Windows Server 2008 R2 Unleashed (283 page)

ity of the information workers in the organization, manage documents for legal and effi-

ciency reasons, provide better search capabilities, and to expose information to Internet

and external users.

Most organizations have solutions in place that provide intranet solutions, or portals that

often overlap with intranet functionality and features, but typically provide access to soft-

ware services and applications. As the SharePoint product line matured and provided

enhanced feature sets, security, and performance, many clients decided to replace one or

35

more other technologies with SharePoint-based technologies.

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Cost effectiveness was, and still is, a driving factor for SharePoint implementation.

Windows SharePoint Services became known as the “free” version of SharePoint and was

often implemented to test-drive the features. WSS isn’t technically free because the organi-

zation must still purchase the Windows Server operating system that houses the WSS sites

and must purchase the SQL Server software and licenses if the full version of SQL Server is

being used. WSS does not require the purchase of the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 or

SharePoint Server 2007 software, nor does it require that the organization pay for the

client access licenses (CALs). However, the implementation cost is lower than the full

version of SharePoint Server and this was a key factor in the adoption of SharePoint soft-

ware. With this less-expensive option, organizations were able to test-drive the features of

the SharePoint family at very low software costs, test migrations from other collabora-

tion/intranet/portal/document management solutions, and determine whether their needs

would be met. In many cases, this resulted in savings of tens of thousands of dollars over

competing products.

Another driving factor was the close integration of SharePoint products with the Office

product line, which a large percentage of organizations use. Their knowledge workers

could easily publish documents to their SharePoint sites from their familiar applications

like Word and Excel, and could “connect” to calendar or task data in SharePoint lists and

libraries from their Outlook clients. Many competitors’ products sought to offer the same

level of integration, but were typically several steps behind in features and ease of use.

For organizations requiring the full set of features, they could upgrade to SharePoint Portal

Server 2003 or SharePoint Server 2007, and then would need to purchase CALs for each

user (internal or external) that would be accessing the SharePoint sites. Typically, “enter-

prise class” SharePoint implementations would use the full version of SQL Server and

benefit from enhanced features, management tools, performance, and scalability.

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Windows SharePoint Services

Organizations that had been experimenting with SharePoint technologies gradually came

to depend upon them for managing large amounts of data and enhancing existing busi-

ness processes, and as SharePoint dabblers evolved into power users, requests came up for

features that SharePoint 2003 didn’t provide out of the box. Fortunately, third-party

companies quickly evolved to offer new, cutting-edge features, such as an undelete capa-

bility, workflow tools, enhanced navigation tools, roll-up web parts, and many more.

FrontPage 2003 allowed customization of SharePoint pages and sites, and developers could

also turn to the Visual Studio products for more advanced development.

Enter the SharePoint 2007 product line, which builds on the many strengths of the previ-

ous version, introduces features that end users have requested, and provides new features

that many users might never have dreamed of.

What Are the Differences Between Windows

SharePoint Services 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007?

A fundamental question that has caused many inquisitive IT personnel many hours of

research is “What exactly is the difference between Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and

SharePoint Server 2007?” To answer this question, it is helpful to look at what the basic

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features of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 are, and because SharePoint Server 2007

includes Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 as part of the installation, those features are all

included in SharePoint Server 2007. However, the “Server” version of the product adds a

large number of features to these base capabilities, a sampling of which are listed in this

section. Although these features are not explored in depth in this chapter, they give exam-

ples of the features that make the Server version of the product appealing to organizations

with more complex needs.

Basic Features of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

The following list provides an overview of the standard features included in Windows

SharePoint Services 3.0, many of which are examined in more detail throughout this

chapter. This is a very basic list, and ignores a number of features, such as the administra-

tive toolset, management features, search features, and others, but gives a basic summary:

.
Document libraries—
This basic component of a SharePoint site is designed to store

and manage documents, and allows the administrator to add additional columns of

data to the library (called metadata) as well as create custom views, track versions of

the documents, and control access on a document level. Many other features are

available in a document library, such as requiring checkout before a document can

be edited or creating alerts that send email when certain conditions are met, such as

a document changing. Other standard libraries include the form library, wiki page

library, and picture library.

What Are the Differences Between Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and

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SharePoint Server 2007?

NOTE

Metadata is data about data. So, for example, a Microsoft Word document has metadata

associated with it, such as author, creation date, and modification date. Windows

SharePoint Services 3.0 document libraries allow administrators to define other columns

that can contain a wide variety of other information that is associated with a document.

.
Lists—
Another basic component of a SharePoint site, a list can take many forms,

but is essentially data arranged in spreadsheet format that can be used to meet a

virtually limitless array of needs. For example, standard lists include announce-

ments, contacts, discussion boards, events, tasks, and surveys.

.
Web pages—
Web pages include basic pages and web part pages, each of which orga-

nize navigational and design components and include web parts. These are the pages

that users see and use when interacting with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 sites.

