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SharePoint Sticky Sessions and Persistence

Posted on January 26, 2009 by Joel Oleson

Does SharePoint Require Persistence?

Try to find the answer to that in the docs. It doesn’t say.

Why?

Because it depends…

With WSS if you’re using NTLM you might never notice if you didn’t setup persistent connections. With plastic SharePoint you could use it as a document sharing platform and never require persistence.

If you’re using Basic over SSL you definitely will. You’ll get prompted twice.

If you’re using forms and cookies, again, you’re going to have issues.

If you’re using client certificates, again, issues.

Kerberos? don’t even think about it.

So is it just authentication that forces this? No, if you have forms that require session state then you should have a persistent session. Multi page forms and .NET apps that require session state will fail if they user gets sent over. Some session state apps are setup to keep the persistence despite the server, but I don’t think we need to go there.

Do I recommend persistent or sticky sessions with load balancing of software or hardware?

YES! By default setup persistent sessions/connections. You want people to stick with one server, and what happens when that server goes down is up to the load balancer.

Would I ever recommend not to have persistence?

Rarely. For pure load balancing performance statistics it’s nice to have a the session easily move across the servers. Load balancing people in a stateless world often prefer no persistence, but application people prefer the persistence.

What about Round Robin DNS?

What year is this? Yeah, in some cases round robin can provide interesting solutions around sets of NLB’ed servers or even between pairs of hardware load balancing devices. The complexity goes up for sure. Pure RRDNS, I don’t recommend, I’d say go with NLB before pure round robin. You will get some persistence out of the client DNS cache, but you still may get intermittent issues that are tough to track down and troubleshoot.

What do I get out of persistence and sticky sessions?

Your logs are much easier to follow and troubleshoot.
Your can avoid the double prompt
End user issues are much easier to identify
Forms and sessions will continue to persist and be more reliable.
I think there’s even an argument that you’ll end up using less memory, but I won’t dig into that here.
The Index server or external crawlers out there won’t smash both boxes (just one) 🙂

So with all that if you go and ask a company what they’re using you’d find that most people do setup persistence, but would be tough to quantify why.

SharePoint tries to stay agnostic to load balancing software and hardware, so let’s not make the SharePoint team give us a thumbs up or down. We’re smart enough to figure this one out. Let the load balancer manage the session state and the stickiness. And as always, I recommend some good testing before throwing it out into production.

Does SharePoint Require Windows Load Balancing or NLB? No.

Does SharePoint work with Hardware Load balancers? Yes.

Do you recommend NLB or Hardware load balancer?

What’s the SLA? If it’s over 99.9% I’d seriously lean toward hardware. I think latest ISA and IAG shouldn’t be overlooked for intelligent solutions as well. NLB is smarter than round robin DNS, but still needs more brains (like understanding HTTP/S a bit better)… too little too late.

Is Cisco or F5 better? Whoa… I think there are some great solutions out there.

Additional Resources

I did a post a while back on SharePoint and NLB. Combined Knowledge did a scale out paper with some good info.

Layoffs, Jobs, SharePoint Skills, and My blog

Posted on January 23, 2009 by Joel Oleson

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I was reading the comments from a post I did last night on helping my friends get jobs and was taken back by a couple of comments. (in bold)

"single best way … is to get skilled up. all this social networking crap won’t help if you can’t implement. it’s about skills not buzz"

This comment assumes that I missed the point on the skills. The skills are required first obviously. If you follow the news you’ll see people are loosing their jobs. If you loose your job and you have nothing on the internet (blogs/social networks) to proove it. You’ll have a harder time.

The other thing I’d suggest is if you’re looking for the skills post. That’s one I’ve already done – skills for a SharePoint Architect. Shane did one on a similar topic on SharePoint Consultant skills. Not long ago an article about SharePoint skills shortage was posted on Redmond Dev News. This being the case, it’s a matter of connecting those with skills and those without… how’s that going to happen??? Networking.

