Document 1774546

As with storage, virtualization should be part of the
firm’s larger infrastructure picture.
Related to virtualization, many organizations are
going one step further and building a private cloud.
This is a holistic computing environment where
security, governance and system services can be
provisioned and managed. For many, this is built
and maintained on-premise.
Governance
SharePoint asks users to work differently, to create
new habits. Without rules and structure, it’s very
hard for users to use the system in a proper and
effective way. Thus, governance can be defined as
a set of standards, policies, and guidance which
encourages desirable behavior. A governance
solution provides answers to common questions
such as “When should a new site be created? What
files should be marked as records? How should
content be secured?” Whether to use a strict or
flexible approach depends somewhat on the existing
culture and users’ tolerance. Where possible, be sure
that it doesn’t place unnecessary burden on users.
Governance has ties into all considerations covered
in this article. For example, governance policies
dictate how to secure, audit, and archive content
which affects an information architecture design.
Thus, categorize content into high, medium, and
low business impact areas. Any personally
identifiable information (such as social security
numbers) should be identified so that it’s managed
appropriately.
In some cases, governance is a legal requirement.
For example, legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley or
HIPAA requires content be protected from tampering,
and either archived or destroyed after a period of
time. Be sure to check with compliance officers in
the firm. Also be sure to determine the business
requirements for eDiscovery and how to address
those with SharePoint Server.
Cross Reference
Source One from EMC is a complete, enterpriseclass information governance solution. For
SharePoint, it addresses compliance, retention,
and content externalization. For information,
visit www.emc.com/sourceone)
sure the emphasis is on how SharePoint saves time
and makes tasks easier. Work to stamp out the
perception that this is yet another system they must
use. Training should involve specific scenarios that
resonate with staff.
Where possible, SharePoint training should be
role specific. Users performing site administration
or content management functions will have different
tasks than those using it for basic document
management. For power users, consider having
them take an introductory class followed by more
advanced ones. For IT SharePoint administrators
who will be installing and performing technical
day-to-day maintenance, look into week-long
training classes. Similar technical classes exist for
developer and designer roles as well.
Despite the challenges and risks presented here,
do not be daunted by SharePoint. It can be a very
rewarding experience. In one situation, a user
literally cried when she learned how much easier
her job would become. Armed with a solid plan,
the right partner, and the motivation of knowing
improvements are just around the corner, your
SharePoint deployment can be wildly successful.
Randy Williams is a senior solution architect and trainer
for Synergy Corporate Technologies. He has 20 years of
eclectic IT experience, and for the past 14 years has been
architecting and developing Microsoft-based solutions.
He has a master’s degree in Information Systems along
with a number of certifications. For 2009 and 2010, he
was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
(MVP) in SharePoint Server. Randy is currently based
in Singapore and runs Synergy’s operations there.
November 2010
The Essential Guide to
Successful
SharePoint
Implementation
Why EMC is Your Partner of Choice
for Microsoft SharePoint
1. You gain enterprise-scale capabilities to meet
business-critical demands—from a cost-effective
information infrastructure
With innovative storage and information management
solutions from EMC, Microsoft’s suite of virtualization
technologies maximizes server and storage
utilization while significantly reducing TCO.
2. You need a proven source of expertise on
SharePoint implementations and the underlying
information infrastructure
As a long-time Microsoft strategic partner, EMC can
help you plan, design, deploy, and manage a
high-efficiency SharePoint infrastructure—from
smaller-scale to enterprise-level. You can rely on us
for deep application experience and a solid
portfolio of industry-leading technologies, services,
and EMC Proven® solutions.
3. Your business demands scalability and performance for physical or virtual environments
With consolidated tiered storage from EMC, you can
meet service levels for a wide range of application
requirements. Our scalable, dependable, cost
effective solutions also quickly adapt to information
growth, all while delivering the highest performance
and availability with the capabilities you need to
get the most from your SharePoint environment.
4. You must provide unified protection for your
Microsoft SharePoint data
By Randy Williams
With a range of proven backup and deduplication
technologies from EMC and Data Domain®, an EMC
company, you can count on a reliable, efficient, and
cost-effective backup/recovery solution that’s right
for you. You can deliver the granularity of recovery
your users require—while ensuring consistent,
coordinated recovery of an individual database or
an entire farm.
5. You want to ensure non-stop operations and
fast restores with business continuity
Get strong business continuity and disaster recovery
options for Microsoft SharePoint environments that
align with your RPO and RTO requirements. Our
advanced backup/recovery and business continuity
solutions enable recovery for both local and remote
sites. You also benefit from rollback and recovery to a
specific point in time.
Training
Governance and training go hand in hand. Training
isn’t necessarily “How to use SharePoint,” but rather
“How we will use SharePoint.” It is a big mistake to
assume users will be able to “just figure it out.”
Training has a big impact on the rate of adoption—
if users don’t understand something, odds are they
won’t use it. When putting together a training
plan, and indeed, when planning the system, make
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO SharePointPro Connections
6. You need to extend SharePoint’s ECM capabilities
EMC Information Intelligence solutions enhance
and extend SharePoint’s native capabilities through
physical document capture and records management; business process and transactional content
management; and archival, compliance, and
eDiscovery of SharePoint content.
7. You must ensure the security of your
SharePoint data
Together with RSA®, The Security Division of EMC,
we provide a full suite of offerings that enable you
to discover sensitive data at rest, automatically
apply policy-based RMS protection, and proactively
monitor and report on user access and activities, so
you can be sure of your SharePoint data security.
8. You want to work with a vendor with proven,
documented experience offering integrated
solutions for SharePoint environments
EMC has documented reference architectures and
best practices to address a range of user workloads
and business requirements—plus a comprehensive
tiered storage portfolio to handle your current and
future workload requirements. Deep integration
testing through EMC E-Lab, along with a longstanding engineering relationship with Microsoft, also
enables us to provide on-going product support for
Microsoft Hyper-V.
9. You want to partner with an industry leader in
SharePoint deployments
Specializing in user experience design, application
development, business intelligence, workflow
automation, and technical infrastructure, EMC
Consulting helps you take Microsoft SharePoint
from concept to reality with an experienced,
award-winning team.
