Microsoft SharePoint 2010 - Web interface |
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| Developer(s) | Microsoft Corporation |
| Initial release | 2001 |
| Stable release | 2010 SP1 / June 24, 2011 |
| Development status | Active |
| Operating system | Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2[1] |
| Platform | x86-64 / ASP.net 3.5 |
| Available in | Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish and Ukrainian[2] |
| Type | Content Management Systems |
| License | Proprietary software SharePoint Foundation: Freeware Other editions: Trialware |
| Website | sharepoint.microsoft.com |
Microsoft SharePoint is a web application platform developed by Microsoft. First launched in 2001,[3] SharePoint is typically associated with web content management and document management systems, but it is actually a much broader platform of web technologies, capable of being configured into a wide range of solution areas.[4]
SharePoint is designed as a broad, central application platform for common enterprise web requirements. SharePoint's multi-purpose design allows for managment and provisioning of intranet portals, extranets, websites, document & file management, collaboration spaces, social tools, enterprise search, business intelligence, process integration, system integration, workflow automation, and core infrastructure for third-party solutions. SharePoint's core infrastructure is also suited to providing a base technology platform for custom developed applications.[5]
SharePoint is capable of supporting multiple organizations on a single 'server farm'. Microsoft provides SharePoint Foundation at no cost, but sells premium editions with additional functionality,[5] and also provides SharePoint as a service in their cloud computing as part of their Office 365 platform (and previously as part of their Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS) offering). The product is also sold as a cloud solution by many third-party vendors.[6]
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Microsoft's SharePoint marketing refers to the "SharePoint Wheel" to help describe the package of functionality built into the SharePoint platform. The wheel refers to six abstract functional capabilities:[5]
The most common uses of SharePoint include:
A SharePoint intranet portal is a way to centralize access to enterprise information and applications on a corporate network. It is a tool that helps a company manage its data, applications, and information more easily. This has organizational benefits such as increased employee engagement, centralizing process management, reducing new staff on-boarding costs, and providing tacit knowledge capture.[7]
SharePoint is often used to store and track electronic documents or images of paper documents. It is usually also capable of keeping track of the different versions created by different users. In addition to being a platform for digital record management systems that meet government and industry compliance standards, SharePoint also provides the benefit of a central location for storing and collaborating on documents, which can significantly reduce emails and duplicated work in an organization.[7]
SharePoint can be used to provide password-protected, web-facing access to people outside an organization. Organizations often use functionality like this to integrate third parties into supply chain or business processes, or to provide a shared collaboration environment.[8]
Using the 'Publishing' feature, SharePoint can be used to manage larger public websites.[8]
SharePoint offers a 'fluent' ribbon user-interface that should be familiar to users of Microsoft Office. This interface provides a general user interface for manipulating data, page editing ability, and the ability to add functionality to sites.
Broadly, the web-based interface provides the ability to:
These customizations may be surfaced as
A SharePoint Site is a collection of pages, lists, and libraries configured for the purpose of achieving an express goal. A site may contain sub-sites, and those sites may contain further sub-sites. Typically, sites need to be created from scratch, but sites can also be created according to pre-defined templates that provide packaged functionality. Examples of Site templates in SharePoint include: Blogs, MySites, collaboration (team) sites, document workspaces, groupwork sites, and meeting workspaces.
Sites have navigation, themes/branding, custom permissions, workflows, and have the ability to be configured or customized in a number of ways. In order to achieve a greater degree of maintainability, sites typically inherit site-level settings from their parent sites.
Lists and libraries are stored in SharePoint Sites. A List can be thought of as a collection of pieces of information — all of which (typically) have the same properties. For instance, you can have a list of links called "my links", where each item has a URL, a name, and a description.
Lists have many features such as workflows, item-level or list-level permission, version history tracking, multiple content-types, external data sources, and many more features. Some of these features depend on the version of SharePoint that is installed.
A Library is a list where each item in the list refers to a file that is stored in SharePoint. Libraries have all the same behaviors as lists, but because libraries contain files, they have extra features. One of these is the ability to be opened and modified through a compatible WebDAV client (e.g. Windows Explorer).
Microsoft SharePoint comes with some pre-defined list and library definitions. These include: Announcement Lists, Blogs, Contacts, Discussion Boards, Document Libraries, External Content (BCS) lists, Pages, Surveys, and Tasks.
Some of these pre-defined lists have additional integration. For example, lists based on the contact content-type can be synced directly with Microsoft Outlook.
Web-parts are sections that can be inserted into Pages in SharePoint sites. These sections are UI Widgets whose typical uses are
Web-parts based on completely custom code can be built in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and uploaded by end-users to SharePoint as packaged, sandboxed features. Due to the prevalence of SharePoint, third-party vendors often provide SharePoint web-parts for intranet sites.
SharePoint Web-parts were formerly implemented separately from ASP.NET Web-parts, but as of SharePoint 2010, SharePoint's Web-parts are now based on it.
SharePoint has three primary page content-types: Wiki pages, Web-part pages, and Publishing Pages. Unlike prior versions of SharePoint, the default page type is a 'Wiki Page', which enables free-form editing based on the ribbon toolbar. It is possible to insert Web-parts into any page type.
SharePoint Foundation contains a limited search engine. Microsoft produces a free product called Microsoft Search Server Express to complement SharePoint Foundation. Different SharePoint search versions offer different features, but all search engines contain the ability to search within documents and - except in cloud environments: across external data sources (such as file systems).