I believe a lot of my following has SharePoint skills, and to back that up, they need the network so if they get laid off they can find a job. Over the past 3 weeks I’ve gotten pinged from friends who have SERIOUS skills that are out of work. Those serious skills can translate into great jobs with the right contacts and if they know where to look. These days more are looking and the competition in more fierce.

Kudos to Shane Young and SharePoint911 team on their new paper that just got published on Admin Guide to Not Screwing up your SharePoint deployment (love the reference name).

"you know – I’m not an idiot – I didn’ miss the point. There’s nothing per se wrong with "marketing" yourself using the systems Joel mentions in the post.

However, the insidious trend of self promotion will never replace skills in the marketplace. You might land a job via agents that don’t know anything by having a "profile" but the people who make hiring decisions in real companies don’t care."

I actually appreciate the points made in this comment. There is a problem in self promotion. Which I believe I tried to address in my original post about NOT overdoing it. I do see people who abuse the system.

"I’ve never landed a gig by my web site, blog, or anything else like that – I get gigs because of my reputation in the marketplace. and that has nothing to do with any of the social sites whatsoever."

I have to wonder if this is a result of how you use the social networks and the content on your blog. When I went independent nearly 100% of it was from gigs from reputation from content on my blog or from sessions from user groups, teaching engagements, etc… Have I ever gotten a gig from facebook? Yes, the Jordan work I did was a relationship built through facebook. Have I ever gotten any work from Twitter? Yep. SharePoint Saturdays… Pretty much all the work I did in the last year with Bamboo, Colligo, Nintex, and Quest (and unnamed customer accounts) has all been a result of reputation from speaking and blogs, not from some great accomplishment at Microsoft. The way we connect and become familiar with each other… happens on these social sites. I shouldn’t have to tell you how many job offers I’ve had to turn down on Linked in, but that’s a major channel where they come. Don’t shoot the messenger.

"…would be nice if this blog would go back to being useful like it was when you were at Microsoft. There’s no content there… just water cooler & bar talk. There were posts of real value on your old blog… but now you just blog about blogging about SharePoint or jump on this Twitter/Facebook/social networking bandwagon."

It’s true I haven’t had the hard core posts as of late, but hey the blog relects what I’m thinking about, and I don’t force anyone to read it. It also reflects the lifecycle of the product. At this mature stage there isn’t as much step by step content that should be required. I know I don’t need to defend my posts. It’s my blog. It was never intended to be 100% documentation.

If you follow my career I’ve been doing more evangelism and product management, user group and conference travel, and my blog follows me. That won’t change.

One other thing… why so bitter? There are so many SharePoint blogs these days, it surprises me you’d be so concerned about what I’m saying…

By the way, I think you’re missing the boat. The internet has changed. The way we share information has changed. If you wait for it to be on some official site and properly ranked in search results you’re going to be 3-6 months behind and miss the rich relevant content that happens throughout the day, but I can’t tell you how to use the Net, I think it’s fascinating and others are interested in it as well.

One last time, this blog was really intended for those SKILLED SharePoint folks that loose their jobs not because of their skills, but those that got laid off because the company is being lame and doesn’t realize that SharePoint can save them money.

10 Ways to a SharePoint Job

Posted on January 22, 2009 by Joel Oleson

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The MS news was depressing add that to everyone else that’s laying off and there are a few people looking for work. I posted a while ago how SharePoint is recession proof. Phil shares his comments on SharePoint and the Economy. I don’t want it to get anyone down, but there are some social ways of getting SharePoint jobs.

chrispoteet Still looking for that elusive SharePoint consulting job. 9:27 PM Jan 17th from TwitterFon

Good job Colligo, on setting high numbers and helping us see there are SharePoint ISV companies that are doing well despite the odds.

1. Join a SharePoint User Group – it’s great for networking, but as well companies often are recruiting and looking for help at the User Group. Don’t be afraid to speak up and connect. For info on a user group near you go to sharepointpros.org (ISPA)

2. Tap into twitter. Twitter and all that noise? Yep, there are multiple recruiters who tweet SharePoint jobs by city or region all day long and you can follow those recruiters.