10. You need to accelerate the business value of
your Microsoft SharePoint environment
With over 10,000 consultants, EMC’s Global Services
organization offers a broad portfolio of strategic
consultation, planning, delivery, and support across
the entire IT lifecycle—from initial requirements
through day-to-day operations.
As with storage, virtualization should be part of the
firm’s larger infrastructure picture.
Related to virtualization, many organizations are
going one step further and building a private cloud.
This is a holistic computing environment where
security, governance and system services can be
provisioned and managed. For many, this is built
and maintained on-premise.
Governance
SharePoint asks users to work differently, to create
new habits. Without rules and structure, it’s very
hard for users to use the system in a proper and
effective way. Thus, governance can be defined as
a set of standards, policies, and guidance which
encourages desirable behavior. A governance
solution provides answers to common questions
such as “When should a new site be created? What
files should be marked as records? How should
content be secured?” Whether to use a strict or
flexible approach depends somewhat on the existing
culture and users’ tolerance. Where possible, be sure
that it doesn’t place unnecessary burden on users.
Governance has ties into all considerations covered
in this article. For example, governance policies
dictate how to secure, audit, and archive content
which affects an information architecture design.
Thus, categorize content into high, medium, and
low business impact areas. Any personally
identifiable information (such as social security
numbers) should be identified so that it’s managed
appropriately.
In some cases, governance is a legal requirement.
For example, legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley or
HIPAA requires content be protected from tampering,
and either archived or destroyed after a period of
time. Be sure to check with compliance officers in
the firm. Also be sure to determine the business
requirements for eDiscovery and how to address
those with SharePoint Server.
Cross Reference
Source One from EMC is a complete, enterpriseclass information governance solution. For
SharePoint, it addresses compliance, retention,
and content externalization. For information,
visit www.emc.com/sourceone)
sure the emphasis is on how SharePoint saves time
and makes tasks easier. Work to stamp out the
perception that this is yet another system they must
use. Training should involve specific scenarios that
resonate with staff.
Where possible, SharePoint training should be
role specific. Users performing site administration
or content management functions will have different
tasks than those using it for basic document
management. For power users, consider having
them take an introductory class followed by more
advanced ones. For IT SharePoint administrators
who will be installing and performing technical
day-to-day maintenance, look into week-long
training classes. Similar technical classes exist for
developer and designer roles as well.
Despite the challenges and risks presented here,
do not be daunted by SharePoint. It can be a very
rewarding experience. In one situation, a user
literally cried when she learned how much easier
her job would become. Armed with a solid plan,
the right partner, and the motivation of knowing
improvements are just around the corner, your
SharePoint deployment can be wildly successful.
Randy Williams is a senior solution architect and trainer
for Synergy Corporate Technologies. He has 20 years of
eclectic IT experience, and for the past 14 years has been
architecting and developing Microsoft-based solutions.
He has a master’s degree in Information Systems along
with a number of certifications. For 2009 and 2010, he
was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
(MVP) in SharePoint Server. Randy is currently based
in Singapore and runs Synergy’s operations there.
November 2010
The Essential Guide to
Successful
SharePoint
Implementation
Why EMC is Your Partner of Choice
for Microsoft SharePoint
1. You gain enterprise-scale capabilities to meet
business-critical demands—from a cost-effective
information infrastructure
With innovative storage and information management
solutions from EMC, Microsoft’s suite of virtualization
technologies maximizes server and storage
utilization while significantly reducing TCO.
2. You need a proven source of expertise on
SharePoint implementations and the underlying
information infrastructure
As a long-time Microsoft strategic partner, EMC can
help you plan, design, deploy, and manage a
high-efficiency SharePoint infrastructure—from
smaller-scale to enterprise-level. You can rely on us
for deep application experience and a solid
portfolio of industry-leading technologies, services,
and EMC Proven® solutions.
3. Your business demands scalability and performance for physical or virtual environments
With consolidated tiered storage from EMC, you can
meet service levels for a wide range of application
requirements. Our scalable, dependable, cost
effective solutions also quickly adapt to information
growth, all while delivering the highest performance
and availability with the capabilities you need to
get the most from your SharePoint environment.
4. You must provide unified protection for your
Microsoft SharePoint data
By Randy Williams
With a range of proven backup and deduplication
technologies from EMC and Data Domain®, an EMC
company, you can count on a reliable, efficient, and
cost-effective backup/recovery solution that’s right
for you. You can deliver the granularity of recovery
your users require—while ensuring consistent,
coordinated recovery of an individual database or
an entire farm.
5. You want to ensure non-stop operations and
fast restores with business continuity
Get strong business continuity and disaster recovery
options for Microsoft SharePoint environments that
align with your RPO and RTO requirements. Our
advanced backup/recovery and business continuity
solutions enable recovery for both local and remote
sites. You also benefit from rollback and recovery to a
specific point in time.
Training
Governance and training go hand in hand. Training
isn’t necessarily “How to use SharePoint,” but rather
“How we will use SharePoint.” It is a big mistake to
assume users will be able to “just figure it out.”
Training has a big impact on the rate of adoption—
if users don’t understand something, odds are they
won’t use it. When putting together a training
plan, and indeed, when planning the system, make
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO SharePointPro Connections
6. You need to extend SharePoint’s ECM capabilities
EMC Information Intelligence solutions enhance
and extend SharePoint’s native capabilities through
physical document capture and records management; business process and transactional content
management; and archival, compliance, and
eDiscovery of SharePoint content.
7. You must ensure the security of your
SharePoint data
Together with RSA®, The Security Division of EMC,
we provide a full suite of offerings that enable you
to discover sensitive data at rest, automatically
apply policy-based RMS protection, and proactively
monitor and report on user access and activities, so
you can be sure of your SharePoint data security.
8. You want to work with a vendor with proven,
documented experience offering integrated
solutions for SharePoint environments
EMC has documented reference architectures and
best practices to address a range of user workloads
and business requirements—plus a comprehensive
tiered storage portfolio to handle your current and
future workload requirements. Deep integration
testing through EMC E-Lab, along with a longstanding engineering relationship with Microsoft, also
enables us to provide on-going product support for
Microsoft Hyper-V.
9. You want to partner with an industry leader in
SharePoint deployments
Specializing in user experience design, application
development, business intelligence, workflow
automation, and technical infrastructure, EMC
Consulting helps you take Microsoft SharePoint
from concept to reality with an experienced,
award-winning team.
