SharePoint at CERN

1. SharePoint at CERN IT GLM 17-May-2010 Alexandre Lossent – IT/OIS

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

3. 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)...

4. 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

5. 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...

6. 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...

7. 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...

8. 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

9. 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)

10. 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”)

11. 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!

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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”

15. SharePoint 2010 • Demo: some of the new features in SharePoint 2010

16. 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

17. 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