Recent Twitter Traffic:

gaylord_focker: Work at home jobs Seeking SharePoint Tester (Toronto, ON): QA Engineer THIS IS A WORK FROM HOME.. http://tinyurl.com/92y97s

masterdwarf: needs a Sharepoint Developer or extensive OLAP experience. contract to hire. high profile role in multibillion dollar company. #jobs

GetGraDesigJobs: Sharepoint Development Lead / Interactive Design – Bellevue, WA (http://tinyurl.com/98zy6u) Get Graphic Design Jobs

prithvy: JOB: Sharepoint 2007 in SW suburbds of Chicago – Long term contract

TIP: If you can’t stand twitter, you can still subscribe to the twitter feed in your favorite RSS reader with a search term like “SharePoint” or “SharePoint and Job”. That way you don’t have to sit and wait for someone to say something interesting. (You don’t have to anyway if you know what you’re doing.)

3. LinkedIn – I see linked in as nearly the defacto way to build a solid reputation and background and way to network in the world of today and tomorrow. Resume’s are old school and are helpful for people that aren’t familiar with the internet. Linked in communities around SharePoint expertise are often communicating that they are looking for people with skills. Don’t spam the groups, but look at what the recruiters are doing there. Use your LinkedIn Status to tell people what you are looking for.

4. Local SIs (systems integrators) – Whether you want to be a consultant or are in between jobs, connecting with your local systems integrators and even the national ones are always looking to find people to fit contracts they have. It can be a roller coaster, and may sound too good to be true. Sometimes it is, and sometimes you find the job. Many SIs don’t advertise their jobs. They go by word of mouth, so reaching out and telling them what your experience and skills are will help get the word out. Talk to your MS friends to find these local systems integrators. There are tons of ‘em. You don’t have to create your own, while that sounds fun. There’s a lot of secrets, I learned and shared some of these secrets to independent consulting.

5. Reach out to SharePoint MVPs and friends – Despite the down market, there is serious SharePoint work out there still. It has not gone away your network of friends may be aware of companies that are hiring. I believe they still say networking is the #1 way to land a good job. While some companies are no longer recruiting, for the right person they will make room.

6. Speaking at Code Camps/SharePoint Saturdays/.NET and SharePoint User Groups – If speaking is a skill and you have something to say, I’ve found that the regional events are a great way to get visibility and *Very* often someone comes up and says hey I have this problem. They like your solution and they ask how they can get you to work on it. These could easily turn into FTE or Contract positions.

7. Facebook? – Yes social networks are a way to stay connected to the community. On both your linked in and Facebook profile you should update your STATUS to say “Skilled XXX looking for XXX SharePoint position.” Dust off your dice.com, monster.com, and … profiles. With 1745 jobs with the term “SharePoint” on dice.com there is plenty to wade through, there are even more with interesting meta data around them to help you narrow by experience, education, type, . The technology can help you keep tuned in.

8. Diversify your skills and job search – Remember SharePoint is HUGE. If you have experience in Collab, it isn’t that much of a stretch to look at Doc Management, and then Records Management. Is Program Management and Product Management and Project Management different? Sure it is, but it isn’t tough to learn the other disciplines. Support can look up to Ops and Ops can look to Engineering, and Engineering to Technology Architect and so on. Don’t be afraid to stretch. Start a blog or promote your blog when you’re bored. It’s only cool when people are reading it.

9. Stay Positive – The cool thing with social networks… you can stay active in the community and not let your skills go to waste. There are many non profit companies, charities, and codeplex projects even that could use your service and that experience can lead to real jobs. The better connected you are, and the more visibility the more likely you’ll get offers and loops. I’m not saying spam anything. You can and will get dissed/de-listed by your friends and the various social groups if you use them inappropriately. Contribute.

10. Certification – While some would complain that the MCTS is too easy for WSS and MOSS, it will set you apart from the next guy. Even passing one test will help set you a part to a company looking for a “SharePoint” person vs. someone who doesn’t. Even if you’re in a company it helps on retention.

