Microsoft SharePoint
Encyclopedia
Microsoft SharePoint is a web application platform developed by Microsoft
. First launched in 2001, 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.
SharePoint is designed as a broad, central application platform for common enterprise web requirements. SharePoint's multi-purpose design allows for managing 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.
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, 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.
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.
s or business process
es.
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
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.
, 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 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.
(SOA).
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.
(AD) service account. SharePoint Server and SharePoint Enterprise contain more SAs than the SharePoint Foundation.
SharePoint Central Administration (the CA) is a web application that exists on a maximum of one server in the farm. 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.
Sites: Audience targeting, governance tools, Secure store service, web analytics
functionality
Communities: 'MySites' (personal profiles including skills management, and search tools), enterprise wikis, organization hierarchy browser, tags and notes
Content: Improved tooling and compliance for document & record management, managed metadata, word automation services, content type management
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
Composites: Pre-built workflow templates, BCS profile pages
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. The product is equivalent to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007.
Extra features in SharePoint Enterprise include:
SharePoint Enterprise licencing 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.
“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.
The versions are (in chronological order):
Major Server-side or Developer changes include:
Additional changes exist in paid/advanced versions of SharePoint 2010.
put SharePoint in the "leaders" quadrant in three of its Magic Quadrant
s (for search, portals
, and enterprise content management
). By a wide margin, SharePoint is the most popular high-level enterprise web application platform used today.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
. First launched in 2001, SharePoint is typically associated with web content management
Content management
Content management, or CM, is the set of processes and technologies that support the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. In recent times this information is typically referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content...
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.
SharePoint is designed as a broad, central application platform for common enterprise web requirements. SharePoint's multi-purpose design allows for managing and provisioning of intranet portals, extranets, websites, document & file management, collaboration spaces, social tools, enterprise search, business intelligence
Business intelligence
Business intelligence mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes....
, 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.
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, and also provides SharePoint as a service in their cloud computing
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
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.
The SharePoint wheel
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:- Sites: The SharePoint platform fundamentally enables users to provision 'sites' (public or private) without a requirement for specialized knowledge. SharePoint is designed to become the central location for management of sites in an organization.
- Communities: SharePoint aims to support the formation of communities within an organization - these communities may form around teams, projects, clients, geographic locations, etc. SharePoint also provides social features and social integration.
- Content: SharePoint provides a central location to put content such as files, documents, or general information. This can be accessed and modified within a web browser or using a client application (typically Microsoft OfficeMicrosoft OfficeMicrosoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
) via desktop or smartphoneSmartphoneA smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
. SharePoint 2010 also provides a concurrent edit ability with Office 2010. - Search: SharePoint provides a range of search abilities, including in documents, in external content (such as network shares or public websites), and in user profiles.
- Insights: SharePoint provides data integration, data crawling, and report design to enable business decision making. SharePoint can integrate with SQL Server Reporting ServicesSQL Server Reporting ServicesSQL Server Reporting Services is a server-based report generation software system from Microsoft. It can be used to prepare and deliver a variety of interactive and printed reports. It is administered via a web interface...
to surface business intelligenceBusiness intelligenceBusiness intelligence mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes....
. - Composites: SharePoint provides an application platform based on ASP.NET 3.5 allowing no-code solutions to complex business problems using SharePoint Designer. SharePoint also allows custom code solutions to be deployed using Visual Studio.
Intranet portal
A SharePoint intranet portalIntranet portal
An intranet portal is the gateway that unifies access to all enterprise information and applications on an intranet. It is a tool that helps a company manage its data, applications, and information more easily, and through personalized views. Some portal solutions today are able to integrate legacy...
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
Employee engagement
Employee engagement, also called worker engagement, is a business management concept. An "engaged employee" is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work, and thus will act in a way that furthers their organization's interests...
, centralizing process management
Process management
Process management is the ensemble of activities of planning and monitoring the performance of a process. The term usually refers to the management of business processes and manufacturing processes...
, reducing new staff on-boarding costs, and providing tacit knowledge
Tacit knowledge
Tacit knowledge is knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalising it. For example, stating to someone that London is in the United Kingdom is a piece of explicit knowledge that can be written down, transmitted, and understood by a recipient...
capture.
Enterprise content and document management
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 working on documents, which can significantly reduce emails and duplicated work in an organization.Extranet sites
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 chainSupply chain
A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Supply chain activities transform natural resources, raw materials and components into a finished product that is delivered to...
s or business process
Business process
A business process or business method is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product for a particular customer or customers...
es.
