SharePoint Patches are now part of Windows Update

Starting with the February 2015 CUs, all SharePoint updates will be part of the Windows Update.

In a blog from Stefan Goßner, he indicates the changes will start with this months' CU.

SharePoint February 2015 CU

What does this mean to you?

1. Should I configure my server for auto update?
No, it is always best practice to schedule your windows server update. Change your Windows update configuration to notify you when there are updates ready to be installed, or schedule a manual check of your Windows Update. This way, you can coordinate your updates on all your servers in your farm at the same time.

2. Should I run the Windows Update on all the servers?
Yes. If you run your Windows Update on one server in the farm, then you will have to run it on all servers in the farm, so all servers have the same patch level.

3. Should I run the Configuration Wizard after the Windows Update?
Yes. You have to run with Configuration Wizard every time you have a Windows Update that includes a SharePoint patch.

In a nutshell, you need to plan your Windows Update for your SharePoint farms the same way you have done it in the past. What have changed is the patches are now pushed down to your server and it is up to you to manage it according to Microsoft's recommended approach. Always apply your patches in your Development and Pre-Production Environments before applying them to your Production farm. Make sure you do your homework from testing perspective and backups before applying any patches.

However, it is always recommended to apply the latest security updates to your environment as they contain important fixes to the platform.

SharePoint 2013 Search with SharePoint 2010 Farm

 Many customers are excited about the new features that SharePoint 2013 brings to the table. Small or large organizations who have implemented any SharePoint implementation project size hesitate to upgrade for many reasons, but they want to take advantage of some the new features of 2013.

Recently, I ran into a similar situation where I am working with a client who prefers to stay on SharePoint 2010 for content and collaboration, but instead of implementing FAST for SharePoint 2010, they decided to use SharePoint 2013 for search.
As we all know, F4SP is part of the 2013 platform now and it is not a standalone product anymore. For this reason, my client’s vision was to better off use SharePoint 2013 for search, rather than F4SP then go through the headaches of migration F4SP to 2013 or any future release of the product.
The introduction of the Service Applications in SharePoint 2010, made life easier to implement scalable architecture and to create large multi-tenants farms, where you can share and publish service applications across different SharePoint farms. The same architecture is carried to 2013, and now we have the ability to publish service applications from 2013 to 2010, allowing customers to take advantage of some new features of the 2013 platform.
Note that 2010 can consume 2013 service applications and not the other way around.
Here is a list of the service applications that you can publish in 2013 and consume in 2010:
1.     User Profile Service
2.     Search Service
3.     Managed Metadata Service
4.     Business Connectivity Services
5.     Secure Store Service
In my case, I will be providing details on how to publish the Search Service Application in 2013, and consume it in 2010 using the Search Center.
First Step: You need to establish a trust relationship between the two farms:
1.    Export the Farm and STS certificates from the SharePoint 2010 farm:
$rootCertificate = (Get-SPCertificateAuthority).RootCertificate
$rootCertificate.Export(“Cert”) | Set-Content C:\Certificates\2010FarmRoot.cer -Encoding byte
$stsCertificate = (Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).LocalLoginProvider.SigningCertificate
$stsCertificate.Export(“Cert”) | Set-Content C:\Certificates\2010FarmSTS.cer -Encoding byte
 
2.    Export the Farm certificate from the SharePoint 2013 farm:
$rootCertificate = (Get-SPCertificateAuthority).RootCertificate
$rootCertificate.Export(“Cert”) | Set-Content C:\Certificates\2013FarmRoot.cer -Encoding byte
 
3.    Import the SharePoint 2013 certificate into the SharePoint 2010 farm:
$trustCertificate = Get-PfxCertificate C:\Certificates\2013FarmRoot.cer
New-SPTrustedRootAuthority “2013 Trust”-Certificate $trustCertificate
 
4.    Import the SharePoint 2010 into the SharePoint 2013 farm:
$trustCertificate = Get-PfxCertificate C:\Certificates\2010FarmRoot.cer
New-SPTrustedRootAuthority “2013 Trust” -Certificate $trustCertificate
$stsCertificate = Get-PfxCertificate C:\Certificates\2010FarmSTS.cer
New-SPTrustedServiceTokenIssuer “2013 Trust” -Certificate $stsCertificate
 
