13 May 2021
The SharePoint 2019 April 2021 Updates have been released.
For all SharePoint updates, visit SharePoint Updates.
13 May 2021
The SharePoint 2016 April 2021 Updates have been released.
For all SharePoint updates, visit SharePoint Updates.
01 Apr 2021
Today, VPN split tunneling is recommended for accessing Microsoft 365 services to eliminate the overhead added by VPN. Many Microsoft services are latency sensitive, such as co-authoring a document in the browser or desktop or making calls on Microsoft Teams. Microsoft outlines what IP address ranges and FQDNs should be placed on a bypass list, but the general recommendation is to use split tunneling for VPN regardless of scenario.
You also need to split tunnel DNS traffic over VPN. The front door for Exchange Online is determined by the DNS resolver location, as one example (and certain functions in Outlook perform a live query against Exchange Online, such as search or the online archive mailbox, even when in cached mode). If your worldwide users connect to your main corporate office for VPN, where you co-locate your in-house DNS resolvers, users across the globe will be directed based on the location of the DNS resolver at your main corporate office. Unless your users are in the same general geographic region as the VPN endpoint, they may be directed to a suboptimal location for Microsoft 365 services.
The concept behind split tunneling DNS is your VPN client needs to only route DNS traffic applicable to your corporate network, such as the fully qualified name of your Active Directory domain. By split tunneling DNS traffic over VPN, your clients will use their local DNS resolver, likely assigned by their ISP, which will be used to route traffic to the optimal location within Microsoft 365 for traffic following over the public Internet while using your corporate DNS resolvers for internal-only name resolution.
You can learn more about the network fundamentals for Microsoft 365 services at Microsoft 365 network connectivity overview. You can also run tests from your client by going to Microsoft 365 network connectivity test. This will tell you if your client is using VPN split tunneling, any proxy servers interfering with traffic, and so forth. In addition, Microsoft 365 admins can get additional data from the Microsoft 365 network connectivity health dashboard. This dashboard does have some pre-requisites, so make sure you review those. The most important pre-requisite is to enable Windows Location Services and use the OneDrive sync client on your Windows desktops.
TL;DR: Split tunnel VPN, including DNS, and adding IPs/URLs to any proxy service (such as a service which performs SSL inspection) will provide the optimal experience for your end users.
25 Mar 2021
SharePoint turns 20 this year! From Tahoe to SharePoint Online and Server vNext, SharePoint is an amazing platform with many possibilities.
I recall when I started working with SharePoint in Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 roughly around 2003-2004. WSSv2 was neat for what it was back then, a web-based repository for content wasn’t as common place as it is today with not only SharePoint, but Box, Dropbox, and many more. SharePoint continues to be a leader in this space while continually evolving at a more and more rapid pace – from Modern UI, SPFx, Microsoft Lists, to Viva Topics.
If you’re interested in reading some thoughts around the original release of SharePoint, codenamed Tahoe, I found a great article that provided impressions which haven’t aged too well.
Microsoft’s Tahoe is ‘too lightweight’
And perhaps it was for it’s time, but we’re well past that point.
There will be a big celebration this Saturday, March 27th. Come join members of the product group, MVPs, and some awesome speakers! You can register on EventBrite at https://www.sharepointbirthday.com.
Coincidentally, my favorite OS, macOS (OS X) turned 20 yesterday.
09 Mar 2021
The SharePoint 2019 March 2021 Updates have been released.
For all SharePoint updates, visit SharePoint Updates.