10. You need to accelerate the business value of
your Microsoft SharePoint environment
With over 10,000 consultants, EMC’s Global Services
organization offers a broad portfolio of strategic
consultation, planning, delivery, and support across
the entire IT lifecycle—from initial requirements
through day-to-day operations.
I
n 2008, Microsoft announced that SharePoint
had become its fastest growing product ever.
A survey in July 2010 (http://bit.ly/dCmuEi)
suggests that 64 percent of firms use SharePoint
organization-wide with another 22 percent using
it departmentally. Now that SharePoint 2010 has
been released, this growth is expected to continue.
Despite this growth, deploying SharePoint and
leveraging its rich set of features is not a trivial
undertaking and challenges do exist. This essential
guide discusses what challenges may arise and how
to overcome them to successfully plan and architect
a SharePoint implementation. Guidance on how
to address governance and training to promote
proper usage is also provided.
What are the Potential Challenges?
First, SharePoint is far from a niche product—its
capabilities cover a vast number of workloads
from collaboration and content publishing to
enterprise search and business intelligence.
Utilizing SharePoint to its fullest potential in all
these areas takes a team that is skilled in all
aspects of the product.
Cross Reference
For more information on SharePoint,
visit sharepoint.microsoft.com.
Another challenge is that SharePoint is not a
product that is installed and immediately used.
Underneath the visible product layer, it’s also a
business technology platform—an evolved form
of .NET—from which custom solutions can be
created. This makes the product very malleable,
and knowing how to mold it to provide the needed
functionality takes great skill. In fact, SharePoint’s
platform has created a new ecosystem of third-party
add-ons, and understanding SharePoint often means
knowing many of these additional solutions.
A classic mistake many IT groups make is to
deploy SharePoint as a technology solution,
expecting the business to figure it out. Unlike
other Microsoft products, SharePoint directly
touches nearly every information worker and
becomes interwoven into their day-to-day tasks.
Yes, SharePoint is a technology solution, but it’s
also a business solution, and using SharePoint to
solve the business needs is where the potential
challenge resides.
Considering SharePoint from a business
perspective inevitably involves solving the return
on investment (ROI) riddle. While SharePoint can
deliver many benefits, some of the intangible ones
such as improved teamwork and higher employee
satisfaction, cannot be easily quantified.
Nonetheless, demonstrating positive ROI is one
of the best ways to get executive support.
Before Starting
Many try to deploy SharePoint using a grass-roots
approach, and while this can work in some cases, it’s
more risky. Thus, it’s best to get executive buy-in
before starting. This puts the most important
champions on your side. Executives also help
articulate the project’s vision. Given that SharePoint
is a long-term initiative, be sure this vision aligns
with the firm’s strategic plan.
Having a plan
Whether you choose to pilot SharePoint in a
business unit, or you aim for an enterprise-wide
first release, make sure a solid project plan is
created. Remember, even though SharePoint is
unique don’t throw out the methodology—just
be even more disciplined in applying it. Strongly
consider having a project manager who is certified
as a Project Management Professional (PMP) help
plan and guide the effort.
When it comes to the project plan, avoid the
temptation of doing a one-time, do-it-all project.
SharePoint covers many workloads and there are
many business problems it may address. Follow
an iterative deployment model where the project
starts small and incrementally add new features.
This shortens delivery cycles and gives the users
time to adjust to the changes that are coming
their way.
Choosing the right partner
Successfully deploying SharePoint is a craft, an
art, and a science that requires experienced
professionals. The intent is not to just outsource
the project, but to augment the internal team with
those who understand the complete environment
including the back-end infrastructure. Consider
Microsoft partners who are Microsoft certified
(both at the partner level and with SharePoint) and
that specialize in SharePoint. Many consulting
companies “do a little SharePoint” but haven’t
developed a bona-fide practice. Partnering with a
provider such as EMC Consulting Services brings a
proven execution methodology, best practices,
and project-delivery templates to assure quality
and accelerate implementation.
Define the Business Solution
Armed with a plan and a partner, it’s time to define
the business solution. A common approach is to
map the opportunities and needs to key features
of SharePoint. One reason for this is to validate
that SharePoint is the right solution, and the other
is to start building the bridge between the business
and the technology SharePoint delivers. For example,
if tracking and searching scanned documents is a
need, identify the features of SharePoint that will
work best. Of course, keep the project’s vision in
mind as this is done.
User personas
Because SharePoint is about the business, make sure
that you define the user personas. This means
understanding the users, how they work and what
they need. Avoid the trap of making assumptions
here. Spend time with them and really understand
their need. Some opt for field studies (e.g., surveys,
shadowing, or focus groups) to develop use cases.
While researching, don’t over-analyze the results.
Because the full solution is deployed iteratively, it’s
okay for some areas to be a bit off the mark—resolve
it in a future update.
Setting the scope
The scope defines the features and functions to be
delivered. Any project manager will require that this
is clearly defined. The scope helps ensure expectations
are clear among all stakeholders. To help set the scope,
prioritize the requirements by using a method such
as MoSCoW (Must have, Should have, Could have,
Won’t have). This also helps determine which
features and capabilities get pushed into future
iterations (or phases).
Addressing the gap
As powerful as SharePoint is, there may be needs
that are not met by SharePoint alone. This means
that it may require additional custom solutions. If
it’s a must-have requirement, options include building
something custom or buying a third-party add-on.
SharePoint is a development platform, and building
a custom solution makes sense if there is a specialized
need. If a third-party product already exists, it is usually
cheaper to buy. Of course, also look at it from a costbenefit standpoint. Why invest $100,000 in a solution
if it only delivers $50,000 in value?
Architecting the Solution
With a clear business solution articulated, the
architecture begins. While this guide cannot detail
every aspect, the following are many of the key areas
that go into creating this blueprint.
Information architecture
With its column metadata, lists, libraries, and pages,
SharePoint content comes in many types and sizes.
This content needs to be organized into sites and
site collections, yielding to the physical hierarchy of
the SharePoint environment. Choices are to go with
a classic functional design (e.g., by department),
cross-functional (e.g., products that a manufacturer
creates), geographical (e.g. by region), or hybrids of
these. When choosing a hierarchy, security is an
important consideration since a user’s permissions
are, by default, inherited from higher to lower levels.
