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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, Internet sites, web content management systems, search engine, wikis, blogs, social networking, business intelligence, workflow as well as providing a framework for web application development.

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.

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

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).

SharePoint 2010 introduced Composites, comprised of tools and components for creating and distributing "do-it-yourself" business solutions. Composites apply WYSIWYG tools to accelerate development, 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. Users can build custom web parts from their browser.

SharePoint Designer offers users the ability to create solutions without code.

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

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

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

Architecture Overview

SharePoint Server requires an external database to operate. SharePoint can only work with Microsoft SQL Server and SQL Express for Databases, the latter 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.

Features

Microsoft Office integration

SharePoint Server integrates closely with Microsoft Office. It can render documents in web pages. Documents can be edited from within an Internet browser. Users can directly edit Excel and InfoPath documents, using server resources to perform calculations, layout forms, etc.

Microsoft Office Outlook can access and synchronize document libraries.[6] The library and its files and metadata can be viewed and searched using the familiar Outlook interface. Documents/libraries can be "synchronized" allowing access when not connected to the server. Locally changed documents can be copied back to the server upon reconnecting. Additional integration includes:

  • Calendar synchronization and overlaying server and local calendars
  • Task synchronization
  • Offline document synchronization
  • RSS feed access
  • Shared interaction with Access databases from browsers.[7]

SharePoint Server can search across document libraries and user groups.[8] SharePoint Server indexes library documents, external databases that support ADO.NET or web services with a well-defined WSDL schema, file shares, Microsoft Exchange "public folders", and databases. The portal interface or client applications can then search this index.

The indexing system is a tuned variant of Windows Desktop Search. The indexer uses specified crawling rules to decide what to index. The indexer continuously propagates its results, allowing searches of partial indexes. Administration is via a visual application. The search interface suggests search terms in case of typographical errors.

Sharepoint Server can search for people, based on their affiliation and expertise. 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) enables presentation of business data from server applications such as SAP or Oracle. Databases can be viewed by the web-based interface without writing code.

BCS comprises a metadata repository and an object model. It presents a consistent, object-oriented interface to business logic in typical business applications. The Business Data Catalog (BDC) provides homogeneous access to the underlying data via a simple client object model. The BDC Definition Editor (BDC/DE) is now included in the SharePoint Server SDK.[9] BDC/DE can connect to a database or a web service provided by a LOB system and generate the Application Definition File from information the service supplies. Catalog maintainenance involves four roles: a business analyst identifies the data to be presented; a metadata author creates the tags to identify the data to SharePoint, an administrator, and a developer.

MySites

MySite enables users to obtain access to a personalized view of the information that is relevant to them. Users control access to information that they put in a MySite. They select whether their colleagues, manager, or everyone in the organization can see individual items. The Private view of a user's MySite enables them to see:

  • Workspace—Accessible workspaces
  • My Links—User-chosen web links.
  • Personalization Sites—List of sites derived from the user's organizational role (HR, Facilities, Finance, etc.) Role-based personalization templates ease setup.
  • Colleague Tracker—(Permitted) changes in colleague's MySites.
  • Outlook e-mail—Exchange/Outlook e-mail and calendar information.
  • Distribution Groups—Groups that the user is a member of or that the user has in common with another user
  • SharePoint Services—Recycle Bin, Version Control, Workflow, etc.
  • Language packs and templates allow users to create MySites in their preferred language instead of the language of the public areas.

Accessibility

Sharepoint web sites typically do not adhere to the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 1.0 specification.[10][11] Sharepoint 2007 relied extensively on table-based layouts, especially in the Web Parts Framework. Sharepoint's built-in controls produce markup that does not validate under XHTML doctypes.[12] Substantial custom development is necessary to comply with these standards.[13] Sharepoint solutions are rare in situations where strict adherence to accessibility standards is required, such as the public sector.[10]

SharePoint 2010 produces XHTML that is more compliant with WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility standards. However, in "standard discussion" users can post content from non-compliant web pages, compromising accessibility.

Versions, requirements, options

SharePoint has evolved through a number of releases.

SharePoint 2010

SharePoint 2010 emerged on April 17, 2010.[14] It is distributed in three editions: SharePoint Foundation 2010 is a free download, while SharePoint Server 2010 Standard and SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise have licensing fees.[15][16] Microsoft described the new version as the "Business Collaboration Platform for the Enterprise and the Web".[17] SharePoint 2010 has many enhancements and changes over the previous edition.

  • Server farms require 64 bit servers.
  • Clients no longer support IE 6.
  • The User Interface invokes JavaScript and Ajax, including iInline editing of lists and forms and reducing the number of Server posts.
  • Employs the Microsoft Office ribbon.
  • Adopts Web Edit for easy customization.
  • Simplifies packaging and publishing modifications made in the UI, SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio.
  • Silverlight Web Part allows rapid integration of rich Silverlight applications.
  • Rich Theming, allows improved skinning.
  • Supports Internet Explorer, Firefox Safari and others.
  • Supports a centralized taxonomy.
  • Adds records management features.
  • Improves WCAG 2.0 AA standard compliance.
  • Adds master pages, including a "simple" master page to simplify page design.
  • Improves Search, including "Fast" support.
  • Improves integration with LOB applications.
  • Expands social networking features.
  • Adopts REST and SOAP.

The product includes a collection of other new features of special concern to technical managers,[18] developers[19] and partners.[20] Complications in upgrading[21][22] include lack of support for Internet Explorer 6 and 32-bit CPUs and upgrades of other Microsoft products to experience all new features.

SharePoint 2010 runs only 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.

MOSS 2007

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

SPS 2003 and WSS 2.0

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

SPS 2001

In 2001 Microsoft released SharePoint Server 2001, SPS' first commercial release.[23], 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. ^ Mirjam van Olst: What’s new for end users in SharePoint Search 2010
  4. ^ Jed Cawthorne "How Search Has Improved in SharePoint 2010" CMSWire
  5. ^ Vedant Kulshreshtha Search Technologies for SharePoint 2010 Products
  6. ^ "SharePoint & Outlook – The Perfect Link". Retrieved 2007-10-02.
  7. ^ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402351.aspx
  8. ^ "Search in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007". Retrieved 2007-10-01.
  9. ^ "Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SDK". Retrieved 2007-10-01.
  10. ^ a b "SharePoint Accessibility—Is SharePoint Server 2007 accessible?". Retrieved 2007-05-11.
  11. ^ "Focus on Accessibility". Sharepoint2007.com: the business portal for SharePoint 2007 information. Retrieved 2007-05-16.
  12. ^ Zac Smith. "Guide to making Sharepoint XHTML Compliant". Retrieved 2007-05-11.
  13. ^ "Another day, another accessible MOSS website". Retrieved 2007-05-11.
  14. ^ [1] SharePoint Team Blog
  15. ^ http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/Pages/Editions-Comparison.aspx
  16. ^ http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=167092
  17. ^ Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Site 2009 Microsoft Corporation
  18. ^ SharePoint 2010 Benefits for IT Professionals 2009 Microsoft Corporation
  19. ^ SharePoint 2010 Benefits for Developers 2009 Microsoft Corporation
  20. ^ SharePoint 2010 Benefits for Partners 2009 Microsoft Corporation
  21. ^ [2]
  22. ^ http://wiki.softartisans.com/display/~jonathanb/2010/08/13/Adventures+upgrading+to+SharePoint+2010
  23. ^ Joining the dot blog: Sharepoint history
Official resources
Third-party resources
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