Bonus: Get more familiar with SharePoint Online Cloud and Hosting based services, as the $$ gets tighter and companies look to pinch pennies you’ll see hosted services for corporations become more mainstream.

I was looking at the current jobs on Monster and trends are… they want 2-6 years of experience with a bachelors degree and most likely in the computer industry, but not exclusively. All industries do appear to have SharePoint work with 90% of them in IT or Dev.

Years of Experience

Posted

By Industry

Education

2+ to 5 Years (242)

5+ to 7 Years (218)

7+ to 10 Year… (66)

1+ to 2 Years (42)

10+ to 15 Yea… (23)

Less than 1 Y… (7)

Today (77) Yesterday (158)

Last 3 days (272)

Last 7 Days (411)

Last 14 Days (670)

Last 30 days (971)

Last 60 days (1419)

Computer/IT S… (581)

Computer Soft… (375)

Aerospace and… (85)

Other/Not Cla… (84)

Computer Hard… (81)

Government an… (76)

Internet Serv… (63)

more…

Confessions of a SharePoint iPhone user

Posted on January 21, 2009 by Joel Oleson

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Ok. My readers know that I’m a big Microsoft junkie, so why would I ever consider an iPhone? Beyond the cool factor, and all that it is extremely useful and really has met my needs better than my previous Windows Mobile device. In the PC vs. MAC wars, (Man isn’t that good times!) I am clearly on the PC side of the equation and have fought that battle many times.

I am not alone. I hate to come out like this, but I think it will pay off as we’ll get *REAL* SharePoint apps on iPhone.

10 Reasons why it’s ok to show your iPhone in a SharePoint Crowd

We as SharePoint folks are part of office family and we make Office for MAC. (MAC business unit people make money for MS, so it’s justified.)
Microsoft makes apps for the iPhone. Look at the maker of the new Live Tag App on an iPhone.
SharePoint support for Safari is important, so we’re just helping the cross browser story (and hey as bad as safari is, it’s been a lot better viewing than what we’ve had in our windows mobile IEs.)
Dustin, AC, and all those MVPs bought the Macbooks when they were better hardware. They were justified. The ratings in Vista were amazing. Same justification and line of thinking. You use what makes you productive.
The more public we are about it, the more likely people will build an app store apps for it – right Stacy Draper? (SharePoint Dev MVP) (If you need ideas or community around SharePoint apps on iPhone there is SERIOUS momentum building.)
The MVPs are doing it. I would wager a paycheck that more than 50% of the *cool* MVPs have iPhones, the ones you love and trust. (In contrast to the anal ones- this is a joke LOL (not a reference to you Shane!))
It’s more social! With serious social integration like Facebook apps, GPS, pictures, twitterfon/twitteriffic, linkedin, Digsby, IM, (Best mobile app platform by internet YEARS) it’s so easy to share and be IN.
It supports Exchange for e-mail! LOVE IT! Best email client for mobile (wish I had search, wish I had send and forward invites, wish I had new meeting request, wish I had copy/paste)
The rumor about Ballmer smashing an iPhone is false. (Well, maybe it is :))
Microsoft staff use it. I won’t name names (I know you appreciate that). Look at people who are in the know, just look around. They’ve stopped hiding it. Let’s put our religious war aside and realize where we are with Mobile devices (a different war that has some major catching up required). We’ll let MS catch up and re-evaluate after our contract is up. (MS has done really well on getting a significant foot print don’t get me wrong.

Have you seen the new iPhone SharePoint Backgrounds? Great stuff!

</update>

Hey mobile guys… Next time when you’re next door doing your T-Shirt Cannon, you’ll know don’t mess with the SharePoint guys. Keep it down, so we can figure out our deployment issues.

Feel free to bash me and tell me how horrible I am for being honest.

Merry Christmas 2008, Happy New Year and Happy Holidays

Posted on December 23, 2008 by Joel Oleson

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Dear Family and Friends, and friends that are simply readers of my blog whom I haven’t met yet… Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays…

oahu and maui vacation 1011 by sharepointjoel.

(See more pictures on Joel’s Fickr Photostream)

It’s been quite the year… Lots of surprises.

