1. Understanding the History of SharePoint Technologies
SharePoint
technologies have a somewhat complicated history. Multiple attempts at
rebranding the applications and packaging them with other Microsoft
programs has further confused administrators and users alike. Consequently, a greater understanding of what the SharePoint products are and how they were constructed is required.
WSS’s Predecessor: SharePoint Team Services
In late 1999,
Microsoft announced the digital dashboard concept as the first step in
its knowledge management strategy, releasing the Digital Dashboard
Starter Kit, the Outlook 2000 Team Folder Wizard, and the Team
Productivity Update for BackOffice 4.5. These tools leveraged existing
Microsoft technologies, so customers and developers could build
solutions without purchasing additional products. These tools, and the
solutions developed using them, formed the basis for what became known
as SharePoint Team Services (STS), the predecessor of Windows SharePoint
Services (WSS).
With the launch of
Office XP, SharePoint Team Services was propelled into the limelight as
the wave of the future, providing a tool for non-IT personnel to easily
create websites for team collaboration and information sharing. Team
Services, included with Office XP, came into being through Office Server
Extensions and FrontPage Server Extensions. The original server
extensions were built around a web server and provide a blank default
web page. The second generation of server extensions provided a web
authoring tool, such as FrontPage, for designing web pages. Team
Services was a third-generation server extension product, with which a
website could be created directly out of the box.
Understanding the Original MOSS Application
Microsoft Office SharePoint
Server (MOSS) 2007 is the enterprise-level entry of the SharePoint
product, building on top of the base Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
functionality. MOSS 2007 further extends the capabilities of WSS,
allowing for multiple WSS sites to be indexed and managed centrally.
In 2001, Microsoft
released the predecessor to MOSS 2007, SharePoint Portal Server 2001.
The intent was to provide a customizable portal environment focused on
collaboration, document management, and knowledge sharing. The product
carried the “Digital Dashboard” Web Part technology a step further to
provide an out-of-the-box solution. SharePoint Portal Server was the
product that could link together the team-based websites that were
springing up.
Microsoft’s
initial SharePoint Portal product included a document management system
that provided document check-in/check-out capabilities, as well as
version control and approval routing. These features were not available
in SharePoint Team Services. SharePoint Portal also included the
capability to search not only document libraries, but also external
sources such as other websites and Exchange public folders.
Because the majority of the
information accessed through the portal was unstructured, the Web
Storage System was the means selected for storing the data, as opposed
to a more structured database product such as Structured Query Language
(SQL), which was being used for SharePoint Team Services. The Web
Storage System, incidentally, is the same technology that is used by
Microsoft Exchange. Further SharePoint implementations use the same SQL
database as WSS does, however.
Differences Between the Two SharePoint Products
As
SharePoint Team Services was available at no extra charge to Office
XP/FrontPage users, many organizations took advantage of this “free”
technology to experiment with portal usage. STS’s simplicity made it
easy to install and put into operation. Although functionality was not
as robust as a full SharePoint Portal Server solution, knowledge workers
were seeing the benefits of being able to collaborate with team
members.
Adaptation of SharePoint
Portal Server progressed at a slower rate. In a tight economy,
organizations were not yet ready to make a monetary commitment to a
whole new way of collaborating, even if it provided efficiency in
operations. In addition, the SharePoint Portal interface was not
intuitive or consistent, which made it difficult to use.
Having two separate
products with similar names confused many people. “SharePoint” was often
discussed in a generic manner, and people weren’t sure whether the
topic was SharePoint Portal or SharePoint Team Services, or the two
technologies together. Even if the full application name was mentioned,
there was confusion regarding the differences between the two products,
and about when each was appropriate to use. People wondered why
SharePoint Team Services used the SQL data engine for its information
store, whereas SharePoint Portal Server used the Web Storage System. It
appeared as though there was not a clear strategy for the product’s
direction.
Examining Microsoft’s Next-Generation SharePoint Products: SPS 2003 and WSS 2.0
Microsoft took a close
look at what was happening with regard to collaboration in the
marketplace and used this information to drive its SharePoint
technologies. Microsoft believed that in the world of online technology
and collaboration, people need to think differently about how they work.
The focus was to develop a suite of products to better handle this
collaboration.
In addition to
looking closer at how people collaborate, Microsoft also analyzed what
had transpired with its SharePoint products. The end result was that
Microsoft modified its knowledge management and collaboration strategy.
Microsoft began talking about its “SharePoint technology,” with a key
emphasis on building this technology into the .NET Framework, and, thus,
natively supporting XML Web Services.
