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Microsoft SharePoint Server

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Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
Developer(s)Microsoft
Stable release
2010 (v14.0.4763.1000) / April 22, 2010
Operating systemWindows Server
PlatformIntel 64-bit x86
Available inMultiple languages[which?]
TypeCollaborative software
LicenseProprietary commercial software
Websitesharepoint.microsoft.com

Microsoft SharePoint Server (formerly known as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server[1])[2] is a product in the Microsoft SharePoint family of products.

Microsoft SharePoint Server is a Microsoft proprietary software product. SharePoint Server works with Microsoft IIS web server to produce sites intended for collaboration, file sharing, web databases, social networking and web publishing. SharePoint server farms can host web sites, portals, intranets, extranets, Internets, web content management systems, search engine, wikis, blogs, social networking, business intelligence, workflow as well as providing a framework for web application development.

SharePoint only runs on Microsoft Windows Server and requires the ASP.NET framework. SharePoint 2010 was built on ASP.NET 3.5 and is not compatible with ASP.NET 4. SharePoint requires either Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft SQL Server Express database. SharePoint works with LDAP providers other than Active Directory and provides an API that is accessible by third-party platforms such as Java and PHP.

Product Overview

SharePoint provides messaging, collaboration, publishing and document management features in one server. SharePoint is hosted on a central server or server farm and is accessed by users either through a compatible web browser or directly via Microsoft Office.

Sites

SharePoint 2010 Sites provides infrastructure for business Web sites. SharePoint supports Interenet and extranet applications, intranet portals, blogs, wikis and team collaboration sites.

Communities

​SharePoint 2010 Communities provide collaboration tools including a social community and collaborative content creation. Tools include collaborative document management, discussion forums, blogs, wikis and Social Networking (MySites).

Composites

SharePoint 2010 introduced Composites, which comprises tools and components for creating and distributing "do-it-yourself" business solutions. Composites apply WYSIWYG tools to accelerate the process of solution production, without manually creating or compiling code. Composites allow users to share solutions on the server. Composites allow web distribution of Microsoft Office products such as Visio, Excel, and Access. Uses can employ the web page to build custom web parts. Separately, SharePoint Designer also offers users the ability to create solutions without code.

Content

​SharePoint provides a Web Content Management platform for publishing web sites. It also provides a Document Management solution for collaborative document production.

Insights

​SharePoint 2010 can be used to supply information from databases, reports, business applications and other "line of business" applications.

SharePoint 2010 supports "enterprise search" internally and also supports Fast.com for greater power and access to as many as 500 million documents.[3] SharePoint 2010 search added explicit boolean logic (OR, AND and NOT) and wild cards.[4] SharePoint 2010 cab access MySites data. Search provides tacit knowledge about users and authors as well as semantic meaning.[5]

Architecture Overview

A SharePoint Server requires an external database to operate. SharePoint can only work with Microsoft SQL Server and SQL Express for Databases, the latter only on a single server (recommended only for development.)

A group of SharePoint Server installations can work together to increase capacity, security and availability. Sets of roles can be shared by some or all servers in a group. For example in SharePoint 2010, servers can be dedicated to crawling (analyzing) content to create the search index. All servers in a group share a common database instance.

SharePoint does not require LDAP and supports Active Directory, other LDAPs, or forms [[[authentication]].

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 enhancements over Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

SharePoint 2010 was released to manufacturing (RTM) on April 17, 2010[6]

SharePoint 2010 is distributed in three editions: SharePoint Foundation 2010 which comes as a free download, SharePoint Server 2010 Standard and SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise which both have a licensing fee.[7][8] Microsoft has described the new version as the "Business Collaboration Platform for the Enterprise and the Web".[9] SharePoint 2010 has the following significant enhancements and changes over the previous edition.

  • SharePoint 2010 farms will only run on 64 bit servers, though 32 bit client machines are still supported;
  • SharePoint 2010 will no longer be supported on IE 6;
  • SharePoint 2010 UI makes significant use of JavaScript and Ajax;
  • Introduction of the editing Office Ribbon in line with Office 2007;
  • Web Edit, allowing easy customization of a site;
  • Easier ability to package and publish modifications made in the UI, SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio;
  • Silverlight Web Part, allowing rapid integration of rich Silverlight applications;
  • Rich Theming, allowing improved skinning of a SharePoint 2010 site;
  • Support for multiple browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari (amongst others);
  • Enterprise Metadata Management ("SharePoint taxonomy"), which enables a centralized taxonomy;
  • Records Management features provided throughout the document management;
  • Inline editing of lists and forms using Ajax, reducing the number of post-backs to the Server;
  • Closer confirmation to WCAG 2.0 AA standards (though not full compliance);
  • More master pages including a "simple" master page to make web design with SharePoint much easier;
  • Improved Search function, including bring Fast in to the SharePoint stack;
  • Improved two way integration with Line of Business (LOB) applications;
  • Expanding social computing features from previous MySites;
  • Adoption of Rest web service along with SOAP.

