SharePoint For Dummies. Rosemarie Withee
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Название: SharePoint For Dummies

Автор: Rosemarie Withee

Издательство: John Wiley & Sons Limited

Жанр: Программы

Серия:

isbn: 9781119843009

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Microsoft usually releases On-Premises versions of SharePoint every three years. If the trend holds, then the next On-Premises version will be SharePoint Server 2022.

      Putting a complex computer platform in place is difficult. Organizations discovered this when they implemented enterprise resource planning (ERP) software in the 1990s and 2000s, and it still holds true today. Putting the SharePoint platform in place is not an easy endeavor. Larger organizations usually require a more complex implementation. As the complexity of the implementation increases, so do the costs, time, and risk. The current best practice is to use an experienced consulting firm with expertise in implementing a SharePoint platform. As in dealing with any services company, sometimes you pick a winner, and sometimes it’s a complete disaster.

      

Microsoft has introduced the SharePoint Online offering to cater to everyone from small businesses to large multinationals. In fact, you can even purchase just one license if you’re a solo entrepreneur. Because Microsoft has already built out the offering, it can offer it’s just as easy to offer the same reliability and security to small companies as it does to large companies. It is, after all, the same product — the only difference is the scale.

      In the past, there have been some major differences between SharePoint Online and SharePoint On-Premises. For one, SharePoint Online used to trail the version of SharePoint that was available on-premises. For example, when SharePoint 2016 came out, it took SharePoint Online a painfully long time before it became comparable to SharePoint 2016.

      

The current on-premises version is SharePoint 2019. The previous version was SharePoint 2016, and the version before that was SharePoint 2013. SharePoint Online doesn’t have a version number.

      Times have changed, however. Microsoft has moved to focus on SharePoint Online instead of the on-premises versions. It rolls out new features in SharePoint Online, and then grabs a snapshot of the online version and makes it available for organizations that choose to deploy it themselves on-premises.

      

You can think of SharePoint Server 2019 as a snapshot of the features available in SharePoint Online around the year 2019. One thing is certain, though: If you want the latest and greatest features, SharePoint Online is your best bet.

      With that said, there are still integration points with other local server products and advanced functionality that are only available with SharePoint On-Premises. This is an ever-changing landscape, so the best way to stay on top of the available features is on the frequently updated SharePoint Online feature matrix located on Microsoft’s docs.microsoft.com site. The best way to find the features is to search for “SharePoint service description.”

      

SharePoint Online is when Microsoft manages SharePoint in its data centers and you access it over the Internet. SharePoint On-Premises is when your local IT gurus manage SharePoint in your company data center.

      GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF THE CLOUD

      Network diagrams often show a network as a cloud, as shown in the following figure, because it would be too complex to diagram all the components that make up the network (such as routers, switches, hubs, and cables).

Schematic illustration of the network connection.

      The biggest network, and cloud, of all is the Internet. When a diagram shows communication over the Internet, a big cloud is used because it would be impossible to try to show all the network hardware that might be encountered between two computers communicating via the Internet. The cloud simply becomes an abstraction for a network with the assumption that communication can occur over that cloud.

      If you use SharePoint in your day-to-day operations, the good news is that it doesn’t really matter whether you are using SharePoint On-Premises or SharePoint Online. They are both SharePoint, and you can focus on your job. With that said, it’s nice to at least have a high-level understanding of some of the infrastructure benefits to SharePoint Online. If nothing else, you can impress your IT friends.

      Using SharePoint Online instead of trying to build and manage the platform with your own organization’s resources gives you a number of benefits. You simply sign up, pay a monthly licensing fee, and access SharePoint over the Internet. The following sections take a look at some of the things that Microsoft does behind the scenes with SharePoint Online.

      Data center and hardware

      If you have ever toured a data center, you have some idea of the amount of effort and resources it takes to keep everything running. Data centers have rows and rows of computers with flashing lights, humming fans, and coils of cables running ceiling to floor. Control rooms that resemble something NASA would use to run space missions monitor all these servers. The control rooms contain computers and monitors that report on everything in the data center, from temperature and humidity to individual fans in particular servers and everything in between. These control rooms are often called a network operation center (NOC) and are the nerve center for a modern data center.