In 2003, Microsoft
released the 2.0 generation of SharePoint Products. SharePoint Team
Services was rebranded as Windows SharePoint Services 2.0, the engine
for the team-collaboration environment. Windows SharePoint Services
included many new and enhanced features, some of which were previously
part of SharePoint Portal Server. Windows SharePoint Services was also
included as an optional component to the Windows Server 2003 operating
system at the same time.
SharePoint Portal
Server 2001 was released as Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server
2003. It built on the Windows SharePoint Services technology and
continued to be the enterprise solution for connecting internal and
external sources of information. SharePoint Portal Server allowed for
searching across sites, and enabled the integration of business
applications into the portal.
Unveiling the Current Generation of SharePoint: MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0
As
adoption of SharePoint technologies increased, Microsoft put more and
more emphasis on the product line as collaboration functionality became
increasingly important for organizations. Organizations were
increasingly excited about the 2003 product line, but there were some
functional disadvantages to the platform, which held many organizations
back from a full deployment of the product or forced them to purchase
third-party add-ons to the suite. Workflow, navigation components, and
administration were all weaker than many organizations needed, and
Microsoft began work on the 3.0 generation of SharePoint Products.
Along with the
new generation came another rebranding of the product. SharePoint Portal
Server became Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. Windows
SharePoint Services retained the same name and simply incremented the
version number to 3.0.
MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 introduced several functional enhancements to SharePoint, including the following:
Integrated business process and Business Intelligence—
A significant portion of the development time for SharePoint was spent
focused on improving the business workflow functionality of SharePoint.
MOSS 2007 introduces a multitude of business process and Business
Intelligence improvements that allow organizations to increase the
efficiencies in their tasks.
Consolidated administrative tools—
Previous versions of SharePoint proved to be a headache to administer,
as administrative tools and interfaces were scattered throughout the
product. MOSS 2007 consolidates these admin interfaces into a single
location, and provides for additional administrative tools as well.
Improved Office integration—
MOSS 2007 has further improved the tight integration between Office and
SharePoint by allowing for advanced functionality, such as direct
editing from Microsoft Excel, and offline capabilities in Microsoft
Outlook and Groove.
Extranet and single sign on enhancements—
SharePoint 2007 allows for more secure and functional extranet
deployment scenarios, so that internal MOSS sites can be utilized from
the Internet without compromising safety or violating governmental
regulations.
2. Identifying the Need for MOSS 2007
SharePoint is one of
those services that is greatly misunderstood. Much of the confusion over
the previous branding of the product has contributed to this, but a
fundamental shift in thinking is required to effectively utilize the
platform. An understanding of what SharePoint is and how it can be fully
utilized is an important step toward realizing the efficiency the
system can bring.
Changing Methodology from File Servers to a MOSS Document Management Platform
MOSS
expands beyond its origins as a web team site application into a
full-fledged documentation platform with the new functionalities
introduced. These capabilities, previously only available with the
full-functioned SharePoint Portal Server product, allow MOSS to store
and manage documents efficiently in a transaction-oriented Microsoft SQL
Server 2000 environment. What this means to organizations is that the
traditional file server is less important, and effectively replaced, for
document storage. Items such as Microsoft Word documents, Excel
spreadsheets, and the like are stored in the MOSS database.
Along with
these document management capabilities comes the realization by users
that their standard operating practice of storing multiple versions of
files on a file server is no longer feasible or efficient. Using MOSS
effectively subsequently requires a shift in thinking from traditional
approaches.
Enabling Team Collaboration with MOSS
MOSS 2007 and
Windows SharePoint Services have demonstrated how web-based team sites
can be effectively used to encourage collaboration among members of a
team or an organization. Content relevant to a group of people or a
project can be efficiently directed to the individuals who need to see
it most, negating the need to have them hunt and peck across a network
to find what they need.
After being
deployed, the efficiency and collaboration realized is actually quite
amazing. A good analogy to SharePoint can be found with email. Before
using email, it’s hard to understand how valuable it can be. After
you’ve used it, however, it’s hard to imagine not having it. The same
holds true for SharePoint functionality. Organizations that have
deployed WSS or the full-functioned MOSS 2007 product have a hard time
imagining working without it.
Customizing SharePoint to Suit Organizational Needs
If
the default functionality in SharePoint is not enough, or does not
satisfy the specific web requirements of an organization, SharePoint can
easily be customized. Easily customizable or downloadable Web Parts can
be instantly “snapped-in” to a site, without the need to understand
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) code. More advanced developers can use
ASP.NET or other programming tools to produce custom code to work with
MOSS. Further enhancement of MOSS sites can be accomplished using
SharePoint Designer 2007, which allows for a great deal of customization
with relative ease. In general, if it can be programmed to work with
Web Services, it can interface with SharePoint.
