Working with large lists in WSS and MOSS

This document written by Microsoft does provide some useful statistics (yawn!) but important overall statements that will affect the way you architect your lists used with BOTH your MOSS and WSS v3 based deployments. Remember virtually everything is a based upon some form of list within Microsoft’s latest platform so pay attention!

Although described as being a series of tests using MOSS, this also applies to WSS based lists as they are principally one in the same. I am surprised they have used a rather low end platform for these tests, but to be ‘forewarned is forearmed’ so to speak.

Some important statements around list size, including the use of folders are particularly key.

Whom should read this? Well any Architect or Consultant whose role it is to design solutions based upon this platform needs to be aware. Of particular interest also was the finding for the ‘crawl times’ that can be affected by the use of large lists (I painfully recall SharePoint 2003/WSS V2 having similar issues!!). This is also of particular interest to those of you who use SharePoint to store your scanned images as part of your document imaging solution.

Regards,

Andy

Bournemouth Business Breakfast Club

WorkShares recently joined and attended Bournemouth Breakfast Club (http://www.bournemouthbreakfastclub.co.uk/) a local networking group for the Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch area. The Club has been in existence since 1993, and is about networking, contacts and business opportunities. The atmosphere is informal and friendly and we welcome people from a wide range of businesses and professions.

WorkShares intends to be regular participants to these monthly events and looks forward to the next session due on the 18^th July.

An Alternative to Exchange Public Folders…

I read with interest the following article from this months’ Technet magazine which provides a useful ‘helicopter’ view of the technologies available now within Microsoft’s Office System (formerly known as Microsoft SharePoint Server 2003, Microsoft CMS amongst other services). In particular the features purportedly from Microsoft’s Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 which out of the box provide an easy to use, enhanced and replacement set of features for the widely used Exchange Public folder mechanism.

Unlike MOSS (which licensed at server/client in most cases), most of the functionality described in this article is actually provided by the underpinning technology of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS v3) which is ‘free’ with your Windows 2003 server license program. WSS sits below MOSS on top of the operating system and ‘comes with’ MOSS, but WSS is also available as a free download.

It’s worth reviewing both sets of functionality (MOSS and or WSS) before committing to either one (or both). MOSS undoubtedly provides an enterprise level suite of applications, but don’t overlook its smaller sibling (WSS) as it packs a mighty punch in terms of end user productivity.

Saas and Microsoft

I have been running a simple survey on the home page of the WorkShares web site (www.workhares.co.uk) for the last couple of months, really to gauge feedback on the terminology of ‘Software as a Service’ or SaaS. The results, though relatively few in number, have been to some extent what I expected in that there is general confusion in the community as to what SaaS actually means. The survey results showed that a similar number of respondents indicated they ‘didn’t know’ what SaaS was or thought it was ‘software they bought and owned’ outright, as did those who correctly said it was software businesses rented for a period of time.

Interestingly, Microsoft as part of its move into the world of Web 2.0 via several initiatives, not least OfficeLive (and other related services and products) are touting ‘Software + Services’ (I hear the groans from those of you thinking this is yet another Microsoft term we are going to have to get used to in the near future!). What the latter purports to provide businesses is a growing set of Microsoft SaaS products, which continue to allow bespoke development to take place, no doubt using Microsoft development technologies, allowing addition features and functions to be added along with integration with existing web based and or line of business application installed on company networks. Aimed squarely at small to medium businesses, as you can imagine this is a difficult balancing act for Microsoft, especially with its base of Small Business Server users out there…

So, it’s an interesting time for Microsoft especially when so much of its revenue comes from the creation, production and support of shrink wrapped, locally installed products. We witness before us a huge company trying to turn its ‘gorilla’ like business interests around to become more agile, flexible and open to what we as consumers will surely demand. If it is to continue its position in the market place as the major player, in a way it does now with its consumer/business products it is certainly taking the right steps in my view. I can’t help but think there are going to be some upset people along with the way however, but for me I tend to think there will be room for everyone out there for some time to come.

Regards,

Andrew

Managing Director

www.workshares.co.uk

WorkShares joins BT Tradespace!

WorkShares have joined BT Tradespace, and we will be slowly building up our SharePoint products and wider services on here also, in addition to the normal company web site.

BT Marketplace is an online community where small to medium sized organisations can connect to local and national businesses, guided by particular topics or rather ‘communities of interest’.

Our BT Tradespace site is located here.