The product includes a collection of other new features relevant to IT professionals,[10] developers[11] and partners.[12] Complications in upgrading to SharePoint 2010[13][14] include a lack of support for Internet Explorer 6, only 64-bit architecture is supported, and businesses will need to run the latest versions of other Microsoft products (notably Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Office 2010) to take advantage of full functionality.

Features

Following key features were introduced with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and have been continued an expanded in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

Office 2007 + integration

SharePoint Server integrates closely with Microsoft Office applications. It can render Microsoft Office documents in web pages. In addition, with the proper server side infrastructure, it can allow the documents to be edited from within the browser as well. For other document types in a document library, Microsoft Office applications can directly edit the document in the document library. This feature is available for Microsoft Excel and Microsoft InfoPath. Using Excel Services, SharePoint Server can allow Excel 2007 workbooks to be loaded, edited, and displayed in a SharePoint page. All calculations happen on the SharePoint Server. SharePoint Server can also host and render Microsoft InfoPath forms. Using the Infopath Forms Services it can be viewed and filled out using a browser.

Microsoft Office Outlook can also be used for accessing and synchronizing SharePoint document libraries.[15] On connecting a document library with Outlook, the library will be listed in the navigation pane, and the files in it will be listed along with certain metadata such as author. Compatible Microsoft Office documents will be previewed in the preview pane and Microsoft Office Outlook search bars can be used for searching the libraries as well. The search entered using the Outlook bar will be federated to the SharePoint server, and the results will be displayed in Outlook itself. By synchronizing a document library, Outlook can make the files available offline. they then can be opened and edited using other Microsoft Office 2007 applications. The changes will be synchronized back to the SharePoint library by Outlook.

While it is not necessary to use Microsoft Office 2007 + to take advantage of the integration with the Microsoft Office suite, it offers the most integration with SharePoint Server 2007. A few examples of the improved integration with Office 2007 include:

  • 2-way synchronization of Outlook Calendar and SharePoint Calendar.
  • Overlaying a SharePoint Calendar on top of user's Outlook 2007 Calendar.
  • SharePoint Task-Assignment Synchronization into user's Outlook Task List.
  • Offline Synchronization of SharePoint Documents
  • Viewing SharePoint RSS feeds through Microsoft Office Outlook
  • Display of meta-data values for a given document type in the Office Ribbon as a user is editing a document from a document library.
  • SharePoint Server 2010 via Access Services, allows Access 2010 databases to be published to SharePoint, which enables multiple users to interact with the database application from any standards-compliant Web browser.[16]

SharePoint Server can be used for enterprise search, to search across the document libraries and user groups.[17] SharePoint Server 2007 fully indexes all the documents stored in its library, in addition, it also indexes data stored in external databases which are exposed via ADO.NET or web services with a well-defined WSDL schema. Any search from the portal interface or client applications can use the SharePoint Server search capabilities to search over this index. SharePoint servers, Web sites, file shares, Exchange Public Folders, and databases can be set as data sources which it will then index. The indexing system is a tuned version of the one used in Windows Desktop Search. The indexing engine uses specified crawling rules to decide what is to be indexed. The index engine uses continuous propagation, which allows even a partial index to be queried against. It also exposes a UI for visual administration of the search capabilities. SharePoint Server 2007 also includes suggestion capability, which suggests search terms in case of typographical errors.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise also includes a people search functionality, which can search for people, based on their affiliation and expertise, provided the enterprise infrastructure makes the information available. It can search from SharePoint user groups, as well as Active Directory and other LDAP directories provided the information has been imported into SharePoint Server.

Business Connectivity Services

Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in SharePoint 2010 replaces the SharePoint 2007 Business Data Catalog (BDC).[18] Introduced in SharePoint Server 2007 - Enterprise Version, it enables presentation of business data from back-end server applications such as SAP or Siebel 2007. Also, databases to be viewed by the web-based interface of SharePoint can be enabled without writing any code.

It comprises a metadata repository and an object model. It provides a unified way to invoke operations. It presents a consistent, object-oriented interface to the business logic that is embedded in typical business applications. The Business Data Catalog provides homogeneous access to the underlying data sources by using a declarative metadata model that simplifies the client object model.

The Business Data Catalog Definition Editor is now included in the SharePoint Server SDK.[19] The BDC Editor can connect to a database or a web service provided by a LOB system and then generate the Application Definition File for it. The task of maintaining the catalog is divided among four roles: business analyst who identifies the data to be presented, metadata author who creates the tags to identify the data to SharePoint, administrator, and developer.