Internet sites
Using the 'Publishing' feature, SharePoint can be used to manage larger public websites.Web-based configuration
SharePoint offers a 'fluent' ribbonRibbon (computing)
In GUI-based application software, a ribbon is an interface where a set of toolbars are placed on tabs in a tab bar. Recent releases of some Microsoft applications have embraced this form with a modular ribbon as their main interface. The Ribbon is a contextual interface that offers functionality...
user-interface that should be familiar to users of Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
. 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:
- Manipulate content in lists & libraries, pages and sites.
- Copy, create, delete, or rename lists & libraries, pages, sites and web-parts
- Manage user permissions, and view document/page version histories
- Manage definitions and properties of lists & libraries, pages, sites and web-parts
Integration of custom add-ons
Different types of third-party software customization can be made to the SharePoint farm:- Farm features and solutions — these are fully customized code that need to be installed at a farm-level, often in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) of each server. They have full trust on each server, but are typically quite difficult to deploy.
- 'Sand-boxed' solutions — uploaded by any end-user with permission to upload solutions through the web interface, these are security-restricted, and heavily governed by the farm infrastructure. In multi-tenant cloud environments, these are the only customizations that are typically allowed.
- Service applications — It is possible to integrate directly into the SharePoint SOA bus
- Use of RESTRestRest may refer to:* Leisure* Human relaxation* SleepRest may also refer to:* Rest , a pause in a piece of music* Rest , the relation between two observers* Rest , a 2008 album by Gregor Samsa...
/SOAPSOAPSOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks...
Web Service application programming interfaceApplication programming interfaceAn application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
s (APIs) - Use of the SharePoint 'Client Object Model' API (works in JavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
, Silverlight, and .NET.NET FrameworkThe .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...
)
These customizations may be surfaced as
- Application-to-application integration with SharePoint
- Extensions to SP functionality (e.g. custom workflow actions)
- 'Web Parts' (also known as "portlets", "widgets", or "gadgets") that provide new functionality when added to a page
- Pages/sites or page/site templates
Sites
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 & libraries
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 URLUniform Resource Locator
In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....
, 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
WebDAV
Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning is a set of methods based on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol that facilitates collaboration between users in editing and managing documents and files stored on World Wide Web servers...
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
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...
.
Web-parts
Web-parts are sections that can be inserted into Pages in SharePoint sites. These sections are UI Widgets whose typical uses are- Displaying content defined in the web-part's settings (e.g. custom content or an iFrame)
- Displaying items from Lists/Libraries (this can be customized in SharePoint Designer, using XSLTXSLTXSLT is a declarative, XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format,...
& CAMLCollaborative Application Markup LanguageCAML is an XML based markup language used with the family of Microsoft SharePoint technologies . Unlike plain XML, CAML contains specific groups of tags to both define and display data.-Elements:CAML allows developers to both construct and display data...
) - Providing Access to Features in the SharePoint platform (e.g. Search)
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
ASP.NET
ASP.NET is a Web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic Web sites, Web applications and Web services. It was first released in January 2002 with version 1.0 of the .NET Framework, and is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages ...
Web-parts, but as of SharePoint 2010, SharePoint's Web-parts are now based on it.
Pages
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.Search
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).Advanced features
SharePoint Foundation has the following advanced features:- Ability to integrate with SQL Server Reporting ServicesSQL Server Reporting ServicesSQL Server Reporting Services is a server-based report generation software system from Microsoft. It can be used to prepare and deliver a variety of interactive and printed reports. It is administered via a web interface...
2008 R2. - Ability to surface CRUD+Query operations on external SQLSQLSQL is a programming language designed for managing data in relational database management systems ....
, WCFWindows Communication FoundationThe Windows Communication Foundation , previously known as "Indigo", is an application programming interface in the .NET Framework for building connected, service-oriented applications.-The architectures:...
, and custom-built API services as SharePoint Lists, through Business Connectivity Services. - A Highly customizable 'branding' (i.e. design) model.
- A SOAPSOAPSOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks...
API, a RESTRestRest may refer to:* Leisure* Human relaxation* SleepRest may also refer to:* Rest , a pause in a piece of music* Rest , the relation between two observers* Rest , a 2008 album by Gregor Samsa...
API, and Client-Object Models for JavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
, Silverlight, and .NET.NET FrameworkThe .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability... - A high degree of scalability.
Compliance, standards and integration
- SharePoint heavily integrates with Microsoft OfficeMicrosoft OfficeMicrosoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
2007 and 2010. Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 is considered part of the Microsoft Office Suite. - SharePoint 2007 uses Microsoft's OpenXML document standard for integration with Microsoft Office.
- SharePoint provides various application programming interfaceApplication programming interfaceAn application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
s (APIs: client-side, server-side, JavaScript) and RESTRestRest may refer to:* Leisure* Human relaxation* SleepRest may also refer to:* Rest , a pause in a piece of music* Rest , the relation between two observers* Rest , a 2008 album by Gregor Samsa...
and SOAPSOAPSOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks...
interfaces. - SharePoint can be used to achieve compliance with many document retention, record management, document ID and discovery laws.