Regards,

Sales Team

WSS Version 3 Evaluation Guide

The WSS Evaluation Guide was released by Microsoft in January 2007. A useful document for newbie’s and certainly worth you grabbing a coffee/quiet place to review its contents. It’s been chopped and changed during the Beta releases last year and is a well put together document and essential read in my view. The document is here: WSS V3 Guide

In addition, I still think this document (entitled “Organizational and Cultural Issues to Consider When Deploying Your New Windows SharePoint Services Solution”) written way back in July 2005 is as useful today as it was back then and should be read in conjunction with this latest evaluation guide from Microsoft. The key principles it discusses still ring true with WSSV3, as they did with WSSV2. This document can be found here: Organisational and Cultural Issues

How any potential solution (irrespective of whether its WSS V2, WSSV3 or anything else for that matter) is accepted culturally within your organisation not forgetting how it was originally conceived, designed, planned and ultimately measured for success, are critical elements that need to be considered for your new WSS V3 based solution.

 

SharePoint Designer 2007 – Training Videos

Here are some fairly detailed training video provided by Microsoft. For those wishing to get a heads up on the capabilities of SharePoint Designer 2007 and how it integrates with SharePoint, these are a good start.

1. Powerful user interface and design tools
   
2. Customise SharePoint sites
   
3. Create and modify layout pages
   
4. Create and modify rules-based workflow applications
   
5. Build composite no-code SharePoint applications
   
6. Visual Studio integration.
   

Play videos

PS: The presenter has some wonderful arm movements at the beginning!

WSS – Explorer View Problems Explained!

For those of you still using WSS V2 (yes I am sure there are 1000′s of you who have not moved to V3 yet!) here is an interesting article from Microsoft about the Explorer view feature. Though we could have done with this article 2-3 years ago, it’s better late than never.

It offers an in depth overview of the architecture, some common misconceptions and some resolutions to one of the most frustrating, yet often heavily used features of the platform.

Download the whitepaper here

Regards,

Andrew

Microsoft ROI Calculator for WSS V3

I have just spent some time reviewing with some interest the WSS V3 ROI tool published by Microsoft in partnership with Ealinean and is part of the Infrastructure Assessment Framework. It provides some ROI type evidence to support deploying Windows 2003 R2/WSS V3. It’s a ‘free tool’ and that’s not to say that this tool isn’t useful, because I think it will be for many large businesses that require some ROI based information to appease the bean counters of this world.

However, be prepared for a significant amount of information that you need to gather prior to inputting it in to the tool! My experience tells me that much of this information isn’t readily available, and where it is not people will ‘guestimate’ which ultimately can affect the quality output/recommendations.

The other consideration is that this calculator doesn’t appear to cover the cost of implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) to provide the management framework for the larger deployments. Which let’s face it, if you are looking for ROI figures to support your business case, then your investment in WSS V3 is likely to be for big numbers of users/WSS sites as your Finance dept is looking for ROI to support your proposal. In this case, I would argue you will need MOSS to provide any reasonable level of operation management, coherence and importantly something the ROI will not give you, is helping the user adoption of your proposed deployment of new technology. No matter how rosy your ROI figures are, if the solution isn’t adopted by your user community it won’t be deemed a success by the business as a whole.

So use the ROI calculator, but don’t rely too much on the hard and fast figures it produces and consider the wider support, management and adoption of the WSS environment you are considering to deploy.

Best,

Andrew

PS The calculator can be found here.

Update 27/02/07:

I have found via some further research whilst trawling MSFT Technet, the following which will help address my concerns mentioned above. Very detailed and not for the faint hearted!

MSFT Office 2007 Best Practices Analyser.

Estimate performance and capacity requirements for Windows SharePoint Services collaboration environments (Office SharePoint Server) Addresses test results and recommendations specific to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 collaboration environments.

Estimate performance and capacity requirements for portal collaboration environments Addresses test results and recommendations specific to Office SharePoint Server 2007 portal collaboration environments.

Estimate performance and capacity requirements for search environments Addresses test results and recommendations specific to Office SharePoint Server 2007 environments in which the Search service is a principal feature.

Update: 12/12/2012

Unfortunately the Infrastructure Assessment Framework seems to have been taken down, so suggest you consider the report produced by Forester, for Microsoft which still has some valid statements today.

By Andrew Walmsley

Work Shares web site is launched!

It’s done! After what’s been around 2 weeks or so since I started (I hasten to add not full time!) the web site for Work Shares is finally live. You can find it at www.workshares.co.uk. There are links to a number of areas, including the SharePoint professional services and solutions I plan to offer clients, and of course a link to this Blog!

I am no expert in the building of web sites, but have been pleasantly surprised with what can be achieved with a little planning and design up front. Thanks to the guys at NativeSpace who host the service and the Mambo open source community for their content management solution I am using.

Best,

Andrew