Second Step: You need to publish the Search Service Application and set the permissions:
1.    Go to Central Admin à Manage Service Applications
2.    Click on your Search Service Application
3.    Click Publish; make sure you select the checkbox next to “Publish this Service Application to other farms”
4.    From the SharePoint 2010 farm, run the following command to get the Farm ID:
$farmID= Get-SPFarm
$farmID.Id 

5.    From the SharePoint 2013 farm, run the following commands:
$security=Get-SPTopologyServiceApplication | Get-SPServiceApplicationSecurity
$claimprovider=(Get-SPClaimProvider System).ClaimProvider
$principal=New-SPClaimsPrincipal -ClaimType “http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/2009/08/claims/farmid” -ClaimProvider $claimprovider -ClaimValue [FarmID]
Grant-SPObjectSecurity -Identity $security -Principal $principal -Rights “Full Control”
Get-SPTopologyServiceApplication | Set-SPServiceApplicationSecurity -ObjectSecurity $security
 
6.    From the SharePoint 2013 SSA, give the SharePoint 2010 Farm ID “Full Control” permissions
From 2010, you can connect to the 2013 SSA by providing the 2013 SSA published servive URL. 
Now, go into your 2013 SSA, add a SharePoint 2010 content source and run a full crawl. Once the crawl is completed, you will be able to search the content using your 2010 Search Center.
Note: If you need to take advantage of the results preview feature, you will need to install and configure Office Web Apps 2013 against your SharePoint 2013 farm.
 

 

SharePoint 2013 vs. 2010 – Part 7 – Composite

SharePoint 2013 and Office 15 considerably improve the capabilities for Composite solution development and further empower power users to solve many of their business problems on their own. Here are some of the new and enhance features: New features Enhanced features  

  1. Access Apps: robust way to create and combine a Composite solution and a SharePoint app without code and without even using Visual Studio. By contrast, Access 15 uses SQL Server to store data. This significantly improves the manageability and scalability of Access applications.
  2. Workflow: The new SharePoint 2013 workflow features enable more advanced, robust no-code solutions and include the following:

    1. A redesigned Workflow architecture that supports legacy workflows.
    2. Workflow Stages that enable more complex logic.
    3. Authoring workflows in SharePoint15 declaratively or visually.
    4. Integration of data from SOAP Web Services into workflows.
  3. Business Connectivity Services: Changes in Business Connectivity Services for the SharePoint 2013 expose more of Business Connectivity Services to the power user, and include the following:

    1. Enhancements to external lists
    2. Ability to export to Excel
    3. Workflows and subscriptions
    4. Support for OData sources

 

SharePoint 2013 vs. 2010 – Part 6 – Mobile Support

​The experiences from SharePoint Server 2010 have been improved to make end users more productive on devices that have a smaller display. Additionally, some new features have been included. Here are some of the new and enhance features: New features Enhanced features

  1. Optimized mobile browser experience: SharePoint 2013 offers improvements to the mobile browser experience. Depending on the mobile browser, end users have one of the following experiences:

    1. Classic view. This view renders in HTML format, or similar markup languages (CHTML, WML and so on), and provides backward compatibility for mobile browsers that cannot render in the new contemporary view.
    2. Contemporary view. This view offers an optimized mobile browser experience to end users. The view renders in HTML5. This view is available to Mobile Internet Explorer® version 9.0 or higher for Windows Phone 7.5, and for Safari version 4.0 or higher for iPhone 4.0.
  2. Office Mobile Web Apps: In SharePoint 2013, Office Web Apps provides browser-based companions to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft OneNote. When Office Web Apps is installed on SharePoint Server 2010, Office Mobile Web Apps is also installed on the server. Office Mobile Web Apps enables users to open documents in the mobile web application by using a mobile browser.

With SharePoint 2013, Office Web Apps is no longer a companion product installed on a SharePoint Server. Instead, Office Web Apps Server is a new stand-alone server product that delivers Office Web Apps functionality on your private network. Although these are now separate products, Office Web Apps Server continues to enable Office Mobile Web Apps, making them available to mobile users who access SharePoint sites.

  1. Mobile browser redirection: To access a site using the optimized mobile browser experience, a new feature called Automatic Mobile Browser Redirection must be activated on the site. When activated and a mobile browser is accessing the site, this feature checks the mobile browser to determine if it is capable of handling HTML5 or not. If the mobile browser supports HTML5, the contemporary view is rendered; otherwise, the classic view is rendered.
  2. Push notifications: SharePoint 2013 supports applications on mobile devices (such as smartphones, tablets, and so on) that should receive notifications from a SharePoint site. Notifications can include events that happen in the site, such as when a user adds an item to a list or updates an item. For mobile devices to receive such notifications, device applications must register with a SharePoint site. Once the device is registered, you can write event handler code to interact with Microsoft Push Notification Service or notification services of other mobile device platforms. Notifications are sent from the server where the application is hosted to the registered mobile device application.