- SharePoint 2010 by default produces valid XHTMLXHTMLXHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....
1.0 that is compliant with WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility standards. With Service Pack 1, SharePoint 2010 is HTML 5HTML 5HTML5 is a language for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web, and is a core technology of the Internet originally proposed by Opera Software. It is the fifth revision of the HTML standard and is still under development...
and CSS 3 capable. - SharePoint 2010's server control output is primarily driven by XSLTXSLTXSLT is a declarative, XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format,...
and can be modified using the proprietary SharePoint Designer tool. - SharePoint 2010 can use claims-based authentication, relying on SAMLSAMLSecurity Assertion Markup Language is an XML-based open standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data between security domains, that is, between an identity provider and a service provider...
tokens for security assertions. SharePoint provides an open authentication plugin model. - SharePoint 2007 is compatible with CMISContent Management Interoperability ServicesContent Management Interoperability Services is a specification for improving interoperability between Enterprise Content Management systems. OASIS, a web standards consortium, approved CMIS as an OASIS Specification on May 1, 2010....
- the Content Management Interoperability Standard, using Microsoft's CMIS Connector.
Architecture
The SharePoint platform is based on an n-tier service-oriented architectureService-oriented architecture
In software engineering, a Service-Oriented Architecture is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components that can be reused for...
(SOA).
Web applications
Web Applications (WAs) are top-level containers for SharePoint content, 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 IISInternet Information Services
Internet Information Services – formerly called Internet Information Server – is a web server application and set of feature extension modules created by Microsoft for use with Microsoft Windows. It is the most used web server after Apache HTTP Server. IIS 7.5 supports HTTP, HTTPS,...
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.
Site collections
A site collection is used to provide a grouping of 'SharePoint Sites'. Each web application must 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.Service applications
Service Applications (SAs) provide granular pieces of 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 DirectoryActive Directory
Active Directory is a directory service created by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems. Server computers on which Active Directory is running are called domain controllers....
(AD) service account. SharePoint Server and SharePoint Enterprise contain more SAs than the SharePoint Foundation.
Administration and security
The Modular nature of SharePoint's architecture enables a secure 'least-privileges' execution permission best practice.SharePoint Central Administration (the CA) is a web application that exists on a maximum of one server in the farm. 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
Windows PowerShell
Windows PowerShell is Microsoft's task automation framework, consisting of a command-line shell and associated scripting language built on top of, and integrated with the .NET Framework...
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
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
) 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.
SharePoint editions
Microsoft SharePoint 2010 comes in three different editions: SharePoint Foundation, SharePoint Standard and SharePoint Enterprise.Microsoft SharePoint Foundation
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. SharePoint Foundation is available for download at no cost. Downloading SharePoint Foundation however, requires a mandatory registration.Microsoft SharePoint Standard
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
Web analytics
Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage....
functionality
Communities: 'MySites' (personal profiles including skills management, and search tools), enterprise wikis, organization hierarchy browser, tags and notes
Content: Improved tooling and compliance for document & record management, managed metadata, word automation services, content type management
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
Composites: Pre-built workflow templates, BCS profile pages
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. The product is equivalent to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007.
Microsoft SharePoint Enterprise
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:
- Search thumbnails and previews, rich web indexing, better search results
- BI Integration, Dashboards, and Business Data surfacing
- PowerPivotPowerpivotPowerPivot is a free add-in to the 2010 version of the spreadsheet application Microsoft Excel. It extends the capabilities of the PivotTable data summarisation and cross-tabulation feature by introducing the ability to import data from multiple sources...
- PerformancePoint
- Microsoft Office Access, Visio, Excel, and InfoPath Forms services
- SharePoint Enterprise Search extensions
SharePoint Enterprise licencing 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.
Related products
- Microsoft Search Server Express, Microsoft Search ServerMicrosoft Search ServerMicrosoft Search Server is an enterprise search platform from Microsoft, based on the search capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. MSS shares its architectural underpinnings with the Windows Search platform for both the querying engine as well as the indexer...
, and Microsoft FAST Enterprise Search - Search products that can be implemented on SharePoint Foundation (and subsequent extensions) - Microsoft SharePoint DesignerMicrosoft SharePoint DesignerMicrosoft SharePoint Designer is a specialized HTML editor and web design freeware for creating or modifying Microsoft SharePoint sites and web pages. It is a part of Microsoft SharePoint family of products...
- A free, client-side customization and configuration tool for SharePoint. - Microsoft Office Web AppsOffice Web AppsMicrosoft Office Web Apps is a web-based version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite. It includes the web-based versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft OneNote. The web applications allow users to access their documents directly from anywhere within a...
