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 Server 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 Server. 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 Third Wave 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.
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
The tightest integration
with Exchange Server 2010 and the 2010 line of Office products can be
found within the SharePoint Server 2010 wave of SharePoint products and
technologies. Some
features of this new line of SharePoint products has been announced,
however, and includes the following improvements:
64-bit only infrastructure, both on SharePoint and on the database back-end
Inclusion of the Office ribbon for performing common Office tasks from within the browser
Improved and consolidated administration from SharePoint Central Admin
Improvements in business data tools
Many other improvements to the platform, most of which will be announced in the near future
Look for subsequent
versions of this book to include more information on SharePoint Server
2010, or refer to the upcoming book by SAMS, SharePoint 2010 Unleashed.
