Computer Beginner Guide

First and foremost, a site collection is a (hierarchically arranged) logical container for grouping sites. From there, you need to know that the top-level site in a site collection is often a portal site that aggregates content from subsites - although this isn’t required - and that a Web application can host multiple site collections. The number of site collections you create depends on many factors. Every site in a collection shares navigation, security and permissions, templates, and content types. You should plan to group together sites that need to share these items and make them a site collection. Before you create a site collection, gather several pieces of information - including these: Path: You can determine the path to your site collection before you create it. The servername in the URL is determined by the Web application. Your two default options are to create the site collection at the root of the URL or at the sites path. Subsites are created below th

You can create as many Web applications as you feel are necessary, but the big thing about creating different Web applications is that you can isolate site collections from each other. And why is isolation a good thing? Well, if each Web application has its own configuration, that means that you can then do the following: Use different authentication. Giving each Web application its own authentication scheme means you can have one Web application for internal use and another for external access. Use separate application pools. If you set it up so that each Web application uses its own application pool in Internet Information Services, you can keep the applications separate from each other on the server so they can’t corrupt each other. Use separate databases. By using different databases for each Web application, you can isolate content for backup and restore operations. To create a new Web application, follow these steps: 1. Click the Application Management t

One feature of SharePoint is that you can use it to collaborate with members of a team to accomplish a project. I can’t think of a better project that requires collaboration among many parties than installing and configuring SharePoint. Apparently Microsoft agrees; it added an Administrator Tasks list to the Central Administration Web site. By using the Administrator Tasks list, you get a feel for how you can use SharePoint to manage tasks. Viewing administrative tasks When you install SharePoint, SharePoint creates a list of administrative tasks that you need to complete if you want to configure SharePoint. You may not need to complete every single task, and you may need to complete additional tasks that aren’t listed. The list of administrative tasks is just a list that Microsoft believes most installations need to complete. MOSS 2007 includes additional tasks that don’t apply to Windows SharePoint Services such as configured shared services. To view the Administrator

MOSS 2007 requires that you create and configure a Shared Services Provider (SSP). SSP enables the servers in your server farm to share services with each other. Most of the great features that you want to use in MOSS 2007, such as personalization, Excel Services, and the Business Data Catalog, are hosted by the Shared Services Provider. You usually only need one SSP per server farm, but it is possible to have more than one. Before you can create the SSP, you must create a Web application for the SSP administration site in Internet Information Services (IIS). To create the new Web application for the SSP administration site, follow these steps: Browse to the Central Administration Web site. Click the Application Management tab on the Central Administration home page. Click the Create or Extend Web Application link in the SharePoint Web Application Management section. Click the Create a New Web Application link. The Create a New Web Application page appears. Acce

The SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard creates the database and gets your servers ready for serving SharePoint. Before you can actually start using SharePoint, however, you have to configure which services you want to run on hardware in your server farm. The following two services must be configured first for MOSS 2007: Office SharePoint Server Search: This service provides search and indexing features to your SharePoint implementation. You must implement the service on at least one front-end server. Windows SharePoint Services Web Application: This service must run on any front-end server that you intend to use as a Web server that would serve up the Web pages for your SharePoint server. For Windows SharePoint Server version 3 installations, you need only to start the Windows SharePoint Services Search service. To start a new service, follow these steps: Browse to the Central Administration Web site. The Central Administration site is

When you create a server farm, you usually build your back-end servers before you build your front-end servers. For example, you install your databases on your database server before you install your front-end servers. Regardless of how you divvy up the servers, the first step in any server farm installation is planning. You need to plan how many servers you need and what services are going to be installed on each. Here’s the general procedure for creating a SharePoint server farm: Plan your server farm. You must determine your server topology before you start installing software. (A topology is a fancy word that defines how many servers you’re planning to deploy.) If you’re unsure, you could start with the minimum two servers and scale up as needs require. Procure all the hardware and software required based on your plan. Prepare each of your servers for installation. You want to start with clean servers running Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1. Create se

Unless your organization is especially small, you can’t get away with running SharePoint on a single server. Instead, you have to use multiple servers. When you use multiple servers to run an application, it’s called a server farm. You don’t have to start with a large farm because you can scale up by adding more servers as your needs require. A server farm consists of multiple servers that work together to provide the SharePoint experience. Companies often find it necessary to span services across multiple servers to provide the performance and availability their organization requires. Server farms are made up of physical servers that run logical services. The physical servers are the computer hardware that you can touch. The logical services are the applications that run on the physical servers. In many cases, your physical servers pull double and triple duty by running multiple logical services. A minimum SharePoint installation usually has the following two physical s

Administrators most often access SharePoint using a browser application such as Internet Explorer. When you install SharePoint, the application creates administrative Web sites that you use to administer SharePoint. Before you can access SharePoint via the browser, however, you have to follow a few steps to configure your browser. These steps are also necessary for your end users to access SharePoint using Internet Explorer at their desktops. Browsers, such as Internet Explorer, are mostly used for accessing content from the Internet. As such, they’re configured by default to strictly limit the extent to which you can interact with the Web sites. When you want to use internal sites, such as SharePoint, you must configure Internet Explorer so that it isn’t so strict. In order to access SharePoint with Internet Explorer, you must do three things, in this order: Add SharePoint’s Web applications to the list of trusted sites in Internet Explorer. Verify that the security