MySites

MySite is an important feature in SharePoint Server 2007 that enables users to obtain access to a personalized view of the information that's relevant to them. MySite has a Public view and a Private view. Users are able to determine the permissions on various pieces of information that are in a MySite and select whether their colleagues, manager, or everyone in the organization can see each piece of information. The Private view of a user's MySite enables them to see the following types of information:

  • Workspace - Users can see and access the workspaces to which they have access, saving wasted navigation time.
  • My Links - A list of personal links that are important to the user. As users are browsing the SharePoint site, they can quickly add a link for a given page to the My Links list by selecting Add Link from a menu in the upper right corner of the page.
  • Personalization Sites - Special SharePoint sites that personalize content based on a user's role in the organization can be pinned to the appropriate user's My Site based on their organization role (HR, Facilities, Finance, etc.). Microsoft has released several role-based personalization templates to help people get started with this feature.
  • Colleague Tracker - Enables users to track the changes that they have permission to see in their colleague's MySites.
  • Outlook e-mail - Web Parts are available for users' MySites that display their e-mail and calendar information from Exchange.
  • Distribution Groups - In the public version of MySite, you can see the distribution groups that you're a member of and, when looking at other users' MySites, can see the distribution groups that you have in common with them.
  • Standard WSS Site Features - Since a MySite is a WSS site at its core, users' MySites have all of the typical functionality that comes with Windows SharePoint Services (Document Libraries and Lists, Recycle Bin, Version Control, Workflow, etc.)

If the system has the appropriate multi-language packs and templates installed, users can be given the option of creating their MySite in one of the languages available on the system instead of being forced to use the language that governs the more public areas of the SharePoint system. This might be useful in a scenario where a global enterprise is enabling their users in China and Spain to create their MySite in Chinese or Spanish.

Accessibility

Although SharePoint Server 2010 continues the improvement in accessibility has improved since SharePoint Portal Server 2003,[20] it is still difficult to get a Sharepoint web site to adhere to the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 1.0 specification.[21] Sharepoint 2007 relied extensively on table-based layouts, especially in the Web Parts Framework, and XHTML is also problematic as Sharepoint's built-in controls produce markup that does not validate under XHTML doctypes.[22] Substantial custom development is therefore essential in order to comply with these standards.[23] This has proven to be a key stumbling block to the adoption of Sharepoint solutions in situations where strict adherence to accessibility standards is of particular importance, such as the public sector.[20]

SharePoint 2010 moved to producing XHTML to be more compliant with WCAG 2.0 AA standards of accessibility. That said because of the ease of using the content publishing it is very likely that a deployed site will could easily contain features that do not comply to XHTML standards. For example in standard discussion one can post directly from an existing web page, carrying all HTML over which will be included in the side regardless of its compliance to XHTML standards.

Previous Versions of SharePoint Server

MOSS 2007

In 2007 Microsoft released Microsoft Office SharePoint Server or MOSS. This product was licensed in both a standard and enterprise version. The 2007 release also included a more limited free version called Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or WSS 3.0. MOSS 2007 was the first point that joined Web Content Management to SharePoint. Before that Microsoft had a WCM product called Microsoft Content Management Server which had its last release in 2002.

SPS 2003 and WSS 2.0

In 2003 Microsoft released SharePoint Server 2003 or SPS 2003 and the free WSS 2.0.

SPS 2001

In 2001 Microsoft had released SharePoint Server 2001 which was the first commercial release of the version [24]. Before that the project had been code named Tahoe.

References

  1. ^ Official website of the previous version
  2. ^ "Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010". Microsoft TechNet website. Microsoft Corporation. Retrieved 2 September 2010.
  3. ^ Vedant Kulshreshtha Search Technologies for SharePoint 2010 Products
  4. ^ Mirjam van Olst: What’s new for end users in SharePoint Search 2010
  5. ^ Jed Cawthorne "How Search Has Improved in SharePoint 2010" CMSWire
  6. ^ [1] SharePoint Team Blog
  7. ^ http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/Pages/Editions-Comparison.aspx
  8. ^ http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=167092
  9. ^ Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Site 2009 Microsoft Corporation
  10. ^ SharePoint 2010 Benefits for IT Professionals 2009 Microsoft Corporation
  11. ^ SharePoint 2010 Benefits for Developers 2009 Microsoft Corporation
  12. ^ SharePoint 2010 Benefits for Partners 2009 Microsoft Corporation
  13. ^ [2]
  14. ^ http://wiki.softartisans.com/display/~jonathanb/2010/08/13/Adventures+upgrading+to+SharePoint+2010
  15. ^ "SharePoint & Outlook – The Perfect Link". Retrieved 2007-10-02.
  16. ^ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402351.aspx
  17. ^ "Search in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007". Retrieved 2007-10-01.
  18. ^ "Business Data Catalog". Retrieved 2007-10-01.
  19. ^ "Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SDK". Retrieved 2007-10-01.
  20. ^ a b "SharePoint Accessibility - Is SharePoint Server 2007 accessible?". Retrieved 2007-05-11.
  21. ^ "Focus on Accessibility". Sharepoint2007.com: the business portal for SharePoint 2007 information. Retrieved 2007-05-16.
  22. ^ Zac Smith. "Guide to making Sharepoint XHTML Compliant". Retrieved 2007-05-11.
  23. ^ "Another day, another accessible MOSS website". Retrieved 2007-05-11.
  24. ^ Joining the dot blog: Sharepoint history
Official resources
Third-party resources
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