Project Server 2010 supports SQL Server 2012

With the recent release of SQL Server 2012, Project Server 2010 Hardware/Software support TechNet documentation is also updated.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee683978.aspx

The SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack 1 and Project Server 2010 Service Pack 1 updates must be installed to your Project Server 2010 installations in your farm in order to use SQL Server 2012 to host your farm databases.

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Project Server Databases Restore Failure - 3203 Error

Phew ..... wasnt really sure that i was able to overcome this and thought that all my efforts are lost now. But finally managed to fix it, and decided to put all bits and pieces in blog to help others.

I took the backup of my PWA i.e. 5db set, and when i tried to restore it to SQL so that i provision it on my VM environment, the following error has been thrown by SQL restore dialog box:

I am pasting the additional error information from the screen shot so that google can find it out for you:
______________________________________________________________________________________

an exception occurred while executing a transact-sql statement or batch. ( Microsoft.sqlserver.connectioninfo)

Additional Information :

Read on "C:\ProjectServer_Published" failed : 38(Reached the end of the file.) ( Microsoft sql server, error : 3203)

___________________________________________________________________________________

The Problem was that the source server database path was not found in destination server, so now you manually need to restore databases using sqlcmd with replace option. You can follow the steps to resolve this:

1. open command prompt using adminsitrator.
2. Type sqlcmd to connect to the default instance of SQL Server on the local computer, and the contents of the Command Prompt window will be:

   C:\>sqlcmd

   1> _
3. This means you have connected to the default instance of SQL Server and sqlcmd is now ready to accept Transact-SQL statements and sqlcmd commands. The flashing underscore after the 1> is the sqlcmd prompt that marks the location at which the statements and commands you type will be displayed.
4. Type the following script to get the Physical and Logical file name and its path of your database :
1. RESTORE FILELISTONLY FROM DISK = N'D:\<file_name>'
2. Go
3. 

   
   
5. Using the information you will get after running the above script, type the following script to restore your databases:
1. RESTORE DATABASE <file_name_New>
   FROM DISK = N'D:\<file_name>'
   WITH REPLACE ,
   MOVE '<Source physical file name returned by prev command>'
   TO 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA\<file_name_New>.mdf',
   MOVE '<Source Logical file name returned by prev command>'
   TO 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA\<file_name_New>_log.ldf'
2. go
6. This will now take some time depending upon the size of your database, you will see the cursor blink while its processing in the back. After a while output lines will start appearing indicating that status, and if it all goes smooth than the last line should be like this:
1. RESTORE DATABASE successfully processed 16668 pages in 8.765 seconds <size mb/sec>

Repeat the same above steps to restore all your databases, once all your database will restore successfully provision the PWA using the restored dbs.

Until next time, happy and prosperous new year ahead.

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Year 2011 in review

A year 2011 is been a roller-coaster ride for me through out in terms of personal and professional activities. Professionally, being a Project Management specialist using Ms EPM solution, it was year of lot of new learnings and achivements. Since the release of SharePoint 2010 and than later Project Server 2010 during mid of last year 2010, there were so much to catch up to grasp the early release of the product and than to demonstrate and implement to the real world scenarios. And without any doubt the Project Server 2010 is the most mature product from any of its predecessor, and this claims the Microsoft the highest rating for Project and Portfolio solution out in market.

Inspired by the idea of reviewing my blog at the year end, here are my top 5 blogs of year 2011 based on the number of hits:

1. Project Server 2010 - Task and Timesheet workflow
2. Project Server 2010/2007 Permission Settings
3. Project Professional 2010 - Baseline BUG
4. Project Server 2010 - Resource Picker on PDP
5. Project Server - Project Progress Tracking Methods

All your comments and feedback motivates me to write more and serve the community and readers out there to know more about Project and Project Server 2010. So folks keep visiting and sending your feedback, have a great year ahead.

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Virtual Migration Environment for Project Server 2010 Issue

While migrating Project Server 2003 data to Project Server 2010, since it cannot be done direclty, i had to use Project Server 2007 environment as an intermediate step. For this Microsoft has provided a Project Server 2007 Hyper-V Virtual Migration Envrionment with all the data migration scripts pre-loaded on the VM. This all makes life prety easier in terms that you dont have to be worried about such issues of preparing a VM with Project Server 2007 etc. etc.

The reason i am writing this blog is the issue you will come across when you will provision your PWA 2007 first time using the migrated DBs, you click on Project Center to witness if all your hard work has paid off and BINGO - nothing appears there :(  You can check Resource center and similar message waiting for you there as well and no resource data appears in the grid.

How to resolve this? quite simpe actually, Dynamic Content Compression must be disabled in Internet Informtion System. It is on by default in Windows Server 2008 R2, having dynamic content compression enabled can cause issues if you need to make corrective changes to your Project Server 2007 data in the VME (specifically issues with project/resource center grid, editing custom fields and resources).

To disable Dynamic Content Compression, follow the steps in VME:

1. On the Project Server VME, click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

2.  In Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, in the Connection Pane select VME (VME\Administrator).

3.  In the VME Home pane, in the IIS section, click Compression.

4.  In the Compression section, deselect Enable dynamic content compression to disable it.

5.  In the Actions pane, click Apply to save the change. The Alert “The changes have been successfully saved” displays if the change has been applied successfully.

6.  Close Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

This is all guys, hope this helps some of you - happy migrating, cheers.

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My View: Project 2010 & Project Server 2010 Certifications

This post was long been pending from my side, recently i have passed the following Project 2010 and Project Server 2010 exams and would like to share my experience and tips to prepare for the exams:

• TS: Project 2010, Managing Projects
• TS: Project Server 2010, Configurations

Although i was slightly late to attempt for these exams, but i always appriciate the benefit of being certified in the practising technology and domain. And i belive that being certified helps you gains employer confidence, and validate, your product knowledge.

So few tips for anyone of you out there who wants to attempt for the exam. There are certain knowledge areas related to each of the above mentioned exams, and if you validate your knowledge against those topics can help you pass the exam. For me Project 2010, Managing Projects were relatively more diffcult than Project Server 2010 exam, but for you it could be other way around. So here are few points you can consider while preparing For Project 2010, Managing Projects:

1. Expect lot of questions related to the new features of Project 2010. Trust me if you know this good, more chances are that you pass the exam.
2. Understand the positions of features and options on a new Office Ribbon User Interface.
3. Knows the use of the new and old features of Project 2010 well. Now this is important, if you do not use Project in your everyday routine you might face some difficulty in this area.
4. Understand the Task Types and their impact to a task's work, duration and resource assignment when one of these changes.

The way i have practised and prepared for the exams was: i have looked into the domain areas of the exam mentioned on the Microsoft Learning site under this particular exam page and verified my knowledge related to these skills. And i have used this book to study, Microsoft Project 2010 Step by Step. Its an easy to read and good to start with if you are beginner user of Project 2010. You might can find training classes or material based on the area you are located.

The Project Server 2010 exam, 70-177, covers the configuration areas of the product. You can also get scneario based question and asked for your expert opinion about the next step you should take. Unlike Project 2010 exam there are no such area from where you get the most of the questions. The best way to prepare for this exam is to go through the official skills measure page of the exam and verify your preparation. The number of questions from each skill area is based on the percentage mentioned for that area, and that is almost equal.

Please feel free to ask for any help related to the exams, be aware that these are the only two exams released so far for EPM 2010. For those who are planning to attempt the exam, I wish you good luck.

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