SharePoint 2013 vs. 2010 – Part 5 – Business Intelligence

BI in SharePoint 2013 provides comprehensive BI tools that integrate across Microsoft Office applications and other Microsoft technologies. Here are some of the new and enhance features: New features Enhanced features  

  1. Excel BI:

    1. Data exploration improvements: Users can more easily explore data and conduct analysis in reports that use SQL Server Analysis Services data or PowerPivot data models. For example, users can point to a value in a PivotChart or PivotTable report and see suggested ways to view additional information. Users can also use commands such as Drill Down To to conduct analysis.
    2. Calculated measures and members: In Excel, users can define calculated measures and calculated members by using Analysis Services data.
    3. Enhanced timeline controls: Users can easily create timeline controls in Excel to display information for certain periods of time in reports and dashboards.
    4. In Memory BI Engine (IMBI): The In Memory multidimensional data analysis engine (IMBI), also known as the VertiPaq engine, allows for almost instant analysis of millions of rows and is a fully integrated feature in the Excel client.
    5. Power View Add-in for Excel: Power View ("Crescent") is powered by the BI Semantic Model and the VertiPaq engine, and enables users to visualize and interact with modeled data by using highly interactive visualizations, animations and smart querying. Users will be able to present and share insights with others in the organization through rich storyboard presentation capabilities.
    6. Independent PivotChart and PivotTable reports: Users can now create PivotChart reports without having to include a PivotTable report on the same page.
    7. Trend analysis: Excel supports the ability to conduct trend analysis from cells in PivotTable reports that use OLAP data, such as Analysis Services cubes or PowerPivot data models.
  2. Excel Services:

    1. Data exploration improvements: Users can more easily explore data and conduct analysis in Excel Services reports that use SQL Server Analysis Services data or PowerPivot data models.
    2. Field list and field well support: Excel Services enables users to easily view and change which items are displayed in rows, columns, values, and filters in PivotChart reports and PivotTable reports that have been published to Excel Services.
    3. Calculated measures and members: Excel Services supports calculated measures and calculated members that are created in Excel.
    4. Enhanced timeline controls: Excel Services supports timeline controls that render and behave as they do in the Excel client.
    5. Application BI Servers: Administrators can specify SQL Server Analysis Services servers to support more advanced analytic capabilities in Excel Services.
    6. Business Intelligence Center update: The Business Intelligence Center site template has been streamlined. It not only has a new look, it is easier to use.
  3. PerformancePoint Services:

    1. Dashboard Migration: Users will be able to copy entire dashboards and dependencies, including the .aspx file, to other users, servers, or site collections. This feature also allows the ability to migrate single items to other environments and to migrate content by using Windows PowerShell commands.
    2. Filter Enhancements & Filter Search: The UI has been enhanced to allow users to easily view and manage filters including giving users the ability to search for items within filters without having to navigate through the tree.
    3. BI Center Update: The new BI Center is cleaner, and easier to use with folders and libraries configured for easy use.
    4. Support for Analysis Services Effective User: This new feature eliminates the need for Kerberos delegation when per-user authentication is used for Analysis Services data sources.
    5. Customize your Dashboards to match your Company style: In PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint 2013, users can use styles to have greater flexibility in the look and feel of their dashboards and the SharePoint themes.
    6. PerformancePoint Support on iPad: PerformancePoint dashboards can now be viewed and interacted with on iPad devices using the Safari web browser.
  4. Visio Services: The following feature are all new in SharePoint 2013:

    1. Maximum Cache Size: A new service parameter, it is located on the Central Administration Visio Graphics Service Application Global Settings page. The default value is 5120 MB.
    2. Health Analyzer rules: New corresponding Health Analyzer rules have been added to reflect the new Maximum Cache Size parameter.
    3. Updated PowerShell cmdlet “Set-SPVisioPerformance”: This cmdlet has been updated to include the new Maximum Cache Size parameter.
    4. Commenting on drawings supported: Users can add meaningful comments to a Visio Drawing (*.vsdx) collaboratively on the web via Visio Services in full page rendering mode.

