What is SharePoint ?SharePoint is a set of Products and Technologies with informative and collaborative web-based capabilities that help people create, organize, distribute and maintain stored knowledge. SharePoint can be used to develop both intranet and extranet portals and team sites, as well as public facing Internet sites. SharePoint is a great platform upon which to build applications ad provides many key services in the story of the Microsoft Application Platform.

The set of products and technologies includes two platforms:1. Windows SharePoint Services (WSS)2. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)

WSS is used to create web sites for team collaboration on a common project.MOSS builds on WSS with additional capabilities like portal publishing, enterprise search, enterprise content management (ECM), reporting, analysis tools etc.

Windows SharePoint Service

WSS is free and can be downloaded from Microsoft downloads site.WSS includes Site Templates for team sites, Document Workspaces, Meeting Workspace, blogs, wikis, etc.

WSS may include document libraries, form libraries, calendars, announcements, task lists, issues lists, and custom lists. Each of these is simple a special instance of a list, and each list contains items or rows. What makes each distinct are the columns stored, and the views provided. For example you can create a calendar in terms of columns and rows but in actual the terminology behind this calendar control is list which solves the purpose of calendar.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS or OSS) comes in two versions:

1. Standard--- MOSS Extends WSS with functionality for web content management

(WCM), Records Management, Workflows, Single-Sign-On (SSO), expanded search including people Search, and site variations to

ease the multilingual sites.2. Enterprise

--- Enterprise Edition contains the features of Standard Edition plus the following: a Forms Server to publish browser based forms from

InfoPath, an Excel Server for spreadsheet publishing etc.

Both WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 are .net 2.0 applications with XML Web Service interaction layers and ASP.NET presentation layers.

Microsoft Application PlatformEach component in an application platform provides a service, which may be used by any application in an enterprise. An application platform has a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), meaning that each component provides a standard service which may be replaced with an equivalent provider of that service.

Common tools that are used throughout the Microsoft Application Platform (MAP) stack:1. Windows Server provides a common server platform.2. Microsoft Management Console (MMC) provides a common server

management interface.3. The .NET framework and the underlying CLR.4. Visual Studio.5. Windows Workflow Foundation.

Architectural Overview of SharePoint

SharePoint is a three tired application.

1. The Presentation layer lives in the file system as an ASP.NET application.2. The Logic lives in .NET assemblies, and 3. The data resides in a SQL Server Database.

On the surface, Windows SharePoint Service is a web application platform that provides a collection of services accessed through SharePoint web pages, XML web services, and a .NET application programming interface (API).

Architectural Overview of SP

Architectural Overview of SharePoint

SharePoint is installed into a subtree popularly called the “12 hive”, which defaults to the following location:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\12

The 12 Hive contains SharePoint’s utilities, assemblies, resources, and the web services and the web applications that compose its interface. SharePoint next requirement is an IIS Virtual server, also called a web site or a web application.

The first in the SharePoint Central Administration (SCA).

Installing sharePoint to a web application is known as extending Web Application. This modifies the web.config to include SharePoint HTTP Handler, and to mark SharePoint object as safe. For each SharePoint web application a content database is created.

SharePoint’s scope of configuration

SharePoint scopes for the configuration of the platform and its features are:

1. The Farm2. The Web Application3. The Site (a.k.a. Site Collection)4. The Web

SharePoint’s scope of configuration

The Farm is the server or set of servers that host SharePoint. Upon installation, roles are assigned to each server in the farm, and the services are bound to serves based on roles and expected traffic patterns. There is one configuration database per farm i.e. one SharePoint Central Administration web application within the farm.

The Web Application is the IIS entry where an application pool context is set for SharePoint, and an address (URL) is defined by IP Address, port, and / or host header so that each instance of SharePoint can be located with a web browser or mapped to a DNS common name.

SharePoint’s scope of configuration

A SharePoint Site is an object which contains webs (SPWeb). Developers refer to SPSite as “Site Collection”.

An SPWeb is a web within a site collection and each web may contain its own set of child webs.

SharePoint Farm Server roles

Several server roles combine to make up the SharePoint small, medium, and large farm configurations. The three principal roles in a MOSS farm are:

1. Web Front End (WFE)2. Application Server3. Database

Web Front-End (WFE)Single server or a set of Network Load Balanced (NLB) servers that hosts SharePoint web sites and the Central Administration web site.

Application (App) or Shared Service ProviderThe Application node hosts the Logical layer of a SharePoint deployment, and contains more Shared Service Providers.

A SSP provides a central point for MOSS services, including:

1. The index services2. The Query services3. Profile import and management4. Audience management5. Content management logic6. The business data catalog7. Excel services8. Form services9. Job scheduling, and 10. Usage reporting

Each SharePoint web application can have its one SSP but not more than one. But multiple SharePoint Applications can share one SSP.

SharePoint Farm Configurations

There are several recommended configurations based on the performance and number of servers available.

1. Stand-Alone: One Server2. Small farm: Two Servers3. Medium Farm: Three to Five Servers4. Large Farm: Four or More Servers

SharePoint and ASP.NETASP.NET provides the presentation layer of SharePoint.

A Developer who understands the ASP.NET providers and related controls already understands most of what it takes to create a SharePoint page.

Elements of a SharePoint Page

It’s a game of a ASP.NET (.aspx) pages, master pages, and web parts.

Building the Host Machine

1. Install Host Machine

2. Install the Microsoft Loopback Adapter on the Host Machine

3. Configure the Loopback adapter on the host machine

Building the server

1.Create a new Virtual Machine

2.Configure Virtual Machine settings

3.Install the operating system

4.Edit host file on the Local Machine

5.Install Virtual Machine Additions

6.Install ASP.NET 3.0 on the VM

7.Backup your Base Image

8.Install AD and DNS on the Virtual Machine

9.Install IIS

10.Install and Enable ASP.NET 2.0

11.Create a Stand-Alone WSS 3.0

12.Set up WSS 3.0

13.Install Visual Studio

14.Install SQL Server

15.Install Microsoft Office2007

16.Install SQL Server Developer Edition

17.Install MOSS

18.Install and configure AD and DNS

Thanks

- Govind S Yadav & Amit Mathur