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Overview
What is SharePoint?
So, what is SharePoint? You may have asked this question before. SharePoint allows individuals in an organization to easily create and manage collaborative business solutions.
SharePoint can be used for many things: storing documents, collaborating with colleagues on projects, publishing departmental information, and even managing common processes like time off requests and expense reports. It is hard to define since it offers many capabilities, but generally it provides a flexible platform to enable you and your colleagues to get work done. The great part is that all you need is a web browser and you can begin.
There are two types of SharePoint: one that is run on your company’s servers, and one that is hosted by Microsoft through Office 365. Microsoft offers two versions of their web-based platforms: Office Online for consumers, and Office 365 for businesses. You may have an email address from @outlook.com or @live.com or even @hotmail.com; this is the Office Online consumer experience. For Office 365, you log in using your work email and may have access to more functionality, such as SharePoint Online and instant messaging.
From your perspective, there is little difference between SharePoint Server and SharePoint online in Office 365; they both offer great ways to collaborate, and they both are accessed through a web browser. When there are differences, they will be pointed out.
Working on a document store in SharePoint
In SharePoint, documents are stored in Libraries, which have many useful features that are not available in a local folder or file share.
You have three options when opening a document. You can read the document in the browser, you can choose to edit it in the browser, or you can choose to edit it with Office installed locally on your computer.
If you choose the edit it locally, it will act exactly like a local document, but your changes will be saved to SharePoint.
Often before publishing a document, you will work together with colleagues on it. As opposed to emailing the document around, with SharePoint you can all work off of the same document at the same time. This is called simultaneous co-authoring, and it is made possible by Office using the features to track changes and comments.
SharePoint provides the added benefit of storing the document in a place where anyone can retrieve it from any device at any time. All you need is a web browser.
SharePoint Document Library
If we look at the SharePoint Document Library more closely, we will find some more helpful features for managing our document. The ribbon (or fluid UI in Microsoft-speak) at the top of library, much like in Office, contains features to help you manage the files stored in the library as well as the configuration of the library itself.
At the top, the Browse tab will hide the ribbon, showing the SharePoint navigation below; the Files tab will show relevant actions to the file(s) selected in the document list below, and the Library tab shows actions that affect how the library itself looks and behaves.
The Files tab is most relevant to us while we work on these documents. From left to right, the New section of the ribbon allows us to add new documents to this library by creating them directly in SharePoint or uploading them from the computer.
In the Open and Check Out group, we find the Check Out and Check In functions. These are useful while co-authoring a document. If you wish to be the only one able to edit a document while you have it open working on it, you can choose Check Out to lock others out. Once you are done with your edits, you can Check In to allow others to see your edits and make their own. The purpose is to prevent conflicts while editing a document, which is often helpful for larger teams or once the document is in the final stages before publishing.
In the Manage group on the ribbon, you will find Version History. SharePoint allows you to enable version controls on your library so you can keep, review and restore previously saved versions of a document. When you click on the Version History button, you will see all the versions of this document saved by SharePoint and have the ability to view, restore and delete old versions.
In the Share & Track group of the ribbon, there is the very important Share button. This allows you to invite your colleagues to view or edit the document along with you.
After clicking Share, Rob will get an email just like the one you received that started your journey in SharePoint.
Searching for documents
Document libraries tend to grow large as projects progress, so having the ability to search for the document you are looking for is very handy. Use the search box directly above the list of documents in the library.
Also, you can see in the upper right that there is a second search box that says, “Search this site”. The library we have been working in (“Documents”) lives in a SharePoint Site that may contain other libraries, lists of data, calendars, web pages, wikis and more. In this way, it is different from a typical internet web site that would only contain pages. The search box allows you to extend your search beyond just this library to find what you are looking for.
What Are SharePoint Farms and How Does SharePoint Architecture Work?
SharePoint farms are a collection of servers that work together to deliver a service to support a site. There are three types of servers: web front ends (WFEs), application servers, and database (SQL) servers.
Web Front End Servers
Web Front End Servers (WFEs) handle web page requests from users. This means that each time a user opens a SharePoint page in a browser, it’s processed by a WFE server. If there are multiple WFE servers, a Network Load Balancer is put in place to distribute requests between them. This enables organizations to scale their SharePoint environments as needed; the more users you have, the more WFE servers you will need to handle the workloads as the environment and user needs grow.
Application Servers
An Application Server is a computer that provides key infrastructure and services for applications that are hosted in an organization’s SharePoint farm(s). This usually means that the server has been assigned to run applications such as Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, Access services, or Index/Search services.
Database Servers (SQL)
SQL Server is a database server that implements Structured Query Language (SQL). This language is specifically designed to handle data in a relational database management system—in this case, a SharePoint farm.
Now that you know how SharePoint collections work together, it’s time to dive into the difference between single farms and multiple farms!
Single Farm vs. Multiple Farms
A single farm is made up of a group of servers that come together using a tiered model to provide services and content. In SharePoint’s case, this single farm environment is made of WFEs, Application Servers, and SQL Database servers. With a single farm you will have a strong foundation of services and as many databases, web applications, and site collections as needed for your organization!
On the other hand, multiple farms are made of services farms, My Site farms, and content farms that only perform certain functions or services. This architecture enables organizations to have specific services to provide for business needs based on scalability, function, and policy requirements.
