services architecture.

General guidance for hosters in SharePoint Server 2013: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn659287.aspx

If anybody is looking for documentation or the complete process of setting up a SharePoint 2013 Enterprise server for Multi Tenancy then I would suggest looking at the following set of articles by Spence Harbar.  

The first is his walk through for how to build a multi-tenancy environment in 2010.  The second is a newer blog post on what changed in 2013. I don't think I've seen anyone do a full walk through specifically for 2013.

http://www.harbar.net/articles/sp2010mt1.aspx

http://www.harbar.net/articles/sp2013mt.aspx

More References:

https://www.techtask.com/multi-tenancy-sharepoint-2013-farm-mit-powershell-konfigurieren

http://tutorial.wmlcloud.com/windows_server/Multi-Tenancy-in-SharePoint-2013-(part-1)---Managing-Service-Application-Groups,-Creating-a-Site-Subscription-.aspx

https://santoshksp.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/configuring-multitenancy-hosting-in-sharepoint-2010-and-sharepoint-2013/

Email Library missing – SharePoint Online / Office 365

Few days before, one of our users has reported an issue that some of the business experts wanted to use the email functionality for a document library but not able do so as the link is missing or seems to be not visible due to permissions issue!

Farm attributes:

1.    Windows 7 client

2.    SharePoint Online / Office 365

I have started my analysis towards the issue and found out that’s it’s a expected behavior. What is meant by expected, refer below for the complete explanation.

Why the option is not there?

The option is not available in Office 365 due to concerns that every document library alias will create a contact in AD, which has some security, performance and traffic related implications.

Alternative:

You can alternatively use Office 365 groups to post attachments (of course email-enabled). The attachments are either distributed to group members via email or kept in OneDrive for Business with a link sent instead.

One more forum from Microsoft’s SharePoint Online:

https://community.office365.com/en-us/f/154/p/809/321861

What it recommends:

Mail-enabled lists are not available with SharePoint Online. Mail-enabled lists create contact objects in AD. Since SharePoint Online is a multi-tenant environment, this functionality would cause a large increase in traffic, which in turn would cause performance issues for all customers.

This functionality is currently disabled due to the performance concerns, as well as security, data requirement, legal compliance and scalability concerns.

Let me know in case of any further queries/questions.