I recently made a trip to Microsoft for a workshop on SharePoint 2010 at their campus in Reading. The picture I took away is of a shift in focus away from development to configuration (and there's a hell of a lot more to configure), illustrated by the following:
- Complex (or simple) records and document management policies (compliant with DoD 5015.02, amongst other things) can now be configured into the system at and across every level and site location, or simply determined ad hoc. It looks like a complete EDRMS is on the cards with hierarchical (file-plan like) structuring, automatic document ID numbers and-all with a highly intuitive and attractive browser (any browser) based user interface.
- Developers will no longer be needed to come in and hack into your SharePoint in order for it to communicate with other databases and systems. All of this can be configured out of the box without any knowledge of or ostensible use of code.
- As a result of the above and because the development engine, Visual Studio 2010 (sold separately of course), is integrated into the Central Admin area I think that significant investment on bespoke coding is a thing of the past. For example, .NET coding can as easily be published to SharePoint 2010 as a document might be through a standard CMS. In addition to this, the .NET coding language is relatively easy to pick up for quick learners, which systems admins usually are.
- My opinion is that outlay in development will revolve around (app by app) bespoke applications development which has been readily facilitated through the provision of APIs meaning that apps can be built and rolled out through the Central Admin (or the ‘back office’) development tool-kit.
On cost, for organisations that have made a sizable resource commitment to MOSS 2007 already, the prospect of further investment in SharePoint 2010 might initially be a turn off[*]. If however they are persuaded by the additional functionality (particularly in what was formerly business intelligence, the records centre and mySite) then they still face the requirement to upgrade their hardware to x64 (currently it is x32). This x64 backroom hardware is needed to effectively accommodate technologies such as ajax which make for seamless and smooth user operability on the client side but demand significant resources from the servers to that end. This demand scales up with increases in user numbers and user activity, which will be a significant consideration if organisations start adopting SharePoint as a “full featured business platform”, as Microsoft is touting it.
Additionally, upgrade/migration from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint was not something that was readily covered and I suspect 2007 users may be in for a rougher ride, price-wise and technically, than they might otherwise have expected. This may be a particular issue to those organisations that invested heavily in 3rd party bespoke development of the product.
So, how significant is the advent of SharePoint 2010 to the information professional? Well, we have always known that information architecture, information governance (inclusive of its pillars such as policies, rules etc) and sound information management in general are critical to the success of any electronic information system deployment. And, with the removal of significant functionality barriers in SharePoint 2010, the continued importance of this cannot be stressed enough in giving systems administrators something to consider before bending to every whim of their users.
It is therefore critical that the advice of the information professional is heeded at the highest levels of management and engendered into the IT psyche. The blueprints of a successful implementation should be drawn up, highlighted, championed and followed from the very beginning, lest the onset of “SharePoint Sprawl”, a symptom of poor information architecture and a lack of information management forethought, generally; and one with which many, if not most, MOSS 2007 implementations contend.
If you have information management concerns around your deployment of SharePoint, or any other system, contact us for expert advice and solutions.Authored by Shooresh Golzari, tfpl consultant.
[*] Recent conversations with clients and SharePoint integrators indicate that this is true.
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