The BCS hybrid scenario supports connecting only to an Open Data protocol (Odata) source. If your external data already has an OData service endpoint, then you can skip the creation of an OData service endpoint portions of this procedure.
Using Visual Studio 2013, create an empty ASP.NET web application calling it NorthwindWeb, and follow these steps:



This should be for creating an OData Source.
<< Prevoius – Part 1 – Introduction to Hybrid BCS Architecture
Last week, the Microsoft Office Team announced the general availability date of the SharePoint 2016 server to be in Q2 2016, and the beta version should be available later in Q4 2015. This is a change of a previous anticipated date of the RTM in Q4 2015, however the product team hints about the new features of the SharePoint 2016 servers and what the product will offer in the vNext.
Just to be clear here, that Q2 2016 is the calendar 2016 year and not Microsoft’s 2016 fiscal year that starts July 1st, 2015.
We can have many predictions or assumptions why this push of the release date to the spring of 2016, but all we know that the product team has given us some high level headlines of what’s coming up next year:
You can refer to the product team blog for a brief explanation of the new and enhanced experiences with SharePoint 2016.
Also, there is a Technology Adoption Program (TAP), available for organization to get enrolled in. The TAP program allows companies to have early access to the SharePoint product that gives partners number of advantages, such as providing input and feedback for future releases of SharePoint; developing a close relationship with the product teams; and receiving Pre-Release information about SharePoint.
We should know more about the SharePoint 2016 server at the Microsoft Ignite conference in Chicago from May 02-08, 2015.
More info to share in the upcoming weeks.
Last month, Microsoft announced a distinctive change one of the SharePoint Online features. The publishing site in Office 365 will be deprecated as of January 2015.
In a a KB Article (3027254) released December 23, 2014, that the Public Website feature of SharePoint Online will soon be dropped. Public Websites is a publishing site feature intended to give clients the ability to put up public web sites quickly using the Web Content Management features of SharePoint.
Existing customers will be notified this month that the service will be completely shut down in 2 years, and new clients will not have access to this feature.
Microsoft's reason that it has always promised the clients to deliver the upmost value to their clients, and the decision is to partner in the future with 3rd party software to deliver public facing websites. The announcement of the partnership should be revealed this month, so we will have to wait and see who is the next big player with Microsoft in the WCM world.
Although, this decision has been a difficult for the product team, I personally think that it is a smart move by Microsoft. There are few 3rd part solutions that offer great WCM capabilities and it is only smart to partner with them to provide the best solution in SharePoint Online.
If I want to take a guess who would be the 3rd party vendor to provide WCM solutions within SharePoint Online, it would be Sitecore. Earlier this year, Microsoft and Sitecore announced a strategic alliance to work together in delivering solutions to their client base.
Time will tell, but I would definitely bet that Microsoft will start offering Public Website features with SharePoint Online using Sitecore services.
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
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.
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
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
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.