For evaluation purposes, you may choose to install SharePoint on a single server. You can even use SharePoint in a very limited capacity in production on a single server - although, admittedly, that’s rather unlikely. (For the sake of argument, though, imagine using SharePoint for a single department - in that situation, a single-server installation may be appropriate.) You can use the steps in this section to install either Windows SharePoint Services or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The installations are very similar for a single-server installation. Your server needs to meet these minimum hardware requirements in order to install SharePoint: Dual-processor computer with at least 2.5 GHz processors. Minimum 1GB of RAM, but 2GB of RAM is recommended. If you intend to run SharePoint on multiple servers, you may need to beef up hardware on each server. Microsoft recommends 4GB for MOSS 2007 application servers. Hardware requirements for the database server d

Just so you know the real lay of the land out there, installing SharePoint means making your way through eight (count ’em, eight) high-level steps in order to get SharePoint set up. Not only that, to progress through these steps, you’re going to need the cooperation of many people. Note that these steps just cover the installation of SharePoint. After you complete these steps, you have a functioning SharePoint installation - nice job! - but you can’t afford to rest on your laurels yet. You still have to implement SharePoint. But first, here’s my list of eight high-level steps you’ll be facing: 1. Planning your installation. The planning process requires you to identify how many users you have and how you expect them to use SharePoint. You have to think about how critical SharePoint is for your organization so you can plan how much redundancy to put into your installation. 2. Building and preparing your servers. Microsoft recommends that you use at least two servers for

Technical people are responsible for figuring out your server farm topology. Only in rare circumstances is SharePoint deployed to a single server. In most cases, SharePoint requires at least two servers. Planning the server farm topology requires tasks such as these: Matching the topology to the project’s requirements. Determining the requirements for capacity, performance, and availability. Deciding how many servers are required of each kind of server role. Figuring out how the servers are configured within the existing network topology to prevent unauthorized access. Providing access to authorized and anonymous third parties as required by the project. Determining strategies for upgrading and migrating content from previous versions of SharePoint and other server applications. Identifying requirements for multilingual sites. Provisioning databases for use by the server farm. Making sure you have the proper licensing to match requirements. Creating a ba

Ideally, you’ve already made your business case, and you’ve created a list of projects and prioritized how you want to proceed. Many planning tasks are involved in implementing SharePoint. When you start planning your project, it’s helpful to consider the many roles that are required to implement SharePoint: Technical people are responsible for installing SharePoint on the servers and monitoring its health. This also includes database administrators who create databases and schedule backups. Solution builders are people with any kind of background who are responsible for using technology to solve business problems. Sometimes solution builders belong to IT staff, but they may also be power users. Solution builders may use tools like SharePoint Designer to customize solutions. Developers write code for extending SharePoint or creating custom solutions. Designers are responsible for SharePoint’s look and feel. This could be as simple as changing the color schem

Having a set of objectives in mind is important when you start implementing SharePoint. Developing a list of objectives helps you define the scope for your SharePoint project. Don’t think of your project in terms of “implementing SharePoint.” Instead, state your project in terms of whatever it is that you’re doing with SharePoint. Here are some good examples of SharePoint project objectives: Create secure, version-controlled document repositories for departments, teams, and task forces. Move contacts, calendars, and announcements into an easily accessible site. Automate the process for submitting business expense forms. Track documents, events, and tasks related to projects. Any of these goals are easily achievable with WSS. I suggest that you attack each of these as a separate phase of your project. Also, narrow the scope to a particular team or department. Instead of trying to implement all these goals for your entire organization, pick a single group to act as

With the significant investment companies have made already in people and technology, how can SharePoint possibly have a role in this already crowded information systems environment? With IT staff overburdened already, it’s little wonder at the lack of enthusiasm in implementing yet another system. Despite all the technological advances, the big budgets, and the far-reaching plans, many end users and members of the business community find themselves increasingly alienated from their company’s information environments. Most end users can tell you that something is clearly missing. SharePoint aims to be the missing link in a company’s information systems environment by acting as the hub,. As the hub, SharePoint is an integral player in providing users access to information assets. Whereas your current information environment uses file shares, e-mail Inboxes, and databases as storage repositories for information assets, SharePoint provides its own set of repositories for cre

Unlike structured assets, less structured assets (such as Word documents) usually aren’t stored in databases. They’re often stored on file servers and removable media, such as CDs. Other less structured assets (such as e-mails and blog posts) may be stored in databases, but the information conveyed by the e-mail or blog post isn’t managed. Instead, the mail server acts like a file server, and the e-mail acts like a file. The problem with files is that they’re hard to manage and control. End users can easily store them on thumb drives and send them as e-mail attachments. Despite IT’s attempts to control files with policies and backups, files are slippery. Contrary to what IT staff want to believe, less structured information assets are stored in more places than just file servers, such as the following: My Documents folder Favorites folder RSS feed readers Blog sites Web sites Inboxes and other mail folders Filing cabinets Off-site storages Although reposito