Navigation provides more logical structure, which
acts as transparent bridges to span the hierarchies.
Navigation in SharePoint is very customizable. Be
sure to take advantage of features such as the
Content Query Web Part which gathers and
summarizes content.
In addition to these physical and logical structures,
a very important consideration is to define how data
is classified in SharePoint. For example, how should
accounting’s purchase orders be stored and organized?
What metadata columns should be used? Should
the purchase order number be required? Without
answers to questions like these, content becomes
disorganized, inconsistent, and hard to find.
When creating this classification scheme, take full
advantage of content types and tagging found in
the new Metadata Management Service (MMS) in
SharePoint Server 2010. A content type is a reusable
set of columns that can be applied to lists and libraries.
The purchase order is a good example of a content
type. MMS can even publish these content types
across farms. Sets of hierarchical terms can also be
defined to more easily tag content.
Server topology
Choosing the right number of servers and the roles
of each is determined by addressing these three
service level agreements (SLAs): performance,
continuity, and scalability.
• Performance: achieve a certain response time. For example, search requests must be returned
within one second.
• Continuity: eliminate single points of failure to
achieve a certain uptime percentage.
• Scalability: ensure that the platform can scale up and
out to accommodate more users and more content.
When setting the topology, know that SharePoint
has three primary server roles: web front ends (WFE),
application servers, and SQL Servers. These roles
can be shared on the same server or distributed
among several, increasing performance, continuity
and scalability. How many of each is needed depends
on user counts, average usage, and SLAs. For example,
Acme Corp uses SharePoint mainly for document
management for its 500 users. While important, it is
not a mission-critical system. A suitable farm might
consist of just two servers: one shared WFE/
application server and one SQL server.
For Big Oil’s 5,000 users, SharePoint is their intranet
portal and enterprise search engine. It is a critical
system with a 99.9% uptime requirement and all
search response times must be sub-second. They
need at least three WFEs with network load
balancing (NLB), maybe four application servers
running index crawlers, and query services. For the
database tier, four SQL Servers (two online; two
standby) either mirrored or clustered are needed. Of
course, these counts depend heavily on hardware.
(Note: it is not advised to share SQL Server on either
a WFE or application server).
Define storage needs
In addition to servers and server roles, storage needs
must be designed. In SharePoint 2010, the primary
storage consumer is SQL Server, with query servers a
distant second. Two types of storage exist, local and
shared. Local simply means drives are directly attached
to the server. With shared, a Storage Area Network
(SAN) is used by allocating logical units (or LUNs) to
servers using a Fibre Channel or iSCSI connection.
Choosing local or shared depends on many factors,
including current infrastructure, budget, regulatory
and performance requirements. If capacity exists on
an existing SAN, consider using it for database servers.
Keep in mind that clustering SQL Server requires shared
storage. With shared storage, disk fault tolerance is
built-in. A SAN offering, such as EMC’s Symmetrix®,
delivers the best performance. This is an important
consideration because SharePoint places a heavy load
on SQL Server and storage is often the bottleneck.
To deliver high availability, consider booting servers
from a SAN and replicating the storage to an offsite
location. Products like EMC’s Replication Manager
can create a SharePoint-consistent replica of all data
(file system, plus configuration, service, and content
databases) and store it in a secondary farm.
Another consideration is whether to externalize
some content outside SQL Server. A common problem
with SharePoint environments is in managing content
database bloat. To reduce the size, choose to store
very large files, such as AutoCAD drawings, or archive
older files into separate and cheaper forms of storage.
Cross Reference
EMC offers a number of shared storage options
that are ideal for SharePoint environments. For
information on EMC storage solutions, visit
www.emc.com/products/category/storage.htm.
For more information about EMC solutions for
Sharepoint, see www.emc.com/sharepoint
Virtualization and hosting
Virtualization has become a popular way to consolidate
servers, cutting energy and maintenance costs. A virtual
infrastructure can also simplify disaster recovery and
address business continuity needs. Microsoft fully
supports SharePoint environments where virtualization
is used. Primary choices are VMware® (ESX®/vSphere™)
or Microsoft (Hyper-V) and all are excellent products.
THEJOURNEY
TOTHE
PRIVATE
CLOUD
STARTSNOW
EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo, and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation
in the United States and other countries. © Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 2149
I
n 2008, Microsoft announced that SharePoint
had become its fastest growing product ever.
A survey in July 2010 (http://bit.ly/dCmuEi)
suggests that 64 percent of firms use SharePoint
organization-wide with another 22 percent using
it departmentally. Now that SharePoint 2010 has
been released, this growth is expected to continue.
Despite this growth, deploying SharePoint and
leveraging its rich set of features is not a trivial
undertaking and challenges do exist. This essential
guide discusses what challenges may arise and how
to overcome them to successfully plan and architect
a SharePoint implementation. Guidance on how
to address governance and training to promote
proper usage is also provided.
What are the Potential Challenges?
First, SharePoint is far from a niche product—its
capabilities cover a vast number of workloads
from collaboration and content publishing to
enterprise search and business intelligence.
Utilizing SharePoint to its fullest potential in all
these areas takes a team that is skilled in all
aspects of the product.
Cross Reference
For more information on SharePoint,
visit sharepoint.microsoft.com.
Another challenge is that SharePoint is not a
product that is installed and immediately used.
Underneath the visible product layer, it’s also a
business technology platform—an evolved form
of .NET—from which custom solutions can be
created. This makes the product very malleable,
and knowing how to mold it to provide the needed
functionality takes great skill. In fact, SharePoint’s
platform has created a new ecosystem of third-party
add-ons, and understanding SharePoint often means
knowing many of these additional solutions.
A classic mistake many IT groups make is to
deploy SharePoint as a technology solution,
expecting the business to figure it out. Unlike
other Microsoft products, SharePoint directly
touches nearly every information worker and
becomes interwoven into their day-to-day tasks.
Yes, SharePoint is a technology solution, but it’s
also a business solution, and using SharePoint to
solve the business needs is where the potential
challenge resides.
Considering SharePoint from a business
perspective inevitably involves solving the return
on investment (ROI) riddle. While SharePoint can
deliver many benefits, some of the intangible ones
such as improved teamwork and higher employee
satisfaction, cannot be easily quantified.
