SharePoint searching external database - sharepoint

We're looking at doing a MOSS 2007 site which will have a fairly dynamic component (an external product catalog). The external produces will be stored in a database (not managed by SharePoint) and all interaction will occur via Web Parts.
Is it possible to configure the SharePoint search to index the textual content and the external database? Or can a custom search provider be written which is also used to query the external database?

The Business Data Catalog is intended as the solution in this case.
A BDC solution is crawlable out of the box.
Unfortunately the BDC requires the Enterprise licence for SharePoint, a hefty price increase.
Any other solution will require an html interface to the database either by including the data inside the SharePoint webpages themselves or a custom set of pages.
I have not tried using a custom search provider so I cannot make a comment on doing that.
It is easy enough to include searching on both content sources as OOB SharePoint provides the ability to distinguish between content sources and has the ability to create search scopes that allow rules based on content type or url to be created.

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Dynamics 365 SharePoint Online Folder creation based on entity. How to create folder for already existing CRM records

I have enabled SharePoint online integration with Dynamics.
It creates folder as and when I navigate to Documents Tab.
My question is how to create these folders for already existing Records. I do not want to navigate to each of the records and then click on Documents tab and then let CRM/SharePoint create folder.
Is there any trigger which I could do programmatically so that folder will be created automatically.
Note: I can create SharePoint Document location record per hand orprogrammatically but then I would be needed to give Folder name as (<Record Primary Name><Record Guid>) which I would like to avoid.
Reason: SharePoint and CRM does neglect special characters which are not allowed in SharePoint and I do not want this headache of looking for correct name. I want CRM/SharePoint to perform just it should happen for already existing records.
Any Idea?
I was using on-demand workflow in similar situation. You can try with creating of on-demand workflow with step which would create document location. Here you have nice guidelines.
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Extracting Sharepoint site information from Sharepoint database

How is the sharepoint data stored in the database? We had a sharepoint site which is not there anymore however the databases are still present. The names of the databases are:-
Sharepoint_AdminContent
Sharepoint_Config
WSS_Content
WSS_Search
Is it possible that I extract data from these database? Lets suppose I want data from an specific page of the site, which table should I look at for that?
Sharepoint_AdminContent: Central Administration content database. It stores all configuration data for the Central Administration site collection.
Sharepoint_Config: configuration database. The configuration database contains data about the following:
SharePoint databases
Internet Information Services (IIS) web sites
Web applications
Trusted solutions
Web Part packages
Site templates
Web applications
Distributed Cache configuration objects
WSS_Content: Content Database. Content databases store all content for a site collection. This includes site documents or files in document libraries, list data, Web Part properties, audit logs, and sandboxed solutions, in addition to user names and rights.
WSS_Search: Search service database. This database is used for the search services. It contains the information that is required for searching content.
The data from an specific page of the site should be stored in the content database WSS_Content.
Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/technical-reference/database-types-and-descriptions

Manipulating an Azure table through OData

If I have an Azure table, what (if anything) do I need to do to expose it through OData?
Also, what does the OData URL look like? If my Table Url is mytable.table.core.windows.net, where should I point my Visual Studio Web reference to have access to this data?
It depends on what you mean by:
expose it through OData
The only way to access data in an Azure table is via the REST API which is all OData. So as long has you have the correct authentication details (which might be non standard, I haven't tried to use it this way), all of your tables are already exposed as OData. (the url should be http://myaccount.table.core.windows.net/mytable)
If you're looking to use Azure tables in a Visual Studio project, rather than accessing it via the API, generally it's easier to just use the storage client library.
If you want to expose the data in a table using some form or authentication other than what is currently provided (maybe you want to make it available publicly without giving away your storage keys) you will have to create your own wrapper service to do this (similar to the method that is mentioned in the link provided by Gaurav)

how to implement tag cloud in sharepoint 2007?

i want to implement tag cloud in sharepoint 2007. I want to enter data dynamically to the inputs of the tag cloud.
You can create a web part which renders the tag cloud by pulling data (tags) from a SharePoint list. You can have a column 'count' in the list based on which you can assign font size for the tags. I've created a similar kind of thing using asp repeater.

Do Business Connectivity Services use live data

In SharePoint 2010 the business data catalog will be replaced by Business Connectivity Services.
With BDC the data in SharePoint would only be synchronized with the datasource when requested.
Is this still the case with BCS or does this work with live, up to date, data?
Data in External Lists is being retrieved on fly. When user opens a page SharePoint retrieves list data from external source.
When you are using BCS in External Column selected value for that column is stored to SharePoint list until you hit refresh.

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