The first surprise was when Joel decided that he was ready to move on. He decided that he was ready for bigger and better things, greater challenges, and more of what he loved. While it was sad for the kids to give up their weekly weekend trips to Microsoft, the big summer picnic, Halloween, and Christmas parties. Even Virginia was sad to give up the doctor visits with no co-pay. It was like loosing a kidney leaving Microsoft. It was painful. After 7+ years, it was tough. No hard feelings, Joel obviously learned a ton, and continues to have a special place in his heart for Microsoft, and his romance with SharePoint continues.

In a trip to investigate Nintex and the opportunity to live in Australia, the family took a trip to Sydney and Melbourne Australia. The family favorite was our venture to Philip Island, a small island off the coast of the south eastern corner of Australia. The fairy penguins were truly amazing. It was a wonderful family bonding experience. As a family we decided it was a great opportunity and one that we decided to do. The interactive zoo and seeing native kangaroos in the blue mountains was incredible. We really enjoyed our time with the Australians and both the boys and parents alike had strong impressions that this was somewhere we would like to live.

Sydney Australia family 2008 033 by sharepointjoel. So Joel announced he was leaving, and opened himself up to options. Shane Young, Andrew Connell, Bob Fox, Dustin Miller and many others had lots of advice for him on his big move. Ultimately he decided the best way was to go independent over the summer for the maximum flexibility and join Quest at the end of the summer in a bit of an acquisition if he played his cards right. Joining up with Nintex as a product evangelist as his first real gig outside of Microsoft, next advisory and professional blogging with Bamboo Solutions, and even fitting in training with Ted Pattison group doing a 5 day intense Admin training course co-taught with Shane Young, including co-authoring a Governance course with Nicola Young and John Ross. You might think that would be enough to fill a summer. Not even close.

Joel at the Treasury by sharepointjoel. On the day he left Microsoft, Dead Sea Mud by sharepointjoel. Joel left for the airport for the Middle East. With a SharePoint Conference in Dubai and Istanbul, he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to visit a new region. Through his blog he conversed with Mo and Avi (Moss is my middle name), both relationships grew and blossomed. Mo would surpass expectations and give him the trip of his life visiting Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and Petra with an incredible life experience in the desert changing a flat tire, and riding on a donkey up steps leading to more mystery.

Wailing Wall or Western Wall by sharepointjoel. Avi risked more than his name to come pick up Joel at the border of Jordan Avi and Joel at Damascus Gate of Jerusalem by sharepointjoel. and Israel in the West Bank. Joel and Avi would create an incredible bond through sharing Shabat with his family and what an amazing family. As Avi put it, Moses only made it to Jordan, and Joel needed to come to the promised land. Incredible. So Joel visited the land of milk and honey including Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, the wailing wall, Joppa (Jonah and the whale), amazing markets, and other historical religious sights including the Jordan river from the Israel side.

After a bit of a challenge in the Israel airport over his lack of papers (Why Joel and Todd Klindt MVP - Sled Dubai by sharepointjoel. didn’t you print your itinerary) and numerous or odd stamps (Why were you in Indonesia?) in his passport, Joel did make it out of Israel and on his scheduled plane. The SharePoint conference in Dubai and tubing with Todd Klindt, and craming into the tiny car with Mo and his pals… (Don’t forget the Iranian hospital) it was a blast. Hanging out with real Palestinians and hearing the story from their lips was incredibly enlightening. Talk about a rich experience of a lifetime all wrapped into a single trip.

That wasn’t enough. It was then onto Istanbul where after seeing the whirling dervishes, Joel would find some trouble on Taxim. A great learning experience. More on the blog on that one. Word to the wise; don’t ever buy drinks for someone without knowing the price. The drink might be champaign, and it just might be $200 a glass and you find yourself in the middle of a $1000 scam.

