Outlining Improvements in SharePoint 2010

Microsoft has spent considerable time gathering input from customers on previous versions of SharePoint. This input was directly used by the development team to create new functionality and features in this version of SharePoint. The product team delivered a huge range of services and functionality. For SharePoint administrators familiar with SharePoint 2007, it is important to gain a better understanding of what those changes are and how they can be used to build a better collaboration environment for your organization.

Understanding the Scalable Service Application Model in SharePoint 2010

One of the most significant architectural changes in SharePoint 2010 is the change to service application architecture from the shared services provider architecture of SharePoint 2007. Service applications in SharePoint 2010 are independent services that can be shared across web applications or across farms.  Service applications in SharePoint 2010 include the Business Data Connectivity Service, which allows for connection to an external data source, the Managed Metadata Service, which enforces common metadata across a farm, and the Search Service, which is critical for Enterprise Search functionality. In total, there are more than a dozen service applications available out-of-the-box in SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft enables third-party service applications to be created as well. Service applications enable a SharePoint 2010 environment to be more scalable because they can be easily shared across multiple servers. SharePoint architects can define which servers run which service applications, and which service applications apply to what farms. By separating the functionality in SharePoint onto this highly flexible service application tier, it becomes easier to scale up the environment with the needs of the individual environment.

Outlining Search Improvements in SharePoint 2010

Another area of significant improvement in SharePoint 2010 is SharePoint’s built-in Enterprise Search functionality. Rebuilt as a service application, SharePoint’s native search tool has been rearchitected to enable the following:

·         Redundant index functionality, now providing for index redundancy and high availability, something not possible in SharePoint 2007.

·         Content sources can now be divided among multiple index partitions, such as what In addition to improvements in SharePoint 2010’s native search, Microsoft also offers a different tool for SharePoint search: FAST Search Server 2010. FAST Search has all of the improvements available with the native SharePoint 2010 search but adds additional features, such as thumbnail previews, click-through relevance, and automatic metadata tagging.

Accessing the Improved Administration, Monitoring, and Backup Tools

There are two major improvements in the area of administration for SharePoint. The first comes in a revamped SharePoint Central Administration tool and the second comes with the addition of Microsoft PowerShell as a scripting administration interface. Administrators familiar with SharePoint 2007 will recall the SharePoint Central Admin tool, a web-based interface used to administer SharePoint functionality.

The addition of Microsoft Power Shell as a SharePoint administration tool enables administrators to have a robust and comprehensive scripting interface that allows for automation of manual tasks, scripted installations, and remote administration support. Microsoft created more than 500 commandlets for Power Shell specific to SharePoint.