SharePoint Foundation has the following advanced features:
The SharePoint platform is a complicated, flexible, n-tier service-oriented architecture (SOA). It can be scaled down to operate entirely from one machine, or scaled up to be managed across thousands of machines. [12]
A SharePoint farm is a logical grouping of SharePoint servers that share common resources. A farm will typically operate stand-alone, but it can also subscribe to functionality from another farm, or provide functionality to another farm. Each farm has its own central configuration database, which is managed through a either a PowerShell interface, or a Central Administration website (which relies partially on PowerShell's infrastructure). Each server in the farm is able to directly interface with the central configuration database. Servers use this to configure services (e.g. IIS, windows features, database connections) to match the requirements of the farm, and to report server health issues, resource allocation issues, etc.
Web Applications (WAs) are top-level containers for content in a SharePoint farm, and are typically the interface through which a user interacts with SharePoint. A web application is associated with a set of access mappings or URLs which are defined in the SharePoint central management console, then automatically replicated into the IIS configuration of every server configured in the farm. WAs are typically independent of each other, have their own application pools, and can be restarted independently in IIS.[12]
A site collection is used to provide a grouping of 'SharePoint Sites'. Each web application will typically have at least one site collection. Site collections may be associated with their own content databases, or they may share a content database with other site collections in the same web application.[12]
Service Applications (SAs) provide granular pieces of SharePoint functionality to other web and service applications in the farm. Examples of service applications include the User Profile Sync service, and the Search Indexing service. An SA can be turned off, exist on one server, or be load-balanced across many servers in a farm. SAs are designed to be as independent as possible, so depending on the SA — restarting an SA, experiencing an SA failure, or misconfiguring an SA may not necessarily prevent the farm from operating. Each SA enabled on the farm typically has its own process that requires a certain amount of RAM to operate, and typically also has its own configuration database and Active Directory (AD) service account. SharePoint Server and SharePoint Enterprise include all the SharePoint Foundation SAs, as well as additional SAs.[12]
The modular nature of SharePoint's architecture enables a secure 'least-privileges' execution permission best practice.[13]
SharePoint Central Administration (the CA) is a web application that typically exists on a single server in the farm, however it is also able to be deployed for redundancy to multiple servers.[12] This application provides a complete centralized management interface for web & service applications in the SharePoint farm, including AD account management for web & service applications. In the event of the failure of the CA, Windows PowerShell is typically used on the CA server to reconfigure the farm.
The structure of the SharePoint platform enables multiple WAs to exist on a single farm. In a shared (cloud) hosting environment, owners of these WAs may require their own management console. The SharePoint 'Tenant Administration' (TA) is an optional web application used by web application owners to manage how their web application interacts with the shared resources in the farm.[12]
Microsoft SharePoint 2010 comes in three different editions: SharePoint Foundation, SharePoint Standard and SharePoint Enterprise.[14]
Microsoft SharePoint Foundation is the platform for all products in the SharePoint family. It contains all of the core functionality and architecture drawn on by the commercial versions of the package.[14] SharePoint Foundation is available for download at no cost.[15] Downloading SharePoint Foundation however, requires a mandatory registration.[16]
Microsoft SharePoint Standard builds on the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation in a few key product areas.
Sites: Audience targeting, governance tools, Secure store service, web analytics functionality[17]
Communities: 'MySites' (personal profiles including skills management, and search tools), enterprise wikis, organization hierarchy browser, tags and notes[18]
Content: Improved tooling and compliance for document & record management, managed metadata, word automation services, content type management[19]
Search: Better search results, search customization abilities, mobile search, 'Did you mean?', OS search integration, Faceted Search, and metadata/relevancy/date/location based refinement options[20]
Composites: Pre-built workflow templates, BCS profile pages[21]
Note: some search features are available in Search Server Express - a no-cost add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Foundation.
SharePoint Standard licensing includes a CAL (client access license) component and a server fee. SharePoint Standard may be also be licensed through a cloud model.
It is possible to upgrade a SharePoint farm from Foundation to Standard.[22] The product is equivalent to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007.
Built upon SharePoint Standard, Microsoft SharePoint Enterprise features can be unlocked simply by providing an additional licence key. The product is the equivalent to MOSS 2007 Enterprise.
Extra features in SharePoint Enterprise include:
SharePoint Enterprise licensing includes a CAL component and a server fee that must be purchased in addition to SharePoint Server licensing. SharePoint Enterprise may be also be licensed through a cloud model.
SharePoint evolved from projects codenamed "Office Server” and “Tahoe” during the Office XP development cycle.
“Office Server” evolved out of the FrontPage and Office Server Extensions and “Team Pages”. It targeted simple, bottom-up collaboration.
“Tahoe”, built on shared technology with Exchange and the “Digital Dashboard”, targeted top-down portals, search and document management.[25]
The versions are (in chronological order):
Changes in end-user functionality added in the latest version of SharePoint include:
Major Server-side or Developer changes include:
Additional changes exist in paid/advanced versions of SharePoint 2010.[26]
The following are the various requirements for deploying Microsoft SharePoint.[27]
| Processor | 64-bit, four cores |
| RAM |
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| Hard disk | 80 GB for system drive, varies for production environment depending on application size |
| Operating system |
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| Database server |
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Supported web browsers include[29]
Evaluations of SharePoint by industry analysts have varied. In late 2008, the Gartner Group put SharePoint in the "leaders" quadrant in three of its Magic Quadrants (for search, portals, and enterprise content management).[30] By a wide margin, SharePoint is the most popular high-level enterprise web application platform used today.[31]
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