 

SharePoint 2013 vs. 2010 – Part 4 – Social Computing

SharePoint 2013 provides several key enhancements and additions to the My Site environment. The new user interface simplifies navigation among different parts of the site, and provides features that should be intuitive and familiar, especially to those who’ve used social networking sites.

Here are some of the new and enhance features:

New features

Enhanced features

 

  1. New Simple user interface: The new My Site user interface provides a unified design that makes it easier to move around the different pages of the site. A Quick Launch column lets you move among My Site pages quickly. My Site Quick Launch improvements include:
    1. “What’s New” link takes you to your newsfeed.
    2. “Documents” link takes you to your personal document library. You can also display a list of documents that you’re following, or the list of documents other people have shared with you.
    3. View a list of tasks, people and sites that you’re following, or click “About Me” to update your user profile.
    4. “Blog” link takes you to a list of your existing blogs. If you have no existing blogs, this link takes you to a page where you can start a new blog.
    5. “Edit Links” is a new customizable area of the Quick Launch in which you can add links to other lists from your My Site or to lists from other SharePoint sites.
  2. Microblogging feature: This features allows you to engage in a threaded conversation from the MySite (similar to Facebook and twitter). You can start a public conversation, where everyone in your organization can view and respond to your posts, or start a conversation with people you exclusively invite to participate.

    1. Use @mention to comment on other people’s activities and bring attention to their ideas. In turn, people learn about you and your ideas when you get @mentioned.
    2. Apply hashtags to conversation items. You can click hashtags in your newsfeed to show a search results page that has all conversations that include that hashtag.
    3. Share entire conversations using “Copy link to thread.” For example, suppose you have a conversation in your newsfeed you think a colleague would find especially interesting. You can send that person a link and enable them to view the entire conversation.
    4. “Like” posts in your newsfeed. People following you see posts you found interesting in their newsfeeds. You can view your “Likes” later and find these posts again.
    5. Include pictures and links in your conversations.
  3. Local Sync (SharePoint Workspace): You can now synchronize files in your documents library to a local Windows folder, giving you direct access to your My Site documents from your file system. Syncing to a local folder also gives you access to your documents when you’re offline; updates automatically sync to the server whenever you go back online.
  4. Simplified feature to store and share documents: SharePoint Online 15 Technical Preview simplifies the procedures for storing and sharing documents:

    1. You can now store all documents in a single library. This takes the place of sorting documents into either a “Shared Documents” or “Private Documents” folder. Most importantly, in the new document library, all documents are initially private until you decide to share them. Add a document to your library, and then invite people to share the document. You simultaneously provide or deny editing rights to the document as you invite people.
    2. People you invite to share a document receive an email with a link to the document (unless you choose to not send an email with the invitation). People who are sharing the document can optionally follow it and then receive updates in their newsfeed whenever the document gets updated.
    3. You can now move documents to any other SharePoint library where you have permission to add documents. For example, you might decide to move a document you added to your My Site library to a team site library.
    4. You can view a callout by clicking an icon next to the document name. From the callout, you can start a variety of activities, such as copy document URLs, share the document with specific contacts, and move the document to another location.
    5. The library comes with a standard set of columns, such as Type, Modified, Modified By, Shared, and Name, each with a set of filtering options. For example, the Type column lets you filter documents by file type. The Shared column lets you filter documents by people with whom you’re currently sharing documents. Users can still create new views as needed.

SharePoint 2013 vs. 2010 – Part 3 – WCM

​WCM is SharePoint 2013 has had a major upgrade and facelift from 2010. CMSWIRE has labeled WCM in 2013 as a great evolution and will be the top CMS product in the market. Here are some of the new and enhance features:

