SharePoint User Group UK

hi all

i wonder if i could poll users on their preferences on whther they prefer to use site collections over sites (wss). I am having some issues in matching up our logical architecture with sharepoint's architecture.

My preference leans towards site collections - but in WSS is there a way of sharing out themes, Lists and Content types across different site collections?

Any help appreciated,

thanks

dave

The Site Collection is the boundary for many things (eg. permissions, content types, rollup, etc) therefore careful planning is needed.
That siad, it is possible to re-parent sites...

Themes are scoped to current site (web).

Maybe site columns will help...

There are a great many considerations to the IA of a WSS deployment, if you can post more info I'm sure the community will be able to help steer you ;)

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Matt Groves
Managing Consultant (Information Worker Solutions) - Trinity Expert Systems Ltd [www.tesl.com]
Blog: www.mattgrovesblog.com

Hi Dave

huge topic :)

This is in the 2003 forum but gathering from your question is WSS 3.0 were talking about.

As Matt Groves would always begin...It Depends...

- Remember Site Collections are boundaries for many things in WSS 3.0 (Content Types, Site Columns, Navigation, Security, Content Rollup to name but a few)
- Site Collections can be controlled by Quotas and Administered as a unit
- Site Collections can map to their own Content Database and as a result can be backed up and restored using native tools. It is much more involved to restore at site level or more granular and other tools are required to do a better job.

In a nutshell, think about your taxonomy and future potential growth. If its likely that its going to get bigger (and it always does) then Site Collections are the way to go.

Just needs more preparation and planning. If you really need to keep Content Types in sync across site collections, you will need to do this with code/workflow or possibly a Content Deployment job.

SharePoint 2010 has external Content Types available across a whole Farm and a MetaData service!!

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Director, Intelligent Decisioning Ltd
http://www.id-live.com

Thanks for your help guys. You have confirmed what i was thinking. I've not yet deployed and i think that before long we will migrate to SP Portal server. however before we get there i wanted to get a good grounding in the structure and principles.

so for me - if anyone else is thinking about doing same i had a few issues.

The database - WSS comes with Windows internal database -

• no storage limit
• Free to use
• basic installation prevents that server from being added to a farm
• no database limit
• cant run on Windows web editions
• cannot be accessed remotely
• manage with command line tools

however you should be able to use SQL 2005 Express edition;

• Free to use
• Access the server remotely (Using SQL back end and WSS front end)
• 4GB size limitation (effectively prevents use for site collections and large document libraries)
• SQL engine supports 1CPU, 1GB Ram, 4Gb db size (4gb limit only applies to data files not to log files)
• No user limit
• manage with SQL server Management Studio Express Edition - GUI

 

To be hoinest I have very little experience of the basic install of WSS, it doesn't scale or offer any real HA/DR options, so my clients can't use it.

If you are expecting any kind of growth (or HA/DR) requirements my advise is to forget about the basic install. Even if you start with a single server deployment, do it in a manner that can be easily scaled out later.

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Matt Groves
Managing Consultant (Information Worker Solutions) - Trinity Expert Systems Ltd [www.tesl.com]
Blog: www.mattgrovesblog.com

i think DR would be Disasater recovery but what is HA?

HA is High Availability - very separate from DR! Its basically about planning to keep your system UP and preventing a disaster from bringing down your service.

You mention Portal Srever, so can I confirm are we talking WSS v2 here or WSS v3?

Either way, WSS comes with Windows INternal Database ONLY if installed in Stand Alone mode, which I would avoid unless you are building a DEV environment as this gives no scope for expansion and scaling up/out.

Can you not get a license for SQL 2005/2008 Standard Edition?

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Director, Intelligent Decisioning Ltd
http://www.id-live.com

Hi Macraem
thanks for this. I will be using WSSv3.0 - from the start i will be using only the free db (WINS or MSDE) and later migrating if possible to sql server.
but would also like to test out external access. i hope to do this by either placing a virtual server as the WFE in our DMZ and link that to a back end server. i suppose i am unable to do this with WINS as it has to be on same server - but can this be done with the MSDE?

thanks for any help