After the Middle East there were some small gigs with SharePoint911.com, our SharePoint Survival Camp, some of which included providing training and workshops in Las Vegas, Ohio, and Switzerland. While in Ohio he visited Kirkland, an early Church history location where he visited the Kirkland temple and Niagara Falls. Andre Heymann, a good SharePoint friend from a past life in Microsoft IT, arranged for the Switzerland trip including swimming in the lake in Zurich, an invigorating experience. Then up to the “Top of Europe” in Jungfrau in the Swiss Alps. I forgot to mention Tech Ed. An annual highlight for Joel. This year he some how ended up in a fountain with Bob Fox. You’ll have to ask him about that some time.

Check out our Middle East Videos:

Todd on a Tube Ski Dubai (Todd Klindt, SharePoint MVP, SharePoint Conference) by sharepointjoel

The whole family planned a trip with the Beaulieu’s to Hawaii My Favorite Picture - Scuba Scott by sharepointjoel. (Virginia’s sister Christine’s family). We covered the whole island of Oahu from tip to tip both ways including enjoying lazy days on the beach and snorkeling at Molokai some of the world’s best from Maui, the endangered HUGE sea turtles were awesome, everyone saw them. The kids loved it. That was the highlight of the trip for all of us. Even after Scott lost his breakfast on the road to Hanna, we finished the trip to the black sand beach and enjoyed the numerous waterfalls. It’s easy to see how that could happen with sooo many turns.

Joel had this grand plan of putting the house up for rent, going to Asia for a month while we rented the house out, then moving to Australia. While disruptive and exciting at the same time, we packed up the entire house and moved our stuff into the basement.

The trip to Asia was incredible. This was Joel’s third trip, but the first opportunity to bring the family to Asia. Essentially he had lined up Tech Ed South East Asia in Kuala Lumpur, Auckland, New Zealand, and Sydney, Australia. While they weren’t exactly back to back, we’d spend the time in between (~1.5 weeks) across Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Bangkok, and Chiang Mai, Thailand. After the cyclone in Burma/Myanmar, you’d think it would be crazy to venture into a place where relief workers were denied access, but we were able to sneak an afternoon into Northern Myanmar to visit some temples and a market. We’ll all remember that experience for the rest of our lives. South East Asia 456 (2) by sharepointjoel.

Visiting the tribes in Northern Thailand with the ladies with the rings around their necks, the Elephant trekking, and bamboo rafting really stood out to us as once in a life time opportunities. We had some special experiences there. The boys really enjoyed connecting with the little girls from one of the hill tribes. Cruising the canals in Bangkok, visiting the floating market, and spending time together as a family in this friendly country was an incredible experience. While Joel was enjoying the local cuisine of crickets, Virginia was taking in the art and culture. Everyone enjoyed the monkeys… one of Joel’s favorite things. Everywhere we went we had to find the monkey cave(s), monkey shows, and place where the monkeys hang out. We had multiple times to enjoy the elephants both at the Elephant reserve where the boys rode elephants into the river and were dumped into the river, as well as the elephant trek outside of Chiang Mai where we all took the elephants trekking over an hour out into the jungle up steep hills and through the bush catching breath taking views. Even seeing elephants roaming the streets with their handlers in Bangkok was a bit wild. I bet we saw more than 30 Buddhist temples, 5 or so Hindu temples across Thailand and Malaysia with a few grand and National Mosques and Chinese temples mixed in, not counting the Royal Palaces in Seoul and Bangkok. After the trip Scott shared some deep thoughts on world religions… Buddha vs. Christ vs. Mohammed. It was profound to see him at such a young age grasping the concepts of religion and really thinking about the origins of God and mankind’s relationship to God. I was hoping both boys would learn to appreciate what they have, and I think we succeeded in that plus a number of surprises we didn’t expect.

Check out our Asia Videos:

South East Asia 894 by sharepointjoel.

After Asia we flew to Auckland, New Zealand and drove to Rotorua, a place not unlike Yellowstone with its geothermic activity. Spending the evening with the Maori peoples, rubbing noses and learning house to Hakka and dining like kings we topped off the evening with a visit to the sacred pools and glow worms. Another unreal experience, that I hope we can remember forever.

