Microsoft Project 2007 Infrastructure Update

Pradeep GanapathyRajSenior Program Manager Lead | Project

Microsoft Corporation

1

Ludovic HauducGeneral Manager | Project

Microsoft Corporation

Christophe FiessingerSenior Technical Product Manager | Project

Microsoft Corporation

Michael JordanLead Architect | MCS

Microsoft Corporation

August 13th, 2008

Doug McCutcheon, PMP

Worldwide Partner Strategy Manager | Project

Microsoft Corporation

Agenda

• Introduction

• Infrastructure Update Walkthrough

• Deployment Best Practices

• Questions and Answers

2

INTRODUCTIONProject 2007 Infrastructure Update

2007 – An enduring Passion!

• Project 2007: a cornerstone release

• In-market product support is my and my team’s #1 commitment. Full stop.

• The Product Team is increasing its investment for 2007 support in 2008 and 2009

• Product keeps getting better and we keep learning from that release

• 2007 gaining momentum and securing key competitive wins

Infrastructure Update

• IU Released July 15th, 2008– 100% customer focused

– Huge learning for the Product Team

– Blueprint for SP2, CU process

• IU in a Numbers– Weeks of Development: 3

– Weeks of Stabilization: 5

– Areas improved by huddles: 10

– Unique bugs fixed: 82

– Post SP1 hot-fixes rolled up: 97

– Key accounts that beta tested it: 11

Cumulative Updates and SP2

• Cumulative Update (CU) process– Inspired from SQL, Exchange

– Adopted by Sharepoint, Project

– Efficiency and Predictability!

– First CU due in August, over 40 issues fixed

• Service Pack 2 (SP2)– Following the IU playbook

– Development ongoing now, over 100 customer reported issues fixed, plus security fixes

– Due early 2009

Quality is a JourneyTM

• Product quality is my personal crusade for 2007 and beyond

• The next version of Project is benefiting hugely from the 2007 quality push

• The pulse around 2007 QualityDec 2, '07 Mar 2, '08 Jun 1, '08 Aug 31, '08 Nov 30, '08 Mar 1, '09

Infrastructure Update3/08 – 6/08

SP2

P12 SP112/07

SP1 Roll Up2/1/08 1st CU Patch

8/08

2nd CU Patch10/08

3rd CU Patch12/08

4th CU Patch4/09

May 31, '09

5th CU Patch6/09

INFRASTRUCTURE UPDATE WALKTHROUGH

Project 2007 Infrastructure Update

What is the “Infrastructure Update”?

• Office Server-wide effort to focus on high priority issues affecting Customer/Partner satisfaction

• Includes several usability and performance updates for Office Project Server 2007 and Office Project 2007

• Available today !

9

How/where to get it ?

• Go to http://download.microsoft.com

– Search for ‘Infrastructure update for Project’ to get the Project Client update (KB951547)

• Detailed list of fixes published

– Search for ‘Infrastructure update for Office Servers’ to get the Project Server update (KB951297)

• Both 32 bit and 64 bit versions available

• Office Server update contains Project Server update

• Detailed list of fixes published

• Whitepaper on Project Server fixes at: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=121912

10

Focus Areas

1. Server: Timesheets and My Tasks Stability and Usability (15 mins)

2. Client/Server: Cost Resources (10 mins)

3. Client/Server: Custom Fields Stability (10 mins)

4. Client/Server: Project Local Cache Resiliency (5 mins)

5. Server: Queue Management UI improvements (5 mins)

6. Server: Logging Tracing Improvements (2 mins)

7. Server: Improve Project Server Performance (5 mins)

8. Server: Migration issues from Project Server 2003 to 2007 (5 mins)

9. Server: Reporting DB Performance and Data integrity (2 mins)

10. Client: Excel Import Problem (2 mins)

11

1. Timesheets and My Tasks Stability and Usability

• Fix top usability issues that block deployments

• Reduce need for double-entry by end-users

• Fix some basic end-user functionality that existed in 2003 with the ActiveX control

12

DEMO

13

Recap

14

Submit All

Enhancement Applies to My Tasks Applies to TimeSheets

1. Scroll bar in Grid X X

2. Selection Indicator X X

3. Grouping X

4. Sorting X X

5. Task Path X X

6. Time-phased Grid as view option X

7. Cell editing enhancements X X

8. Submit All X

9. TS: TimeSheet Field Manipulation X

10. TS: Remaining Work X

2. Cost Resources

• Ensure Time phased calculation equals Sheet calculation

• Ensure cost resource UI does not show incorrect calculation

– Respects Scheduling

15

DEMO

16

Recap

• Zero cost assignment can exist between normal tasks

• Actual Cost affects Cost values (like work)

