SharePoint at CERN

CERN - IT DepartmentCH-1211 Genève 23

Switzerlandwww.cern.ch/it

OIS

SharePoint at CERN

IT GLM 17-May-2010Alexandre Lossent – IT/OIS



OIS Outline

• SharePoint overview• History of SharePoint at CERN• Some facts and figures• SharePoint custom applications• Web Content Management• What’s next: SharePoint 2010 + demo



OIS SharePoint overview

• Microsoft’s platform for collaborative applications– Selling point: help people connect and collaborate

• In practice: a “Swiss knife” used to host a large number of products/services– Initially the server component of Office, allowing

people to share and work together on documents– Progressively used as a consolidated platform for

many products and services. Some examples:• Content Management (WCM + ECM), Enterprise Search

(FAST), Web Portal, Identity Management (FIM), Project Management (Project Server), Social Computing (blogs, personal pages)...



OIS SharePoint at CERN: history

• Initially: deployed as a platform for IT/OIS services– 2006: Exchange Public Folders deprecated; IT/IS

looking for a new platform to store messages• Discussion forums/NNTP (cern.market)• Mailing list archive (e-groups project to replace Simba)

– Several platforms evaluated, SharePoint selected• June 2007: NNTP newsgroups moved to SharePoint• November 2008: Simba archives (4M messages)• January 2009: migration of Hypernews (except CMS)

– Minimum customization of SharePoint



OIS SharePoint at CERN: history (2)

• “Collaboration Workspace” service (2007)– Presented at “After-C5”: 11 May 2007– Publishing of web sites much easier and faster

• Wiki, web forms, web forums, document sharing...– At minimal cost

• Shared platform with IT/OIS services using SharePoint• Integration with central web site management system• No customization: SharePoint out-of-the-box features

• 2009: upgrade to MOSS– New features: Web Content Management

System, InfoPath forms server, advanced search in e-group archives...



OIS Current situation

• Success as a user site hosting service:– 1200+ SharePoint sites in 2010

• 1/3 of all new centrally hosted web sites since 2007• Quickly became a very popular service

– Main usage: document sharing and web forms• Also: web portal, discussion forums, public web site• Consistent with expected service scope and usage

• Success as a platform for IT/OIS services:– E-group archives, forums, RSS feeds (CMF

alerter), help page hosting – Internal service documentation, operations and

project management...



OIS Some facts and figures

• Excellent availability and reliability:– ~1 hour unavailability in 3 years, all scheduled– 2009: redundant infrastructure to further reduce

maintenance time and help business continuity• Moving database replica to Safehost is in the plans

– Security: 1 security patch in 3 years• Scalability and performance:

– 400+ GB (250GB IT/OIS services; 150GB user sites)– 5.5M documents (5M archived e-mails), indexed– 700K requests/day (5% for E-group archives)

• Flexibility as a platform for IT/OIS– E-group archive project on schedule– New e-group archive features for Experiments: portal,

advanced search features, web posting...



OIS Support and training

• User support is provided by IT/helpdesk– Typically does not generate more requests than

other central web hosting technologies• Typical requests: quota, authentication, external accounts

– Operation and maintenance effort is small• No customization to maintain

• Technical training available– Basic (sessions each month)– Advanced (new in 2010)– Individual coaching (new)

• A tool that is more and more known and widely used at CERN



OIS Manpower

• Manpower for SharePoint was taken from Mail & Web services– In particular, resources for Simba moved to

SharePoint’s e-group archives• Current manpower (IT/OIS services + user sites)

– Full-time: 1 fellow (Bruno Silva de Sousa)– Shared fellow with Server Infrastructure (Elisabeth

Johnsen)• Contributes to migration phases

– Fraction of staff from Mail Services (Alexandre Lossent)

• No long-term manpower (fellows in 2nd year)



OIS Beyond “collaboration workspace”: custom applications

• Recently, projects of custom applications using the SharePoint platform– E.g. IT-Faqs, XWHO replacement, Service

Catalogue, Ask-an-Expert, Web Content Management...

• Desire to do more than what the out-of-the-box functionality provided in collaboration workspace service– Precise custom behaviours– Look and feel personalization (“branding”)



OIS Custom applications: lessons learned

• SharePoint custom applications have a cost– Knowledge of the platform from a developer's

perspective • very different from end-user’s point of view

– The more custom behaviour = the more effort– Additional cost in administration/operation:

• Deploy and maintain customizations (code, custom web parts, branding...)

• Long-term maintenance: new SharePoint versions• New “sandbox” mode may help (moderately)• Not compatible with current manpower

• ... As with any development platform!



OIS Custom applications: lessons learned (2)• Example of e-group archives

– Went as far as possible with out-of-the-box features (95%)

– Then minimum customization here and there• Benefits of using SharePoint:

– Extensive range of services provided by the platform (e.g. data storage, search, web forms...)

– Proven reliability, scalability and security– Sharing the platform with other services

• Customization effort needs to be allocated the appropriate resources



OIS Web Content Management

• SharePoint offers Web Content Management (WCM) features– E.g. Ferrari.com, parlament.ch, ohchr.org

• At CERN: two WCM levels in discussion– Out-of-the-box functionality and default CERN

branding• E.g. HR admin e-guide• Available now in collaboration workspaces

– Custom application: CERN “web communication plan” (large public web site)

• Specific training to be organized for WCM site designers

http://ferrari.com/

http://www.parlament.ch/

http://www.ohchr.org/



OIS What’s next: SharePoint 2010

• Released end April 2010• Builds on the same concepts• Key new features:

– Site editing from web browser considerably improved– Relational data (relations between lists)– Web standards:

• full support for Firefox/Safari• WCAG 2.0 compliance (accessibility guidelines)• REST (data access)

– Web 2.0 / “Social computing”• Facebook/del.icio.us/blog features...

– Office Web Applications: edit Office documents from the browser (including concurrent Excel worksheet edition)

– Integration of FAST search– Sandbox mode to isolate custom code– New UI: Office 2007/2010 “ribbon”



OIS SharePoint 2010

• Demo: some of the new features in SharePoint 2010



OIS SharePoint 2010 status

• Dedicated hosting available– Service Catalogue (custom application)– Web Content Management evaluation

• Migration of existing SharePoint sites– IT/OIS applications + collaboration workspaces– Not scheduled yet – little resources available

• Training– Adapt training for new users – “Refresh course” for SharePoint 2007 users

• Changes in User Interface



OIS Conclusion

• A powerful and reliable platform• Running important CERN services

– E.g. E-group archives, collaboration workspaces• SharePoint 2010 offers new opportunities

– Cross-platform support, improved UI• Deployment of custom applications is a

significant new step and requires appropriate resources

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