New features

Enhanced features

  1.  Site Navigation Taxonomy: Site Navigation is managed by the taxonomy, giving it few great new features:

    1. Cleaner URL
    2. Multilingual URL
    3. Automatic generation of “term-driven” page
  2. Account Management: New feature to take advantage of the cloud App Store, Survey, e-Commerce transaction, Weather, companion apps, etc…
  3. SEO Support: Out of the box elements for SEO while we had to customize it in 2010.
  4. Cross Site Publishing and Catalog: You can publish the same page to multiple websites/site collections for content re-use.
  5. Category Pages: Category pages are page layouts that are used for displaying structured content such as catalog data. You can use category pages when you want to aggregate content that meets certain criteria or parameters.
  6. Refiners and faceted navigation: By using faceted navigation, you can configure different refiners for different terms in a term set. For example, in an Internet business scenario in which a product catalog is displayed, you can set the managed property Screen size as refiner for the term Computer, and the managed property Megapixels as refiner for the term Cameras. The faceted navigation guides users to content that are relevant for each specific category, and makes it easier and faster to browse through catalog content.
  7. Content by Search Web Part: You can now have content roll-up/content aggregation by using the search technologies. This is huge for performance and for dynamic web content management.
  8. Flexibility on branding: Now in 2013, you can design and brand the web site with any tools such as Dreamweaver or other popular design products, and apply it straight to SharePoint. To brand a SharePoint site, designers just create a site design as they typically would, by implementing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; then upload to SharePoint.
  9. Image Renditions: Image renditions let you display different sized versions of an image on different pages. This can be done from content authoring and no need for a designer.
  10. Video content type: A new video content type is added, and the video upload process is improved for content authors. Thumbnail preview images are created automatically when a video is uploaded to an asset library, and content authors can choose a frame from the video and use that as the thumbnail preview image.
  11. Script web part: new web part allowing authors to embed script or to stream videos from outside SharePoint such as YouTube.
  12. Mobile Device Optimization Usage Analytics: built-in and extendable to work with traditional web analytics tools.
  13. Translation Service: built-in translation service with workflow for multilingual sites.
  14. Variations: Enhanced process to support multilingual sites.
  15. Content authoring: Copying and pasting from word is a lot better; the new WYSIWYG will correct the code to make it HTML 5 compliant.

 

SharePoint 2013 vs. 2010 – Part 2 – ECM

Enterprise Content Management in 2013 My second has to be about Enterprise Content Management in SharePoint 2013. The records management and compliance features in SharePoint 2013 provide improved ways to help you to protect the business. The records archive and in-place record retention from previous versions of SharePoint Server are still supported. SharePoint 2013 adds:

New features

Enhanced features

  1. Site Retention: Retention policies that are applied at the level of a site.
  2. eDiscovery: A site collection from which you can perform eDiscovery queries across multiple SharePoint farms and Exchange servers and preserve items.
  3. Mail as a record: In-place preservation of Exchange mailboxes and SharePoint sites — including list items and pages — while still allowing users to work with site content.
  4. File shares: Support for searching and exporting content from file shares.
  5. Export: A tool to export discovered content from Exchange and SharePoint.

Site-based compliance Compliance features of SharePoint 2013 have been extended to sites. You can create and manage retention policies in SharePoint 2013, and the policies will apply to SharePoint sites and any Exchange team mailboxes that are associated with the sites. Compliance officers create policies, which define:

  • The retention policy for the entire site and the team mailbox, if one is associated with the site.
  • What causes a project to be closed
  • When a project should expire.

When a project begins, the project owner creates a SharePoint site and an Exchange team mailbox. The project owner selects the appropriate policy template, and invites team members to join the project. As the team adds documents to the site, sends email messages, and creates other artifacts such as lists, these items automatically receive the correct retention policies. When the work has been completed, the project owner closes the project, which removes the project's folders from the team members' user interface in Microsoft Outlook®. After a certain period of time, as specified by the policy, the project expires, and the artifacts associated with the project are deleted. Discovery Center SharePoint 2013 introduces a new site for managing discovery cases and holds. The Discovery Center site template creates a portal through which you can access discovery cases to conduct searches, place content on hold, and export content. For each case, you create a new site that uses the Discovery Case site template. Each case is a collaboration site that includes a document library which you can use to store documents related to the management of the case. In addition, you can associate the following things with each case:

  • Sources: Exchange mailboxes, SharePoint sites, or file shares from which content can be discovered.
  • Queries: The search criteria, such as author, date range, and free-text terms, as well as the scope of the search. Queries are used to identify content to export.
  • Discovery sets: Combinations of sources, queries, and whether or not to preserve content. Discovery sets are used to identify and preserve content.
  • Exports: A list of all of the exports that have been produced relating to the case.

