Brief Intro of Sharepoit server

Introduction

Microsoft SharePoint products and technologies include browser-based collaboration and a document-management platform. These can be used to host web sites that access shared workspaces and documents, as well as specialized applications like wikis and blogs from a browser. Users can manipulate proprietary controls or pieces of content called web parts to create or modify sites. SharePoint is not intended to replace a full file server. Instead, it is targeted as a collaborative workspace, a tool for the management and automation of business processes, and a platform for social networking.

Different Perspective of sharePoint Server

Technical Perspective

Technically SharePoint illustrates neatly what Microsoft's .net strategy is all about: integrating Windows with the Web. Microsoft has previously made accessing stuff on a PC easier, (Windows) then on a network (NT) and now on the web (.NET). SharePoint is an application written to let a user access a web accessible directory tree called the Web Storage System.

SharePoint was written with a set of technologies that allow the programmer to pass data, functions, parameters over HTTP, the web's medium. These are XML, XSL and SOAP, to name a few I understand the basics of!

Administration Perspective

Administering SharePoint mainly consists of setting it up, which is much easier than you expect, adding the content, which can be just dragging and dropping in whole directory structures and files, and then organizing the files better by giving them categories or other metadata. This is done either through the Web interface or through the SharePoint Client: a program what means you can access SharePoint as a Web folder and then right-click files to select options like "edit profile". Or add files by dragging them in individually or in bulk.

Setting the security is also important, using NT accounts, either NT4 or Active Directory (or both in mixed mode) you can give users access to files/folders the same way as you do in standard Windows. Users can be grouped and the groups given access privileges to help manage this better.

Users Perspective

From a Users perspective SharePoint is a way of making documents and folders on the Windows platform accessible over the web. The user visits the SharePoint Portal web page, and from there they can add documents, change documents & delete documents. Through this Portal, these documents are now available for discussion, collaboration, versioning and being managed through a workflow. Hence the name "Share-Point". Details about the document can be saved too, such as: who wrote it, when, for whom, its size, and version, category or target audience. These can then be used to find the document through SharePoint's Search facility. Even documents not "in" SharePoint can be included in the search engine's index so they become part of the portal. All in all, it's a great way to get stuff up on the web for users with average technical skills, and for administrators to manage the content.

WebPart

Web parts consist of xml queries to full SharePoint lists or document libraries. You can also develop your own web parts and web part pages.

WebPart Zone

Web part zones are what your web parts reside in and help categorize your web parts when designing a page.

Security Management

Security can be handled at the machine, domain, or sharepoint level.