Nonetheless, demonstrating positive ROI is one
of the best ways to get executive support.
Before Starting
Many try to deploy SharePoint using a grass-roots
approach, and while this can work in some cases, it’s
more risky. Thus, it’s best to get executive buy-in
before starting. This puts the most important
champions on your side. Executives also help
articulate the project’s vision. Given that SharePoint
is a long-term initiative, be sure this vision aligns
with the firm’s strategic plan.
Having a plan
Whether you choose to pilot SharePoint in a
business unit, or you aim for an enterprise-wide
first release, make sure a solid project plan is
created. Remember, even though SharePoint is
unique don’t throw out the methodology—just
be even more disciplined in applying it. Strongly
consider having a project manager who is certified
as a Project Management Professional (PMP) help
plan and guide the effort.
When it comes to the project plan, avoid the
temptation of doing a one-time, do-it-all project.
SharePoint covers many workloads and there are
many business problems it may address. Follow
an iterative deployment model where the project
starts small and incrementally add new features.
This shortens delivery cycles and gives the users
time to adjust to the changes that are coming
their way.
Choosing the right partner
Successfully deploying SharePoint is a craft, an
art, and a science that requires experienced
professionals. The intent is not to just outsource
the project, but to augment the internal team with
those who understand the complete environment
including the back-end infrastructure. Consider
Microsoft partners who are Microsoft certified
(both at the partner level and with SharePoint) and
that specialize in SharePoint. Many consulting
companies “do a little SharePoint” but haven’t
developed a bona-fide practice. Partnering with a
provider such as EMC Consulting Services brings a
proven execution methodology, best practices,
and project-delivery templates to assure quality
and accelerate implementation.
Define the Business Solution
Armed with a plan and a partner, it’s time to define
the business solution. A common approach is to
map the opportunities and needs to key features
of SharePoint. One reason for this is to validate
that SharePoint is the right solution, and the other
is to start building the bridge between the business
and the technology SharePoint delivers. For example,
if tracking and searching scanned documents is a
need, identify the features of SharePoint that will
work best. Of course, keep the project’s vision in
mind as this is done.
User personas
Because SharePoint is about the business, make sure
that you define the user personas. This means
understanding the users, how they work and what
they need. Avoid the trap of making assumptions
here. Spend time with them and really understand
their need. Some opt for field studies (e.g., surveys,
shadowing, or focus groups) to develop use cases.
While researching, don’t over-analyze the results.
Because the full solution is deployed iteratively, it’s
okay for some areas to be a bit off the mark—resolve
it in a future update.
Setting the scope
The scope defines the features and functions to be
delivered. Any project manager will require that this
is clearly defined. The scope helps ensure expectations
are clear among all stakeholders. To help set the scope,
prioritize the requirements by using a method such
as MoSCoW (Must have, Should have, Could have,
Won’t have). This also helps determine which
features and capabilities get pushed into future
iterations (or phases).
Addressing the gap
As powerful as SharePoint is, there may be needs
that are not met by SharePoint alone. This means
that it may require additional custom solutions. If
it’s a must-have requirement, options include building
something custom or buying a third-party add-on.
SharePoint is a development platform, and building
a custom solution makes sense if there is a specialized
need. If a third-party product already exists, it is usually
cheaper to buy. Of course, also look at it from a costbenefit standpoint. Why invest $100,000 in a solution
if it only delivers $50,000 in value?
Architecting the Solution
With a clear business solution articulated, the
architecture begins. While this guide cannot detail
every aspect, the following are many of the key areas
that go into creating this blueprint.
Information architecture
With its column metadata, lists, libraries, and pages,
SharePoint content comes in many types and sizes.
This content needs to be organized into sites and
site collections, yielding to the physical hierarchy of
the SharePoint environment. Choices are to go with
a classic functional design (e.g., by department),
cross-functional (e.g., products that a manufacturer
creates), geographical (e.g. by region), or hybrids of
these. When choosing a hierarchy, security is an
important consideration since a user’s permissions
are, by default, inherited from higher to lower levels.
Navigation provides more logical structure, which
acts as transparent bridges to span the hierarchies.
Navigation in SharePoint is very customizable. Be
sure to take advantage of features such as the
Content Query Web Part which gathers and
summarizes content.
In addition to these physical and logical structures,
a very important consideration is to define how data
is classified in SharePoint. For example, how should
accounting’s purchase orders be stored and organized?
What metadata columns should be used? Should
the purchase order number be required? Without
answers to questions like these, content becomes
disorganized, inconsistent, and hard to find.
When creating this classification scheme, take full
advantage of content types and tagging found in
the new Metadata Management Service (MMS) in
SharePoint Server 2010. A content type is a reusable
set of columns that can be applied to lists and libraries.
The purchase order is a good example of a content
type. MMS can even publish these content types
across farms. Sets of hierarchical terms can also be
defined to more easily tag content.
Server topology
Choosing the right number of servers and the roles
of each is determined by addressing these three
service level agreements (SLAs): performance,
continuity, and scalability.
• Performance: achieve a certain response time. For example, search requests must be returned
within one second.
• Continuity: eliminate single points of failure to
achieve a certain uptime percentage.
• Scalability: ensure that the platform can scale up and
out to accommodate more users and more content.
When setting the topology, know that SharePoint
has three primary server roles: web front ends (WFE),
application servers, and SQL Servers. These roles
can be shared on the same server or distributed
among several, increasing performance, continuity
and scalability. How many of each is needed depends
on user counts, average usage, and SLAs. For example,
Acme Corp uses SharePoint mainly for document
management for its 500 users. While important, it is
not a mission-critical system. A suitable farm might
consist of just two servers: one shared WFE/
application server and one SQL server.
For Big Oil’s 5,000 users, SharePoint is their intranet
portal and enterprise search engine. It is a critical
system with a 99.9% uptime requirement and all
search response times must be sub-second. They
need at least three WFEs with network load
balancing (NLB), maybe four application servers
running index crawlers, and query services. For the
database tier, four SQL Servers (two online; two
standby) either mirrored or clustered are needed. Of
course, these counts depend heavily on hardware.
(Note: it is not advised to share SQL Server on either
a WFE or application server).