For an organization that is using a multi-farm architecture, the expectation would be to have multiple administrators handle those different farms. This is necessary if you’re in an organization that has multiple county departments or regions with their own unique policies that need to be adhered to. As such, a multi-farm architecture approach should be used when necessary despite its added complexity. The environment requires more mindful administration and control of multiple environments, after all!
For example, if the ACME corporation has regional offices in different countries, they may need to adhere to any country-specific data sovereignty laws if it’s collecting, managing, or generating data.
In response to this, the ACME corporation could create multiple farms that are geo-specific and built to technically comply with the regulations placed in each country while still providing the entire corporation with a unified approach to managing their SharePoint environment for end-users. This will facilitate ACME’s adherence to region-specific policy and regulations–including any data sovereignty requirements–while maintaining a unified “singular” SharePoint user experience for ACME employees.
SharePoint – Setup Environment
In this chapter, we will setup the development environment for SharePoint. As you already know that there are three different options of SharePoint. They are −
- SharePoint Foundation
- SharePoint Server
- Office 365
In this chapter, we will be using the Office 365, which is cloud-based version.
Step 1 − You can easily create a free trial account here https://products.office.com/en/business/office-365-enterprise-e3-business-software.
Step 2 − Click the Free trial option. A new page will open.
Step 3 − Enter the required information and click Next and you will see the following page.
Step 4 − Enter the username, company name and password and click Next. It will send you a verification code. Once the verification is completed then it will start creating the account.
Step 5 − Once your account is created, you will see the following page.
Step 6 − Click You’re ready to go and you will see the following page −
Now your environment is ready and you can start share point development but you will also need to install visual studio.
Microsoft provides a free version of visual studio, which also contains SQL Server and it can be downloaded from https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs.aspx.
Installation
Following steps will guide you to install SharePoint.
Step 1 − Once downloading is complete, run the installer. The following dialog will be displayed.
Step 2 − Click Install and it will start the installation process.
Step 3 − Once the installation process is completed successfully, you will see the following message −
Step 4 − Restart your computer if required. Now open Visual studio from the Start Menu. It will open the following dialog box and it will take some time for preparation.
Step 5 − Once all is done, you will see the main window of Visual studio.
You are now ready to start your application.
Step 6 − Select File → New → Project menu option.
Step 7 − Select Office/SharePoint in the left pane under Templates → Visual C#. Doubleclick Install Office Developer Tools.
Step 8 − Click Install and close all Visual Studio instances. A new page will open. Click Next.
Step 9 − A message box will appear. Click Update.
Step 10 − Once it is updated, you will see the message as follows −
SharePoint 2013 is a collaboration environment that organizations of all sizes can use to increase the efficiency of business processes.
SharePoint 2013 sites provide secure environments that administrators can configure to provide personalized access to documents and other information.
SharePoint 2013 introduces new ways to work together in today’s cloud, social, mobile business environment. With SharePoint 2013, you can share, build, organize, manage, and discover better.
Applications can be developed for the SharePoint 2013 platform in different ways, for example, as:
- Apps for SharePoint
- SharePoint Publishing Sites
- SharePoint Farm Solutions
- Mobile Apps for SharePoint
- Reusable Components for SharePoint
Adding these capabilities to your application (of any type mentioned alongside) helps users do things better and faster:
- Workflows
- Social & Collaboration Features
- Location & Mapping Features
- Search
- Business Connectivity Services
- Office 2013 & SharePoint 2013 Application Services
SharePoint Online is a collection of Web-based tools and technologies that help your organization store, share, and manage digital information. Built on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013, this hosted service is ideal for working on projects, storing data and documents in a central location, and sharing information with others.
SharePoint 2013: Installation Step by Step
Software Prerequisites
- Wnidows Server 2008 R2 64bit with service pack or Wnidows Server 2012
- SQL Server 2008R2 or SQL Server 2012
- Windows Identity Foundation v1.1
- Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client
- Microsoft WCF Data Services
- Windows Management Framework 3.0
- Application Server Role
- Web Server (IIS) Role
- Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0
- Update for the .NET Framework 4 (KB2468871)
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native Client
- Windows Identity Foundation (KB974405)
- Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 (x64)
- Windows Server AppFabric
Steps
1. Download and unzip the files ISO file the SharePoint Server 2013 setup
7. Once the installation is complete, you can choose to run the Configuration Wizard as shown below. Now you Configuration Wizard screen will appaear, click Close to continue.
8. Now welcome screen will be appear click next to continue
9. After that an warning message may be viewable that make you update that at time of configuration listed service will restart or not.
10. If you already have any server farm then click ‘Connect to an existing server farm’ or click on ‘Create a new server farm’
13 Here I like to specify an alternate more memorable port number.
14. Now Click on next
Now this error indicate SQL Server instance does not have the required ”max degree of parrallelism” setting of 1. We need to run the following script on our SQL 2012 server.
sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1; GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE; GO sp_configure 'max degree of parallelism', 1; GO RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE; GO
It’s an important issue that SQL under databases that the SharePoint_Config database had been created. We need to delete the SharePoint_Config DB otherwise we would have to specify a new name when re-running the SharePoint Configuration Wizard.
17. Central Administration will launch automatically and you will be greeted with the Initial Farm Configuration page.
Cognosys Provides Hardened images of SharePoint on the cloud ( AWS marketplace, Azure and Google Cloud Platform).
Deploy SharePoint securely on cloud i.e. AWS marketplace, Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
SharePoint 2013 Enterprise on Cloud for AWS