Sydney was a special time where we were really able to relax. (Not that the 2 massages each we had in Thailand didn’t hit the spot) Coogee Castaway was a beautiful place on the beach where we didn’t have the hastles of a hotel and we were able to really integrate and see what it would really be like in a neighborhood in Sydney. Coogee beach was within Sydney Australia family 2008 044 by sharepointjoel. minutes and despite it being off season, we just had to jump in and hit the waves. Adam and Anastasia were very easy to work with. We even had breakfast with them and even walked with her and the girls to school one day. Cute outfits. Joel met up with some SharePoint MVPs at the conference and thanks to Steve Smith he saw Sydney Harbor from a jet boat doing some crazy 360 tricks. Taronga Zoo lived up to its worldwide fame. It was incredible. Best Zoo ever. Awesome layout, great design, wonderful animals. The only thing better than the Zoo is real world interactivity and man were we ever able to get that on this trip, from elephants, to tigers, snakes, monkeys, from least 5 different troops.

Jared Petting a baby tiger by sharepointjoel. Joel really tested our limits with a flight from Sydney to Previous in the set Bangkok, with a one night stop over (where we crammed in even more J) and then an 8 hour layover in Korea (with a 6 hour city tour planned) before returning to Seattle. I think it was easily 44 hours with one night squished in their somewhere.

When we arrived back in Seattle we grabbed the closest hotel, and slept with no commitments. We then picked up our vehicle and headed to Saratoga Springs, UT to stay with Joel’s parents. It was expected that we’d wrap things up and head to Aus. Unfortunately the market took a dive and the number of showings went down to zero despite the numerous attempts to reduce the price. So that story ends with us deciding to put Australia on hold.

The news doesn’t end there. Something good happened in Thailand, and something in the water in Utah along with some morning sickness, and WOW we’re having a baby! Now at 19 weeks, due on May 28, we are all excited to welcome a new one.

Scott, now 11 was in the reflections contest this fall for a video he put together which involved stop motion video and Legos along with some music by Moby. His video won both the school competition, and the district. We’re waiting to hear how he does at the state competition. We’re all very excited for him, and encourage family and friends to check it out.

Robot Rock Yall (Youtube video)

"These crazy lego storm troopers get down to Moby. One storm trooper takes it too far and gets ran over! There’s no doubt …"

He did all the editing while some sections of the stop motion were Jared, and some were Joel’s. (The parts with the Soup can and Cake mix – he was testing product placement.)

Jared really enjoyed the travel. He turned 9 this year, and had a huge pool party. He and Scott had over 20 kids at the Lehi pool. They had a blast and got tons of Legos. Their favorites. Both Scott and Jared made friends in Utah and will be sad to have to leave. Jared earned his wolf badge in Cub Scouts and enjoyed his first year at Cub Day Camp. Jared’s looking forward to having a furry friend for Christmas. He really enjoyed his time in Korea and hopes to go back to live there some time.

Virginia is now busy with focus on the baby. She’s sewn a blanket already, and has read a ton of books since our time in Utah. She stays busy with various projects and has made really good friends. Trying to keep the apartment clean and dealing with the pressures of the move, Joel in and out of work projects and frequent travel has been a challenge, but exciting at the same time. It seems something is always going on. She looks forward to the birth.

Joel, the world traveler and (Microsoft) SharePoint guru is now enjoying his employment with Quest Software. He sees this opportunity as a way to do and see even more. He’s already planning two keynote speeches at prominent SharePoint Best Practices Conferences in both London, and La Jolla (near San Diego). His evangelism role promises to lead him to connect with more SharePoint User Groups and conferences around the globe, his blogging has provided him with global visibility with recent readership in more than 134 countries and a regular readership and subscriber base of over 4000.

Our little family is truly blessed. We thank God for our blessings. We pray that God will bless you and yours this holiday season. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanza, Al-Hijira and Ashura, Asala, Bodhi – Happy Holidays!!! If I’ve learned one thing well in my global travels it’s that God loves everyone, everywhere and every soul has worth.

The Oleson Family

Oleson Family at Polynesian Cultural Center by sharepointjoel.