• Cost Resources respect Scheduling

• Cost zeroed out when task becomes a milestone

• Cost Resource contour stored at day granularity

• Do not mix cost resources with resources that need statusing

17

3. Custom Fields Stability

• Fixed top customer issues following SP1

• Mix of client and server fixes

• Based on feedback from Support, COE, Internal Usage

18

Categories for CF fixes

• Improved Copy/Paste support

• Graphical Indicators

• Formulas

• Data Corruption and Inconsistency

• Stability and Scalability

• Deployment

19

Copy/Paste: Project Desktop

21

Copy/Paste: Copy to PWA

22

Copy/Paste: Paste from PWA

23

Graphical Indicators

• Graphical indicators (Duration, Start fields) are lost in Office Project Professional 2007 after saving the plan to the server and re-opening it

• Users cannot see a graphical indicator in Project Center after changing the corresponding value using the edit properties page

24

Formulas

• Project-level formula custom field values are lost after saving or publishing a project plan from the Edit Project Properties page

• Calculated Custom fields referencing cost fields are not correctly recalculated after publishing projects from the Edit Project Properties page - the cost is off by a factor of 100

• Enterprise formula custom fields are not updated when their formula contains a reference to another enterprise formula custom field

• Order of operations is not correct when evaluating custom field formulas in Office Project Server 2007

25

Data Corruption and Inconsistency

• Multilevel outline code data is not properly preserved when saving in Office Project 2007

• Negative values are converted to positive values when saving as XML

• Task Flag2 behaved differently than other fields on assignments

26

Stability and Scalability

• Crash

– Office Project 2007 crashes when opening a project where a custom field with scalar data (e.g. text1) was modified to use a lookup table, or fails to save the same project to Office Project Server

• Large Custom Fields

– A Local Custom Field with more than 998 values cannot be added as an Enterprise Custom Field

27

Deployment

• Improved upgrader logic to deal with inconsistent lookup table data

• Office Project Server 2007 ActiveX controls cannot be downloaded from the Edit Custom Fields page; consequently, the user can't validate formulas

28

4. Project Local Cache Resiliency

• Improve client/server interaction

– Partial saves that fail are cleaned up

– Does not issue extra Check In request on error

• Add a modal dialog that enforces all pending saves to server before exiting client

• Project Professional displays an empty error dialog after certain save errors

29

DEMO

30

New Dialog

31

Project Name is used as the window

name

5. Queue Management UI improvements

• Make UI improvements to investigate jobs in ‘Getting Queued’/Blocked state

32

DEMO

33

UI Improvements Recap

34

6. Logging Tracing Improvements

• Focus on reducing “Critical” message traffic

– Analyzed customer logs, fixed log entries whose severity is not correct

– Log critical message only for last queue retry

• Improve logging detail for errors detected during server-side formula calculations

35

7. Improve Project Server Performance

• Focus: Pro-Server File I/O Performance (Open/Save/Publish)

• Method: Automated Tests

– Open project from server

– Manipulate contents of project

– Save to server

– Publish

– Measure overall throughput

• Target: Large customer DBs

36

Approach and Findings

• Emphasis: SQL Tuning– Stored procedure design

– Clustered indexes

– Non-clustered indexes

• Findings– Stored procedures benefitted from additional

JOIN criteria

– Shadow tables (and misc. others) benefitted from clustering changes

– A few nonclustered indexes

37

Benefits

• Benefits

– Disclaimer: Improvements will be dependent on data set and SQL server I/O performance

– On the two databases used in testing:

• 20%+ improvement on average Save

• 30%+ improvement on average Publish

• Less deadlocking in Queue-related queries

38

8. Migration issues from Project Server 2003 to 2007

• Targeted test push on select customer databases

• Document workarounds or fix issues

39

Test Strategy

• SQL script looked for tasks where values have changed between P11 and migrated P12 database

• Systematically review each project that have differences in db values

40

Lessons

• Db-side comparison will yield a high number of false positives

• Impact analysis should be done on a per-project, not per-task basis (with thresholds)

• Migration will do a full recalculation

– Project 2003 Projects may not be fully recalculated

– Project 2003 Projects may not be opened after a calendar change

41

Fixed Duration Task FixIn Project server 2003

In Project Server 2007

42

Other Issues Fixed

• Editing a Fixed Duration task with task calendars

• Editing a Fixed Duration task with splits

• Assigning a material resource to a Fixed Duration task with a non-standard task calendar and work resources with actual work

43

9. RDB Performance and Data Integrity

• Fixes in RDB Refresh: – RDB refresh fails if there are more than 1 restore

operations (i.e. restore CF, then restore resource) in the queue

– RDB refresh fails if you had any non-standard project types, such as inactive projects/templates/global in the pub db

– RDB Refresh Primary Key violation if you had done multiple delete operations on your tasks/assignments.

