SharePoint Administration Interview Questions and Answers

SharePoint Administration Interview Questions and Answers

1. How many web applications we can create on WSS Server / SharePoint Server?

Every ASP.NET page creates DLL to the web application. Each DLL consumes the memory. And because of this, number of web application running on a server is limited to 99.

2. What is the Farm in SharePoint?

Farm is a collection of SharePoint servers having the same configuration database.
Configuration DB stores all the required information to run the farm. Each farm is administered through a central administration. There is only one configuration database for a SharePoint farm.

3. What is STS and SPS ? Stare difference?

SPS – SharePoint Portal Services

• It has better document management
• It has check-in, check-out, versioning, approval, publishing, subscriptions, categories, etc.
• It has a better search engine, and can crawl multiple content source
• It is better for an organization, and where Document Management is crucial.

STS – SharePoint Team Services

• It is easier to manage and much better for a team environment where there is not much Document Management going on.
• Above SPS features are not available in STS.
• This is only for team based environments

4. What is SharePoint Feature? What are all the scopes available? What files are used to define a feature?

A SharePoint Feature is a functional component that can be activated and deactivate at various scopes throughout a SharePoint instances.

Scopes:

• Farm
• Web Application
• Site (site collection)
• Web (site)

The two files that are used to define a feature are,

• feature.xml
• manifest file(elements.xml)

The feature XML file defines the actual feature and will make SharePoint aware of the installed feature. The manifest file contains details about the feature such as functionality.

5. What is WebPart Maintenance Page?  How to access it?

A page you can see all the webparts inserted in the page. We can remove harmful webpart in the page even if the page not opening due to the harm code.

We can access the WebPart maintenance page by keeping “?contents=1″
at the end of the webpart page URL, E.g,.

http://anandhsharepoint.loc/SitePages/Welcome.aspx?contents=1

6. What authentications are available in Sharepoint?

SharePoint 2010

1. Classic Based Authentication
   • Only Windows Authentication (NTML – Users are available in Active Directory)
   • Anonymous access can be enabled (Any one can access the site without login)
2. Claims Based Authentication
   • Windows Authentication (NTML – Users are available in Active Directory)
   • Form Based Authentication (ASP.NET FBA – Users stored in SQL database, Mainly used for vendors)
   • Anonymous access can be enabled (Any one can access the site without login)

SharePoint 2013

1. Claims Based Authentication (Classic based Authentication is removed remaining same as above)

Note: NTLM – Windows NT LAN Manager, FBA – Form Based Authentication

7. What is claims based authentication in SharePoint?

Claims is a new authentication method that SharePoint 2010/2013 can utilize. This allows a single authentication store for multiple types of authentication (Windows NTLM, SQL FBA, LDAP, etc). This allows all of these authentications to access SharePoint under a single URL.

Claims creates a SAML token based on the sign-in, that contains the user’s identity.

8. What is new in Shared Service Provider (SSP ) in Sharepoint 2010 ? ( Alternate Question : What is new Service Application?

In SharePoint 2010, Shared Service Provider is replace as Service Applications. SSP Services are split out into separate services.

What is replaced:
Profiles, Audiences = User Profile Service Application
Search = Search Service Application
Excel = Excel Service Application
Whats new:
Project Server = Project Server Application
Visio Services = Visio Service Application
Advantages:
Web applications can be configured to only use a subset of the deployed services.We can create same service application multiple times with different names. You can share services across multiple web applications in a farm.

9. Difference between Application Page and Site Page in SharePoint?

Application Page : 

• Stored in server file system, SharePoint designer cannot edit these pages.
• If you see page url contains “_layouts” that page is application page and we cannot customize.
• Developer can create these pages from visual studio and deploy as FARM solution.
• Sandbox solution will not be supported in application page.
• Application page can be accessed from any web application because page is deployed under layouts folder.
• E.g., site settings pages, All site contents page, List setting page etc,.

Site Page :

• Pages created by user and stored in content databases
• Page can be edited by end user and can insert webparts.
• Two types of site pages are available
  • Wiki Page (User can type and insert articles and webparts)
  • WebPart Page (Only webparts can be inserted)

10. What is BDC and BCS?

It is a shared service that enables Microsoft Office SharePoint Server(MOSS) 2007 to surface business data from back-end server applications. Business Data Catalog or BDC provides built-in support for displaying data from databases and Web services. That is, you can use Business Data Catalog to display data from your SAP, Siebel, or other line-of-business (LOB) application via Web services or databases connections.

BDC is read only to the database data, but is SharePoint 2010 and 2013 BDC is replaces as BCS names called Business Connectivity Services. BCS is read and write to the database data.

11. What is stsadm?

It is a Command-line tool used for administration of Office SharePoint 2007 (or MOSS 2007) servers and sites.

Even in SharePoint 2010 and 2013 we can still use stsadm commands but PowerShell scripts are popular than stsadm.

12. What is a dwp?

The file extension of a web part. dwp is data web part. We can dwp files in webpart gallery under site settings.

13. What is the GAC?

GAC is Global Assembly Cache. Global Assembly Cache is assembly folder on the server. You place your assemblies (web parts,services etc) to use in FARM level