Microsoft SharePoint Server is a Web application platform developed by Microsoft.First launched in 2001.Microsoft SharePoint is a enterprice collabration and content management portal.which enable users connect to each other and share the information across an organization.Allows individuals in an organization to easily create and manage their own collaborative Web sites.Simplifies how people find and share information across boundaries, and enabling better informed decisions.Seamlessly integrates with Windows and MS Office. offer a fully functional, out-of-the box software that can be customized to meet the specific needs of your business without the added costs of architects and consultants.One of the benefits of an out-of-the box solution is that re-designing is easy and can be done on a continuous basis, from the front-end of the software, with no IT experience required.

Six Pillars of SharePoint

• Sites
• Communities
• Content
• Search
• Insights
• Composites

Building and Managing Internal and External Websites.It provides a full set of tools that people can use to create any kind of site, plus a single infrastructure that simplifies site management.From a team site for colleagues, to an extranet site for partners, to an Internet site for customers, people can share and publish information using one familiar system. Creating a Social Collaboration Environment.Social capabilities like Facebook and Twitter are becoming normal for many of us. Now all this social media stuff is moving into the workplace. It all boils down to providing a modern approach to working together, collaborating and sharing knowledge.So these capabilities need to be a component of every piece of software we use. Managing Your Documents, Information and Records.As part of Content functionality in SharePoint, you have direct integration with your MS Office environment, so you can work on your documents in a familiar environment. The Google for Your Organization's Private Info.Search for information and people, including particular expertise.Index content and data stored outside of your SharePoint database Refine search results based on taxonomy and metadata (how content is organized and classified).The addition of FAST Search brings enhancements,View thumbnails and previews of content within the result set.Refine results based on user profile or audience.The ability to refine search results with filters like Site, Author, Result Type and more. Digging for Business Intelligence.A key goal in any business is staying ahead of the competition. Increasingly, the class of software called Business Intelligence plays an important role here. Business intelligence software is all about helping you make decisions and find problems. Integrating Your Business Systems.Another big improvement for SharePoint relates to its ability talk to — pushing and pulling data to/ from other business systems. Instead of having to work in multiple systems, you can create composite applications in sharepoint. Data integrations are key for management dashboards and project management, but also for employees who may not need full access to the business application. SharePoint can both view and update external data via its Business Connectivity Services (BCS).

Version History of SharePoint

Role of SharePoint Server in a LAN Network.

Components of SharePoint

Creating team sites and collaborating on content within lists and libraries, or features such as blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, alerts, and easy browser-based customizations. It provides developers with a great platform to build from. Out of the box, it handles storage, web presentation, authorization, user management, and has an interface into the Windows Workfow Foundation and because all of this functionality is easily accessible through the object model, APIs, and web services, it can greatly accelerate a developer’s job. Rather than build all of those infrastructure pieces for every web-based product, developers can leverage SharePoint Foundation and concentrate on just building the solution. It extends Foundation server which is automatically installed with SharePoint ServerIts available in two editions: Standard Edition & Enterprise Edition

• Standard introduces core functionality like social, search, and advanced web and enterprise content management.
• Enterprise focuses primarily on adding functionality through new service applications, introducing business intelligence, line of business integration, reporting, and some Office client services such as Visio

Foundation server cannot pull search results from multiple site collection and cannot add external content sources like file share or Exchange public folders Visual search and best bets.Extreme scale, with a billion documents possible.Enhanced multiple language capabilities.Better handling of unstructured data through metadata extraction Better handling of structured data such as numbers, dates, etc. Another push for SharePoint from Microsoft will be SharePoint in the cloud, hosted by Microsoft. If you are looking to deploy SharePoint using this model, the entire server infrastructure is hosted and maintained for you. This model removes the administrative overhead of SharePoint and lets the business focus just on using the power that is SharePoint. Query Server: its responsible for responding to user search requests Index Server: Also referred as Crawl Server. Excel Service: It’s about supporting excel service in client browser. Usage and Health Data Collection: It enables the collection of all the diagnostic and usage data from your entire SharePoint farm in one database.

Developers View of SharePoint