Structured assets are often found in the formal systems of organizations that use databases to store their data. Because they use databases, it’s relatively easy to query and aggregate data from these systems. Line-of-business applications are good examples of repositories for structured assets. Systems for managing structured assets are usually supported by IT staff and have the following characteristics: Formal: They’re the “official” systems of the company, and everyone in the company can rattle off their names and what they’re used for. Mature: Because it takes a long time to implement structured systems, they tend to be predictable and stable. Despite what businesses say about being innovative and thinking outside the box, an information systems environment isn’t the place most organizations want to find surprises. Scope: A large number of people often use structured systems. These are often the systems for which permission is requested as a matter of c

Although understanding the technologies that enable SharePoint and SharePoint’s features is important, I believe that understanding how SharePoint fits into your existing information systems environment is even more valuable than understanding all the SharePoint features. Just because SharePoint can be used for a certain purpose, doesn’t mean that your organization will find it useful. I believe that understanding SharePoint’s role in your organization is key to making the business case for implementing SharePoint. An information systems environment is the mix of software, hardware, and manual processes within a company. In some cases, deciding to use SharePoint is easy because SharePoint solves an obvious problem. For example, you can use SharePoint to automate business processes by using electronic forms. However, I find that most companies intuitively think they need SharePoint but can’t quite figure out the arguments for why. All the information found in an organizati

Figuring out which features go with which product is challenging. In this section, I explain the official products in the SharePoint family and what it takes to license them. Pricing varies depending on the kind of licensing agreement you have with Microsoft. All SharePoint deployments require Windows Server 2003. WSS version 3 is part of Windows Server 2003, so you don’t have to buy separate licenses for WSS. You can download WSS from the Microsoft Web site. MOSS 2007 products are available for purchase only through volume licensing agreements; you can’t buy them via retail channels. Microsoft offers several types of volume licensing agreements. The pricing associated with each agreement varies depending on the number of desktops in your organization, the benefits you receive, and whether you pay up-front or a certain amount each year. See the Microsoft Products Licensing Advisor for assistance with choosing a licensing agreement. Properly licensing MOSS 2007 requires a

The core product in the family of SharePoint technologies is Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). Because WSS is the foundational product, no other product in the SharePoint family is possible without it. WSS is a full-blown ASP.NET 2.0 Web application, which means it runs hosted inside ASP.NET. When you install WSS, you have to install ASP.NET and everything it requires to run, including the following: Internet Information Services (IIS) version 6 or 7: This is Microsoft’s Web server, which is used to host SharePoint. Most typical SharePoint usage scenarios can configure IIS from within SharePoint. You don’t have to manage IIS directly very often. .NET Framework version 2.0 and 3.0: This is a set of software that installs ASP.NET and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). After you enable ASP.NET 2.0 on the server, you don’t have to do anything else to configure .NET. SQL Server 2000 or later: This is Microsoft’s database management system. SharePoint can create al

SharePoint is a family of technologies from Microsoft that provides a server infrastructure to support the needs of information workers and their employers. These needs include collaboration, knowing who’s online, document storage, and the ability to inform and be informed. The companies that hire information workers need to audit, monitor, organize, retain, and protect information. SharePoint makes it possible for companies to engage all their information workers through the tools people are using already - Office clients (such as Word and Excel), Internet browsers (such as Internet Explorer), and e-mail clients (such as Outlook). Obviously, SharePoint works best with Office 2007. Whether you’re using Office 2007 or OpenOffice, SharePoint gives employers a means to connect with workers where they work - at their desktops. By reaching workers where they work, companies can use SharePoint as a key component for implementing new strategic initiatives and internal communica

Hyper-V uses a virtual service provider/virtual service consumer architecture to provide hypervisor services to the virtual machines it supports. The full Hyper-V architecture includes several core components: The hypervisor interacts directly with a hardware-enabled virtualization processor to provide resources to virtual machines. It is a thin layer of software (less than 1 KB) that provides and maintains separation between the various partitions that run on top of it. In Hyper-V, partitions are logical units of isolation in which operating systems execute. The hypervisor also serves to map real and virtual components such as processor, memory, storage, and network cards. In fact, the hypervisor acts as a redirector to control all access to processor resources. The hypervisor resides on Designed for Windows server hardware because of its integration into Windows Server 2008. A parent partition is a special system partition that is used to host the virtualiz

Hyper-V is also available as a freely downloadable version through the Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. This version is a self-contained, single-purpose version of Windows Server 2008 that has been customized to support the Hyper-V role. It is based on the Standard edition of Windows Server 2008 and therefore lacks support for high availability and is limited to 32 gigabytes (GB) of RAM. Each machine you deploy with Hyper-V Server will be a stand- alone host server and will not be able to provide service redundancy for the virtual machines you deploy on them. Hyper-V Server also relies on the Server Core interface and does not provide a graphical environment. Everything is run through a command line. Yet because Hyper-V Server is based on the core Windows Server code, it provides support for remote administration much the same way that Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V does when run in a Server Core installation. Because of the Hyper-V Server’s feature set, Microsoft recommends t