• New helper functions to create and manage custom indexes/views in RDB– MSP_Epm_CreateCustomFieldIndexByUID– MSP_Epm_CreateCustomFieldIndexByName

44

10. Fix Excel Import Problem

• Fix SP1 issues related to importing work from Excel

45

Known issues• ‘My Work’ page Error

– If you publish a project with assignments where the ‘Assignment Owner’ is different from the ‘Assignment Resource’ and if the task has an ‘Enterprise Task Custom Field’ which rolls down to assignments, if the assignment owner navigates to the ‘My Work’ link in the left navigation pane of Project Web Access and tries to update the assignment, the following error may occur: “An unexpected error has occurred”

• Project Save Delays– If you save a project with a large number of task custom

fields (say around 20), the save time for these projects may take around an hour

• Fixes will be part of the August Cumulative Update

46

DEPLOYMENT BEST PRACTICESProject 2007 Infrastructure Update

Why this process is important• Forge good habits with Quality Assurance

– Patch management is an ongoing effort and not a one off

– Cumulative Updates (CU) available every 8 weeks

– Establish a Test Environment to QA the build before going into production

– Establish change control and recovery plans

– Establish a test plan with every patch update

• Advise the Technical Account Manager: https://premier.microsoft.com/

• Request CU online (CU requests are free): http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=en-us&c1=505&x=10&y=11&gprid=11388&

• Patch Management is extra budget and effort to deploy– Client patch distribution

• Project Professional and ActiveX (extracted from server build)

• Scripting, testing, packaging & deployment

– IT Governance – desktop image compliance does not allow latest fixes

– Use Terminal Services as temporary production PM station

– It can take up to 12 weeks to prepare a package for deployment

– Server vs Client version dependency

• Does the client need to be deployed with server. E.g.: Fixed duration Hotfix? 48

Installation Files• Deploy the Infrastructure Update for Office Project Server 2007

– http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc671413.aspx

• Where to get them– http://download.microsoft.com

• KB951695 - ‘Infrastructure update for WSS’

• KB951297 - ‘Infrastructure update for Office Servers’

• KB951547 - ‘Infrastructure update for Project’

– Whitepaper on Project Server fixes at: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=121912

• File Version– SP1 is pre-requisite (WSS + Project)

– Slipstreaming:

• Extract file to Updates folder in source root. E.g.: RTM + SP1 + Infra Update in one step

• Language packs

• 64 bit (requires RTM + SP1 as base image)

• http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/2007/11/01/slipstream-not-a-phenomenon-in-physics.aspx

• Adding new servers– Must be same version as existing servers in the farm

– Use slipstreaming49

Deployment Process• Preparation

– Complete signoff in Test

– Recovery plan:

• Upgrading is a one way trip. Binary version must match DB schema version

• Recovery may require re-imaging the servers

– Determine maintenance window – global team access narrows downtime

• ~6hrs to upgrade 3 – 6 server farm.

– MOSS coexistence. Coordinate test and deployment effort with other teams

• Installation– Use SSP Account to perform the install

– Client : Patch ALL clients simultaneously. Do not have different versions editing the same data!!!

– Server: Binaries first then Upgrader (Wizard UI or PSConfig cmd line)

– Longest part of the process is running the upgrader sequentially. PSConfigUI takes longer – consider using the cmd line. Detach large content databases.

• Verification– Log review

– Version review (attaching old databases and running PSConfig – upgrades schema) 50

Installation steps (main ones)

51

Action Description

Client packagingDistribute Project Professional ad Active X controls to client machines *deployed simultaneously with server if version fidelity is required*

Server bits Prepare server bits for WSS and Office SharePoint. Slipstream updates and language packs

Setup troubleshooting Rename logs (MSI, Psconfig and Upgrade). Verify current build version on DLLs and DB schema

Change Control customizations

Capture custom files/code, site templates, custom indexes, timeout settings, *js, *.aspx, web parts

Backup the farm Use SharePoint operation to backup the entire farm.

Shut down Project Services

Use Central Administration site to stop Project Server Application Service. Prevents Queue, Events, OLAP and ADSync jobs running during upgrade

Shut down Web Services Stop the World Wide Web service to disconnect users from the system during the upgrade

Lay down binaries Install WSS and Office SharePoint binaries on each server. *Do not run the wizard*

Run upgraderOn the server with Central Admin installed run the PSConfigUI or PSConfig cmd line. Run command on each server sequentially.

Start servicesStart the World Wide Web service. Use Central Administration site to start Project Server Application Service

Installation verificationCheck MSI, PSConfig and Upgrade logs for errors. Verify new build version on DLLs and DB schema (12.0.6318.5000) http://blogs.msdn.com/shaden/archive/2008/01/10/migrated-to-sp1-checking-your-database-schema-version.aspx

Change Control customizations

Re-apply custom files/code , site templates, custom indexes, timeout settings, *js, *.aspx, web parts

Stabilize new build Execute test cases to sign off for production usage

Testing complete in Quality Assurance environment. Ready for Production

deploymentBuild client

distribution

package

Deploy to

Project

Manager

users

Deploy to

TS

environment

Clear local

cache and IE

Temp files

How to verify install?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953750

Questions ?

53

© 2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market

conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.