Web parts are modular components that can be placed on pages and perform func-

tions such as displaying data that resides in a document library or list.

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.
Sites and workspaces—
Sites and workspaces are essentially groupings of lists,

libraries, and basic web part pages that provide a variety of features and functions to

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the users. For example, there might be a site for human resources or information

technology, or a workspace that enables users to collaborate on a document or a

workspace could be created for a specific event, such as a company quarterly

meeting.

.
Site management tools—
These come in a variety of forms, including the browser-

based page editing tools, subsite management tools, and site collection management

tools.

.
Central Administration console tools—
These tools allow a SharePoint farm

administrator to configure the server or servers to perform properly and to perform

backups and restores of data.

What Is Not Included in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 but Is

Included in SharePoint Server 2007

The Server product includes Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 as part of the installation

and so includes all of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 features and adds a host of addi-

tional features on top of these. Many IT administrators, departmental managers, and

power users are curious about what is not included in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 as

they need to justify the cost of SharePoint Server 2007 and want to better understand

what the more complete product includes. Bear in mind that there are two possible instal-

lations of SharePoint Server 2007: the Standard installation and the Enterprise installation.

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An overview of the main features that require the purchase of SharePoint Server 2007 is

provided in the following list:

. My Sites is only available in SharePoint Server 2007. If enabled, My Sites allows users

to create their own site and customize personal information that can be shared with

the organization.

. The Site Directory feature is only available in the SharePoint Server 2007 product

and can be very helpful if a large number of sites will be created. Each time a site is

created, it can be included in the Site Directory and categories can be applied to

each site for grouping and sorting purposes.

. User profiles are included in the SharePoint Server 2007 product. SharePoint Server

2007 connects to Active Directory (AD) and pulls in user information on a regular

basis, which is then stored in the profiles database. Additional SharePoint-specific

fields are added to this database creating a new database of user information that

can be leveraged and customized in SharePoint Server 2007.

. Content sources outside of the SharePoint content databases can be searched and

indexed with SharePoint Server 2007. SharePoint Server 2007 can index file shares,

websites, Exchange public folders, and other sources out of the box.

. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is very limited in out-of-the-box workflows, offer-

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ing only the Three-state workflow, whereas SharePoint Server 2007 offers more flex-

ibility with Approval, Collect Feedback, Collect Signatures, and Disposition

Approval workflows.

. If integration with Microsoft Information Rights Management (IRM) is needed, the

SharePoint Server 2007 product is required.

. SharePoint Server 2007 is required for retention and auditing policies, and for

logging all actions on sites, content, and workflows.

. If policies, auditing, and compliance features are needed, SharePoint Server 2007

allows for the creation of document retention and expiration policies, workflow

processes to define expiration, tracking and auditing, and other tools.

. If browser-based forms are required, the Enterprise Edition of SharePoint Server 2007

provides the tools needed to publish browser-based forms. More important, InfoPath

is not required on the end users’ desktops to fill out forms.

. Excel Services are only available in SharePoint Server 2007, Enterprise Edition.

Through Excel Services, a Microsoft Excel 2007 user can publish a spreadsheet, or

portions of it, to a SharePoint Server 2007 document library so that it can be

accessed via the Excel Web Access web part.

. Microsoft offers the Business Data Catalog (BDC) only in SharePoint Server 2007,

Enterprise Edition. The BDC enables SharePoint Server 2007 to mine data from exter-

nal databases via application definition files. A number of dedicated web parts then

enable SharePoint Server 2007 to display this data to form advanced dashboards.

. Microsoft single sign-on integration is only available with SharePoint Server 2007.

Identifying the Need for Windows SharePoint Services

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A common question revolves around size limitations of the databases that can be

supported by WSS 3.0. If the Basic installation option is followed as shown in this chapter,

there is no hard limit for the size of the databases. The only installation option that brings

with it a size limit is if SharePoint Server 2007 is installed using the SQL Server Express

Edition, where there is a 4GB limit. This is confusing to many new SharePoint users and

worth clarifying. If either WSS 3.0 or SharePoint Server 2007 are connected to any full

version of SQL Server 2005 or 2008 (such as SQL Server 2005 Standard or Enterprise, or

SQL Server 2008 Standard or Enterprise), there are no hard limits for database sizes.

Microsoft does recommend as a best practice that the content databases that store the

documents uploaded to document libraries and content stored in SharePoint lists not

exceed 50GB–100GB in size, but this is for performance and maintenance reasons, and is

not a hard limit.

An excellent document is available on the Microsoft website with additional information

comparing the products: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/

HA101978031033.aspx.

Identifying the Need for Windows SharePoint Services

35

A number of organizational needs have spurred the adoption of SharePoint technologies.

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Many organizations see SharePoint technologies as the next evolution in document

management and sharing, where the silo is more intelligent, controls access to, and use of,

documents better, tracks usage information, and alerts users of certain conditions. The files