Define storage needs
In addition to servers and server roles, storage needs
must be designed. In SharePoint 2010, the primary
storage consumer is SQL Server, with query servers a
distant second. Two types of storage exist, local and
shared. Local simply means drives are directly attached
to the server. With shared, a Storage Area Network
(SAN) is used by allocating logical units (or LUNs) to
servers using a Fibre Channel or iSCSI connection.
Choosing local or shared depends on many factors,
including current infrastructure, budget, regulatory
and performance requirements. If capacity exists on
an existing SAN, consider using it for database servers.
Keep in mind that clustering SQL Server requires shared
storage. With shared storage, disk fault tolerance is
built-in. A SAN offering, such as EMC’s Symmetrix®,
delivers the best performance. This is an important
consideration because SharePoint places a heavy load
on SQL Server and storage is often the bottleneck.
To deliver high availability, consider booting servers
from a SAN and replicating the storage to an offsite
location. Products like EMC’s Replication Manager
can create a SharePoint-consistent replica of all data
(file system, plus configuration, service, and content
databases) and store it in a secondary farm.
Another consideration is whether to externalize
some content outside SQL Server. A common problem
with SharePoint environments is in managing content
database bloat. To reduce the size, choose to store
very large files, such as AutoCAD drawings, or archive
older files into separate and cheaper forms of storage.
Cross Reference
EMC offers a number of shared storage options
that are ideal for SharePoint environments. For
information on EMC storage solutions, visit
www.emc.com/products/category/storage.htm.
For more information about EMC solutions for
Sharepoint, see www.emc.com/sharepoint
Virtualization and hosting
Virtualization has become a popular way to consolidate
servers, cutting energy and maintenance costs. A virtual
infrastructure can also simplify disaster recovery and
address business continuity needs. Microsoft fully
supports SharePoint environments where virtualization
is used. Primary choices are VMware® (ESX®/vSphere™)
or Microsoft (Hyper-V) and all are excellent products.
THEJOURNEY
TOTHE
PRIVATE
CLOUD
STARTSNOW
EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo, and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation
in the United States and other countries. © Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 2149
I
n 2008, Microsoft announced that SharePoint
had become its fastest growing product ever.
A survey in July 2010 (http://bit.ly/dCmuEi)
suggests that 64 percent of firms use SharePoint
organization-wide with another 22 percent using
it departmentally. Now that SharePoint 2010 has
been released, this growth is expected to continue.
Despite this growth, deploying SharePoint and
leveraging its rich set of features is not a trivial
undertaking and challenges do exist. This essential
guide discusses what challenges may arise and how
to overcome them to successfully plan and architect
a SharePoint implementation. Guidance on how
to address governance and training to promote
proper usage is also provided.
What are the Potential Challenges?
First, SharePoint is far from a niche product—its
capabilities cover a vast number of workloads
from collaboration and content publishing to
enterprise search and business intelligence.
Utilizing SharePoint to its fullest potential in all
these areas takes a team that is skilled in all
aspects of the product.
Cross Reference
For more information on SharePoint,
visit sharepoint.microsoft.com.
Another challenge is that SharePoint is not a
product that is installed and immediately used.
Underneath the visible product layer, it’s also a
business technology platform—an evolved form
of .NET—from which custom solutions can be
created. This makes the product very malleable,
and knowing how to mold it to provide the needed
functionality takes great skill. In fact, SharePoint’s
platform has created a new ecosystem of third-party
add-ons, and understanding SharePoint often means
knowing many of these additional solutions.
A classic mistake many IT groups make is to
deploy SharePoint as a technology solution,
expecting the business to figure it out. Unlike
other Microsoft products, SharePoint directly
touches nearly every information worker and
becomes interwoven into their day-to-day tasks.
Yes, SharePoint is a technology solution, but it’s
also a business solution, and using SharePoint to
solve the business needs is where the potential
challenge resides.
Considering SharePoint from a business
perspective inevitably involves solving the return
on investment (ROI) riddle. While SharePoint can
deliver many benefits, some of the intangible ones
such as improved teamwork and higher employee
satisfaction, cannot be easily quantified.
Nonetheless, demonstrating positive ROI is one
of the best ways to get executive support.
Before Starting
Many try to deploy SharePoint using a grass-roots
approach, and while this can work in some cases, it’s
more risky. Thus, it’s best to get executive buy-in
before starting. This puts the most important
champions on your side. Executives also help
articulate the project’s vision. Given that SharePoint
is a long-term initiative, be sure this vision aligns
with the firm’s strategic plan.
Having a plan
Whether you choose to pilot SharePoint in a
business unit, or you aim for an enterprise-wide
first release, make sure a solid project plan is
created. Remember, even though SharePoint is
unique don’t throw out the methodology—just
be even more disciplined in applying it. Strongly
consider having a project manager who is certified
as a Project Management Professional (PMP) help
plan and guide the effort.
When it comes to the project plan, avoid the
temptation of doing a one-time, do-it-all project.
SharePoint covers many workloads and there are
many business problems it may address. Follow
an iterative deployment model where the project
starts small and incrementally add new features.
This shortens delivery cycles and gives the users
time to adjust to the changes that are coming
their way.
Choosing the right partner
Successfully deploying SharePoint is a craft, an
art, and a science that requires experienced
professionals. The intent is not to just outsource
the project, but to augment the internal team with
those who understand the complete environment
including the back-end infrastructure. Consider
Microsoft partners who are Microsoft certified
(both at the partner level and with SharePoint) and
that specialize in SharePoint. Many consulting
companies “do a little SharePoint” but haven’t
developed a bona-fide practice. Partnering with a
provider such as EMC Consulting Services brings a
proven execution methodology, best practices,
and project-delivery templates to assure quality
and accelerate implementation.
Define the Business Solution
Armed with a plan and a partner, it’s time to define
the business solution. A common approach is to
map the opportunities and needs to key features
of SharePoint. One reason for this is to validate
that SharePoint is the right solution, and the other
is to start building the bridge between the business
and the technology SharePoint delivers. For example,
if tracking and searching scanned documents is a
need, identify the features of SharePoint that will
work best. Of course, keep the project’s vision in
mind as this is done.
