SharePoint App Query

NOGMaxpower

Hi all,

I've been asked to research MS Sharepoint for use by my company. Essentially we need to use it for the following:

Sharing documents: Word, excel, power point, ms project and visio
Working on documents: (above)
Access: Used internally and by our external users

So based on what we need it for what are my options? Should I go with Sharepoint services or do I need to purchase the server edition?

Are the standard templates provided sufficent enough for our needs?

Do we require a .NET developer or SQL person to set it all up??

I would really appreciate any advice given.

Cheers

Ginger

Get MOSS 2007 (ie SharePoint Portal Server 2007)

The basic templates such as team sites should be enough for you


You will need someone who can follow instructions fairly well because the setup can be tricky but nothing too hard if you follow the instructions.

NOGMaxpower

Thanks Ginger,

In terms of the internal setup do i need a dedicated server attached to a SAN?

Or is it a matter of downloading Portal Server 2007, installing it, setting up the standard template and pointing it towards where all our docs are stored?

baring in mind it'll need to be setup as a EXTRANET so external users can access it. Deos change the setup?

Bare with me cos im a complete tard when it comes to servers. PC's im great with servers and services I suck.

Cheers

Ginger

You could use a SAN, but i am not sure of the implications

The whole area of setting up MOSS for use in an organisation is a big one. Its all about taxonomies and arranging your data. How you do that, is something i dont know off the top of my head, but there are probably plenty of articles out there on it. You will have to import your data, rather than pointing it a document store I think.

As for extranet, yup MOSS is good that way. We have it set up that way here. Have a look at the MOSS site and get the install guide and have a walk trough that to see if its beyond you or not.

All this time I am assuming you are on a domain. Also MOSS works much much better with Office 2007. Office 2003 SP3 i think gives better support, but O2K7 has the whole intranet saving working nice

stevenmu

If it's simply for collaberating on documents etc, WSS 3.0 (Sharepoint services) should be enough for you, the only real advantage MOSS would give you would be more advanced unified search capabilities. Altough generally what happens with sharepoint installations is that as users get used to it they start wanting more and more features. WSS is of course free, also a free 180 day trial of MOSS is available and both can run on any Windows 2003 R2 server, so if possible download both and setup some demo sites. You can also play with it online using the online virtual labs.

You don't need SAN storage, it can be usefull depending on your needs, but it's not needed. Essentially all storage is done in SQL Server 2005 databases so a pretty good rule of thumb is to just follow SQL Server best practices. Take into account your availability and user number level requirements, in terms of disk space, the rule of thumb is that you need twice what you plan to store in terms of documents (i.e. 1GB of documents requires 3GB disk space), plus a GB or two.

You also don't need .Net devs, altough they can code extra functionality if required later, or SQL Server guys, altough they may be able to tune performance on the DB end. Depending on the size and complexity of your install it can range from very easy to long and much more involved, altough like Ginger said, the instructions are all available and really just need to be followed. Again, depending on the size of your project it may be worth getting some sharepoint people in to help plan and install it.

Regarding internal and external people, I think that's not really a big deal, especially if you can give the external users active directory/domain accounts (i think it's still possible if not but I'm a little fuzzy on that). They'll simply visit your site and put in their logins, local authenticated users will be logged in automatically. Of course there are the normal considerations about security on the server when making it publically available on the net and so on.

NOGMaxpower

thanks a lot for all of the info lads you've set me on the right path!

I am currently creatinging a virtual server to test the VHD of MOSS 2007. So i can run a demo and present it to the powers that be.

Cheers again very much appreciated.
Max

Ginger

For your own sake make sure that the machine in question has a decent amount of RAM (2+GB).. For demo purposes, assign as much as you can 3GB preferably

NOGMaxpower

nice one Ginger my lappy (downloading files) is less than 1g! but i'll stick it on our main server 16g of ram

cheers man

Ginger

Then grap Virtual Server 2005 and use that, you can then remote desktop into it.

Its quick an easy to set up and VHD files from VPC will work with it