http://sqlserverpedia.com/wiki/SAN_Performance_Tuning_with_SQLIO

SQLIO is a Microsoft tool but this article and video by Quest shows how to use it effectively.

Also, Eric Belisle talks specifically about FAST Search pipeline performance here:

http://fs4sp.blogspot.com/2011/06/fs4sp-pipeline-performance-and.html

If you see an  error message like ‘Unable to resolve Content distributor’ in your FAST search content SSA logs it’s likely something went wrong with the SSL certificate used between the content SSA and FAST. If you used a self-signed certificate during the FAST installation the certificate will by default expire after one year. It’s possible to extend this time period for a self-signed certificate, see this post by Mikael Svenson:

http://techmikael.blogspot.com/2011/01/will-your-fast-search-server-for.html

I first encountered the above error due to assigning new IP addresses to various servers in my farm. I found this article useful when debugging the issue:

http://blogs.pointbridge.com/Blogs/tseng_william/Pages/Post.aspx?_ID=13

In addition, I found that a reboot of my content SSA server was required after the first SecureFASTSearchConnector.ps call failed. Still not sure why this failed.

After generating a new FASTSearchCert.pfx I followed the original Technet instructions for how to secure the SSA:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381261.aspx#BKMK_Configure_ssl_enabled_communication

I’m going to pursue the suggestions in this post:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/fastsharepoint/thread/5ef1b42b-e90d-40c8-a228-8d4ffcd0acc7/

It sounds like I should really get my metadata 100% correct, first time. That’s tricky because it’s not until one starts using, searching and refining by metadata that we realize whether it’s the right size and shape.

I added:

<ParameterBinding Name=”url_PATH_INFO” Location=”ServerVariable(PATH_INFO)” DefaultValue=”"/>
<ParameterBinding Name=”url_HTTP_HOST” Location=”ServerVariable(HTTP_HOST)” DefaultValue=”"/>
<ParameterBinding Name=”url_QUERY_STRING” Location=”ServerVariable(QUERY_STRING)” DefaultValue=”"/>

to the Parameters property of CoreResults. I then added

  <xsl:param name=”url_PATH_INFO” />
  <xsl:param name=”url_HTTP_HOST” />
  <xsl:param name=”url_QUERY_STRING” />

to the head of my CoreResults XSLT.

I was then able to parse the url_QUERY_STRING for the ‘s’ scope parameter and customize my page accordingly. I also used url_PATH_INFO and url_HTTP_HOST for creating some other links on the page.

Thanks to this article by James Curtis for showing how to extract the server variables and pass them to XSLT:

http://www.jwc3.net/2008/05/how-to-get-url-in-xsl.html

e.g.

NEAR(chris,skydiving,n=20)

It seems to me that there is a rich and useful query language which we cannot easily utilize!

The good news is that it’s possible to enable FQL queries. There’s a property called EnableFQL on the KeywordQuery object which we can set to TRUE. However, the bad news is that this is not accessible from CoreResultsWebPart due the inheritance of this class and the fact that it’s marked internal. This means that we cannot inherit from CoreResultsWebPart and expect to EnableFQL. This is a real shame because I want all of the good functionality contained in CoreResultsWebPart.

So we have two options:

1. We write our own results WebPart from scratch. This is perfectly possible the only questions, like most things in life,  are of time and money :)

2.  I found an interesting article which describes how to delve into the KeywordQuery object via reflection when extending CoreResultsWebPart.

http://neganov.blogspot.com/2011/01/extending-coreresultswebpart-to-handle.html

Of course this will not be a supported route but could save a lot of time and money!

Mikael Svenson describes the problem here:

http://techmikael.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-enterprise-search-web-parts-are.html

Decisions decisions! ….

FAST Search keywords
FAST Search site promotion and demotion
FAST Search user context

You are missing a feature activation for the site collection. On the search site collection activate it using Powershell.

Enable-SPFeature -id “5EAC763D-FBF5-4d6f-A76B-EDED7DD7B0A5″ -Url [SiteUrl]

Credit to:

http://devdotnotes.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/missing-fast-search-keywords-site-promotion-and-demotion-user-context-from-site-collection-administration/

for this useful nugget.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/archive/2009/10/27/working-with-large-lists-in-sharepoint-2010-list-throttling.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dinaayoub/archive/2010/04/22/sharepoint-2010-how-to-change-the-list-view-threshold.aspx

“The Microsoft Exchange MAPI subsystem is not installed on this system”

check out this KB:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951401

$upm = New-Object Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileManager($context)

I received an  “Object reference not set to an instance of an object” exception.

This was because the account I was running my script as did not have the sufficient permissions to access the User Profile Service Application. In order to assign the permissions I….

• Went to the User Profile Service Application via Central Admin.
• Selected the row for the SA
• Clicked Permissions in the ribbon.
• Added the account I wanted to run the script as.
• Selected ‘Full Control’.
• Clicked ‘OK’.

NB: if you do not select a Permission level for the account e.g. ‘Full Control’ nothing is saved.

http://adotnetdude.blogspot.com/2010/05/visual-studio-2010-debugger-not.html