User personas
Because SharePoint is about the business, make sure
that you define the user personas. This means
understanding the users, how they work and what
they need. Avoid the trap of making assumptions
here. Spend time with them and really understand
their need. Some opt for field studies (e.g., surveys,
shadowing, or focus groups) to develop use cases.
While researching, don’t over-analyze the results.
Because the full solution is deployed iteratively, it’s
okay for some areas to be a bit off the mark—resolve
it in a future update.
Setting the scope
The scope defines the features and functions to be
delivered. Any project manager will require that this
is clearly defined. The scope helps ensure expectations
are clear among all stakeholders. To help set the scope,
prioritize the requirements by using a method such
as MoSCoW (Must have, Should have, Could have,
Won’t have). This also helps determine which
features and capabilities get pushed into future
iterations (or phases).
Addressing the gap
As powerful as SharePoint is, there may be needs
that are not met by SharePoint alone. This means
that it may require additional custom solutions. If
it’s a must-have requirement, options include building
something custom or buying a third-party add-on.
SharePoint is a development platform, and building
a custom solution makes sense if there is a specialized
need. If a third-party product already exists, it is usually
cheaper to buy. Of course, also look at it from a costbenefit standpoint. Why invest $100,000 in a solution
if it only delivers $50,000 in value?
Architecting the Solution
With a clear business solution articulated, the
architecture begins. While this guide cannot detail
every aspect, the following are many of the key areas
that go into creating this blueprint.
Information architecture
With its column metadata, lists, libraries, and pages,
SharePoint content comes in many types and sizes.
This content needs to be organized into sites and
site collections, yielding to the physical hierarchy of
the SharePoint environment. Choices are to go with
a classic functional design (e.g., by department),
cross-functional (e.g., products that a manufacturer
creates), geographical (e.g. by region), or hybrids of
these. When choosing a hierarchy, security is an
important consideration since a user’s permissions
are, by default, inherited from higher to lower levels.
Navigation provides more logical structure, which
acts as transparent bridges to span the hierarchies.
Navigation in SharePoint is very customizable. Be
sure to take advantage of features such as the
Content Query Web Part which gathers and
summarizes content.
In addition to these physical and logical structures,
a very important consideration is to define how data
is classified in SharePoint. For example, how should
accounting’s purchase orders be stored and organized?
What metadata columns should be used? Should
the purchase order number be required? Without
answers to questions like these, content becomes
disorganized, inconsistent, and hard to find.
When creating this classification scheme, take full
advantage of content types and tagging found in
the new Metadata Management Service (MMS) in
SharePoint Server 2010. A content type is a reusable
set of columns that can be applied to lists and libraries.
The purchase order is a good example of a content
type. MMS can even publish these content types
across farms. Sets of hierarchical terms can also be
defined to more easily tag content.
Server topology
Choosing the right number of servers and the roles
of each is determined by addressing these three
service level agreements (SLAs): performance,
continuity, and scalability.
• Performance: achieve a certain response time. For example, search requests must be returned
within one second.
• Continuity: eliminate single points of failure to
achieve a certain uptime percentage.
• Scalability: ensure that the platform can scale up and
out to accommodate more users and more content.
When setting the topology, know that SharePoint
has three primary server roles: web front ends (WFE),
application servers, and SQL Servers. These roles
can be shared on the same server or distributed
among several, increasing performance, continuity
and scalability. How many of each is needed depends
on user counts, average usage, and SLAs. For example,
Acme Corp uses SharePoint mainly for document
management for its 500 users. While important, it is
not a mission-critical system. A suitable farm might
consist of just two servers: one shared WFE/
application server and one SQL server.
For Big Oil’s 5,000 users, SharePoint is their intranet
portal and enterprise search engine. It is a critical
system with a 99.9% uptime requirement and all
search response times must be sub-second. They
need at least three WFEs with network load
balancing (NLB), maybe four application servers
running index crawlers, and query services. For the
database tier, four SQL Servers (two online; two
standby) either mirrored or clustered are needed. Of
course, these counts depend heavily on hardware.
(Note: it is not advised to share SQL Server on either
a WFE or application server).
Define storage needs
In addition to servers and server roles, storage needs
must be designed. In SharePoint 2010, the primary
storage consumer is SQL Server, with query servers a
distant second. Two types of storage exist, local and
shared. Local simply means drives are directly attached
to the server. With shared, a Storage Area Network
(SAN) is used by allocating logical units (or LUNs) to
servers using a Fibre Channel or iSCSI connection.
Choosing local or shared depends on many factors,
including current infrastructure, budget, regulatory
and performance requirements. If capacity exists on
an existing SAN, consider using it for database servers.
Keep in mind that clustering SQL Server requires shared
storage. With shared storage, disk fault tolerance is
built-in. A SAN offering, such as EMC’s Symmetrix®,
delivers the best performance. This is an important
consideration because SharePoint places a heavy load
on SQL Server and storage is often the bottleneck.
To deliver high availability, consider booting servers
from a SAN and replicating the storage to an offsite
location. Products like EMC’s Replication Manager
can create a SharePoint-consistent replica of all data
(file system, plus configuration, service, and content
databases) and store it in a secondary farm.
Another consideration is whether to externalize
some content outside SQL Server. A common problem
with SharePoint environments is in managing content
database bloat. To reduce the size, choose to store
very large files, such as AutoCAD drawings, or archive
older files into separate and cheaper forms of storage.
Cross Reference
EMC offers a number of shared storage options
that are ideal for SharePoint environments. For
information on EMC storage solutions, visit
www.emc.com/products/category/storage.htm.
For more information about EMC solutions for
Sharepoint, see www.emc.com/sharepoint
Virtualization and hosting
Virtualization has become a popular way to consolidate
servers, cutting energy and maintenance costs. A virtual
infrastructure can also simplify disaster recovery and
address business continuity needs. Microsoft fully
supports SharePoint environments where virtualization
is used. Primary choices are VMware® (ESX®/vSphere™)
or Microsoft (Hyper-V) and all are excellent products.
THEJOURNEY
TOTHE
PRIVATE
CLOUD
STARTSNOW
EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo, and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation
in the United States and other countries. © Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 2149
As with storage, virtualization should be part of the
firm’s larger infrastructure picture.
Related to virtualization, many organizations are
going one step further and building a private cloud.