- Web-based, online, cross-browser compatible versions of Excel, Word, PowerPoint and One-note. These integrate directly into SharePoint's document management functionality. - Microsoft Project Server - An extension to SharePoint providing integration with Microsoft ProjectMicrosoft ProjectMicrosoft Project is a project management software program, developed and sold by Microsoft, which is designed to assist a project manager in developing a plan, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.The application creates critical path...
- Microsoft SharePoint Workspace - A client-side document management synchronization component included in Microsoft Office 2010 (Professional Plus edition and higher).
History
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.
The versions are (in chronological order):
- Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001
- Microsoft SharePoint Team Services (2002)
- Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 (free license) - Microsoft SharePoint 2003 (commercial release)
- Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (free license) - plus Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (commercial extension)
- Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 (free) - plus Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 (commercial extension for Foundation), and SharePoint Enterprise 2010 (commercial extension for Server)
Changes in SharePoint Foundation 2010
Changes in end-user functionality added in the latest version of SharePoint include:- "v4" User InterfaceUser interfaceThe user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
, featuring a Fluent RibbonRibbon (computing)In GUI-based application software, a ribbon is an interface where a set of toolbars are placed on tabs in a tab bar. Recent releases of some Microsoft applications have embraced this form with a modular ribbon as their main interface. The Ribbon is a contextual interface that offers functionality... - Business Connectivity Services - providing interfaces for interacting with business data
- New Governance and Workflow functionality
- Use of Wiki-pages rather than Web-part pages in default templates
- Social Profiles and Social Networking features
- Support for SharePoint Workspaces 2010
- A re-developed client editor (SharePoint Designer)
- Multi-browser support: Internet ExplorerInternet ExplorerWindows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
7, Mozilla Firefox 3.6, and (WebKitWebKitWebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...
-based) Apple SafariSafari (web browser)Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...
4.04. Support for Internet Explorer 6Internet Explorer 6Internet Explorer 6 is the sixth major revision of Internet Explorer, a web browser developed by Microsoft for Windows operating systems...
has not been tested, according to Microsoft.
Major Server-side or Developer changes include:
- New central administration UI
- Replacement of "Shared Service Providers" with "Service Applications"
- jQueryJQueryjQuery is a cross-browser JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML. It was released in January 2006 at BarCamp NYC by John Resig...
& Silverlight Support, plus more theming flexibility - New Client-side Object Model APIs for JavaScript, Silverlight, and .NET.NET FrameworkThe .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...
applications - Claims-based authentication
- Support for Windows PowerShellWindows PowerShellWindows PowerShell is Microsoft's task automation framework, consisting of a command-line shell and associated scripting language built on top of, and integrated with the .NET Framework...
- Sandboxed solutions
Additional changes exist in paid/advanced versions of SharePoint 2010.
Server hardware
| Processor | 64-bit, four cores |
| RAM |
|
| Hard disk | 80 GB for system drive, varies for production environment depending on application size |
Server software
| Operating system |
|
| Database server |
|
Supported web browsers
Supported web browsers include- Internet ExplorerInternet ExplorerWindows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
7 or later: 32-bit version of this browser are fully supported; 64-bit versions have limited support - Firefox 3.6: Limited support
- SafariSafari (web browser)Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...
4.04: Limited support - Google ChromeGoogle ChromeGoogle Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...
12: Limited support with Service Pack 1
Reception
Evaluations of SharePoint by industry analysts have varied. In late 2008, the Gartner GroupGartner
Gartner, Inc. is an information technology research and advisory firm headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, United States. It was known as GartnerGroup until 2001....
put SharePoint in the "leaders" quadrant in three of its Magic Quadrant
Magic Quadrant
The Gartner Magic Quadrant is a proprietary research tool developed by Gartner Inc., a US based research and advisory firm. According to Gartner, the Magic Quadrant aims to provide a qualitative analysis into a market and its direction, maturity and participants, thus possibly enabling a company...
s (for search, portals
Web portal
A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....
, and enterprise content management
Enterprise content management
Enterprise Content Management is a formalized means of organizing and storing an organization's documents, and other content, that relate to the organization's processes...
). By a wide margin, SharePoint is the most popular high-level enterprise web application platform used today.
See also
- Collaborative Application Markup LanguageCollaborative Application Markup LanguageCAML is an XML based markup language used with the family of Microsoft SharePoint technologies . Unlike plain XML, CAML contains specific groups of tags to both define and display data.-Elements:CAML allows developers to both construct and display data...
(CAML) - Enterprise portalEnterprise portalAn enterprise portal, also known as an enterprise information portal or corporate portal, is a framework for integrating information, people and processes across organizational boundaries. It provides a secure unified access point, often in the form of a web-based user interface, and is designed...
- List of collaborative software