When there is a new need for discovery — for example, a legal case or an audit — a user with the appropriate permission can create a new case, add sources of information to be searched, create queries to identify the specific material to be located, and then execute the queries. The user can then preserve the sites and mailboxes in which content was discovered, retain the items that matched the queries, and export the items. When the case is closed, all of the holds associated with the case are released. In-place preservation In SharePoint 2013, content that is placed on hold is preserved, but users can still modify it. The state of the content at the time of preservation is recorded. If a user modifies the content or even deletes it, the original, preserved version is still available. Regular users see the current version of the content; compliance officers who have permission to use the eDiscovery features of SharePoint 2013 are able to access the original, preserved version. Preserving content is similar to placing it on hold, with the following enhancements:

  • Documents, list items, pages, and Exchange Server 15 mailboxes can be preserved.
  • Preservation is done at the level of a site. Preserving a site preserves the contents of the site.
  • Users can continue to work with content that is preserved. The content remains in the same location, and users can edit, delete, and add new content.
  • A user with the permission to perform eDiscovery can access the original version of preserved content.
  • You do not have to preserve an entire site or mailbox. You can specify a query to define the preservation scope, and preserve only the content that matches the query.

Discovery export SharePoint 2013 includes the Discovery Download Manager, a Windows 7 application that you can use to export the results of an eDiscovery search for later import into a review tool. The Discovery Download Manager can export all of the content that is associated with a discovery case, including:

  • Documents: Documents are exported from file shares. Documents and their versions are exported from SharePoint 2013.
  • Lists: If a list item was included in the eDiscovery query results, the entire list is exported as a comma-separated values (.csv) file.
  • Pages: SharePoint 2013 pages, such as wiki pages or blogs, are exported as MIME HTML (.mht) files.
  • Exchange objects: Items in an Exchange Server 15 mailbox, such as tasks, calendar entries, contacts, email messages, and attachments, are exported as a personal storage (.pst) file.

An XML manifest that conforms to the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) specification provides an overview of the exported information. Enterprise-wide eDiscovery With SharePoint 2013, you can centrally manage eDiscovery across multiple SharePoint farms, Exchange servers, and file shares. From one discovery center you can:

  • Create a case, define a query, and search SharePoint 2013, Exchange Server 15, and file shares throughout the enterprise for content that matches the query.
  • Export all of the content that was identified.
  • Preserve items in place in SharePoint 2013 or Exchange Server 15.
  • Track statistics related to the case.

To implement eDiscovery across the enterprise, you first select one farm to host the discovery center. The Search Service application that is associated with this farm becomes the central Search Service application, for eDiscovery purposes. You create a proxy to the central Search Service application in each SharePoint Server farm that contains discoverable content, and configure the central Search Service application to crawl file shares that contain discoverable content. SharePoint 2013 automatically discovers the connection to Exchange Server 15. Any content from SharePoint 2013, Exchange Server 15, or a file share that is indexed by the central Search Service application or by Exchange Server 15 can be discovered from the discovery center.  

SharePoint 2013 vs. 2010

​I have been asked many times in the past few weeks about the differences between SharePoint 2013 and 2010. A lot of questions in the community on what changed, what has been added or removed, and what features have been enhanced.   TechNet or MSDN do not go into much details of feature comparison, they provide a high level checklist.   There are so many features to cover that can be added to just one post. To this matter, I have decided to put series of blog posts showcasing what I have gathered about SharePoint 2013 while working with in the past year or so. I will start with Search, the most change that Microsoft has undertaken in this versions. Search Search in SharePoint 2013 is most enhanced feature from 2010. FAST Search is now included as part of SharePoint unlike 2010 where we had to have 2 separate products and farms for FAST and SharePoint. Here are the many improvements features of search in 2013 that do not exist in 2010:

  

New features

  

Enhanced features

1.     Query Throttling: Query throttling is a new feature set which allows throttling of queries in tiers. 2.     Search Portability: This new feature of search portability allows for the transfer of query rules, results sources, result types, schema, and custom ranking models from one place to another.  They can be transferred from and to a tenant, site collection, or site. 3.     Hybrid: Another new feature in SharePoint 2013 allowing you to connect the on-premise SharePoint 2013 deployment with the Office365 content. 4.     Enhance User Experience: The entire SharePoint product, including the search experience, has a new look and feel to the user interface that's clean and simple.  The search experience now has larger previews of PowerPoint and Word documents when hovering over results (requires Office Web Apps).  In same hover panel, you can now see the section headers of Word documents and the slide titles of PowerPoint presentations.  Clicking on these headers and slide titles will take your straight to the right paragraph or slide! 5.     Crawl Freshness Report: The crawl freshness report is a new report that shows the freshness (the average time since the document was last updated and when it was crawled) of the documents that crawl is currently processing.  6.     Query Rule Management: The query rule management UI has been refreshed for improved readability.  Functionality for debugging query rules has been added as well.  You can test out query rules to see which ones are firing.