This is a holistic computing environment where
security, governance and system services can be
provisioned and managed. For many, this is built
and maintained on-premise.
Governance
SharePoint asks users to work differently, to create
new habits. Without rules and structure, it’s very
hard for users to use the system in a proper and
effective way. Thus, governance can be defined as
a set of standards, policies, and guidance which
encourages desirable behavior. A governance
solution provides answers to common questions
such as “When should a new site be created? What
files should be marked as records? How should
content be secured?” Whether to use a strict or
flexible approach depends somewhat on the existing
culture and users’ tolerance. Where possible, be sure
that it doesn’t place unnecessary burden on users.
Governance has ties into all considerations covered
in this article. For example, governance policies
dictate how to secure, audit, and archive content
which affects an information architecture design.
Thus, categorize content into high, medium, and
low business impact areas. Any personally
identifiable information (such as social security
numbers) should be identified so that it’s managed
appropriately.
In some cases, governance is a legal requirement.
For example, legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley or
HIPAA requires content be protected from tampering,
and either archived or destroyed after a period of
time. Be sure to check with compliance officers in
the firm. Also be sure to determine the business
requirements for eDiscovery and how to address
those with SharePoint Server.
Cross Reference
Source One from EMC is a complete, enterpriseclass information governance solution. For
SharePoint, it addresses compliance, retention,
and content externalization. For information,
visit www.emc.com/sourceone)
sure the emphasis is on how SharePoint saves time
and makes tasks easier. Work to stamp out the
perception that this is yet another system they must
use. Training should involve specific scenarios that
resonate with staff.
Where possible, SharePoint training should be
role specific. Users performing site administration
or content management functions will have different
tasks than those using it for basic document
management. For power users, consider having
them take an introductory class followed by more
advanced ones. For IT SharePoint administrators
who will be installing and performing technical
day-to-day maintenance, look into week-long
training classes. Similar technical classes exist for
developer and designer roles as well.
Despite the challenges and risks presented here,
do not be daunted by SharePoint. It can be a very
rewarding experience. In one situation, a user
literally cried when she learned how much easier
her job would become. Armed with a solid plan,
the right partner, and the motivation of knowing
improvements are just around the corner, your
SharePoint deployment can be wildly successful.
Randy Williams is a senior solution architect and trainer
for Synergy Corporate Technologies. He has 20 years of
eclectic IT experience, and for the past 14 years has been
architecting and developing Microsoft-based solutions.
He has a master’s degree in Information Systems along
with a number of certifications. For 2009 and 2010, he
was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
(MVP) in SharePoint Server. Randy is currently based
in Singapore and runs Synergy’s operations there.
November 2010
The Essential Guide to
Successful
SharePoint
Implementation
Why EMC is Your Partner of Choice
for Microsoft SharePoint
1. You gain enterprise-scale capabilities to meet
business-critical demands—from a cost-effective
information infrastructure
With innovative storage and information management
solutions from EMC, Microsoft’s suite of virtualization
technologies maximizes server and storage
utilization while significantly reducing TCO.
2. You need a proven source of expertise on
SharePoint implementations and the underlying
information infrastructure
As a long-time Microsoft strategic partner, EMC can
help you plan, design, deploy, and manage a
high-efficiency SharePoint infrastructure—from
smaller-scale to enterprise-level. You can rely on us
for deep application experience and a solid
portfolio of industry-leading technologies, services,
and EMC Proven® solutions.
3. Your business demands scalability and performance for physical or virtual environments
With consolidated tiered storage from EMC, you can
meet service levels for a wide range of application
requirements. Our scalable, dependable, cost
effective solutions also quickly adapt to information
growth, all while delivering the highest performance
and availability with the capabilities you need to
get the most from your SharePoint environment.
4. You must provide unified protection for your
Microsoft SharePoint data
By Randy Williams
With a range of proven backup and deduplication
technologies from EMC and Data Domain®, an EMC
company, you can count on a reliable, efficient, and
cost-effective backup/recovery solution that’s right
for you. You can deliver the granularity of recovery
your users require—while ensuring consistent,
coordinated recovery of an individual database or
an entire farm.
5. You want to ensure non-stop operations and
fast restores with business continuity
Get strong business continuity and disaster recovery
options for Microsoft SharePoint environments that
align with your RPO and RTO requirements. Our
advanced backup/recovery and business continuity
solutions enable recovery for both local and remote
sites. You also benefit from rollback and recovery to a
specific point in time.
Training
Governance and training go hand in hand. Training
isn’t necessarily “How to use SharePoint,” but rather
“How we will use SharePoint.” It is a big mistake to
assume users will be able to “just figure it out.”
Training has a big impact on the rate of adoption—
if users don’t understand something, odds are they
won’t use it. When putting together a training
plan, and indeed, when planning the system, make
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO SharePointPro Connections
6. You need to extend SharePoint’s ECM capabilities
EMC Information Intelligence solutions enhance
and extend SharePoint’s native capabilities through
physical document capture and records management; business process and transactional content
management; and archival, compliance, and
eDiscovery of SharePoint content.
7. You must ensure the security of your
SharePoint data
Together with RSA®, The Security Division of EMC,
we provide a full suite of offerings that enable you
to discover sensitive data at rest, automatically
apply policy-based RMS protection, and proactively
monitor and report on user access and activities, so
you can be sure of your SharePoint data security.
8. You want to work with a vendor with proven,
documented experience offering integrated
solutions for SharePoint environments
EMC has documented reference architectures and
best practices to address a range of user workloads
and business requirements—plus a comprehensive
tiered storage portfolio to handle your current and
future workload requirements. Deep integration
testing through EMC E-Lab, along with a longstanding engineering relationship with Microsoft, also
enables us to provide on-going product support for
Microsoft Hyper-V.
9. You want to partner with an industry leader in
SharePoint deployments
Specializing in user experience design, application
development, business intelligence, workflow
automation, and technical infrastructure, EMC
Consulting helps you take Microsoft SharePoint
from concept to reality with an experienced,
award-winning team.
10. You need to accelerate the business value of
your Microsoft SharePoint environment
With over 10,000 consultants, EMC’s Global Services
organization offers a broad portfolio of strategic
consultation, planning, delivery, and support across
the entire IT lifecycle—from initial requirements
through day-to-day operations.