Designing Effective Logical Architectures and Site TaxonomiesDan Usher21 May 2009

Agenda

IntroductionLogical ArchitectureTaxonomyProject PlanningTechnical RequirementsScenariosConclusion

Introduction

Who am I?What environments have I worked in?What have I seen?What is this talk about?

What could go wrong?

Logical Architectures skipped…Site Collections popping up all over the place…Permissions are a mess…Where’d my admin access go….Information can’t be found…Search isn’t working right…

What's your system vision?

Collaboration Portals

Enterprise Search Content Management

WorkflowProcess and

Forms

Business Intelligence

What’s a vision look like?

What’s the context of your use for SharePoint?What are you trying to accomplish with SharePoint?Do you need to be able to roll up data?Re-utilize SharePoint groupsWorkflow tools?Consider the context of your environment and requirements

6

Stepping into Contextual Thinking…

Considerations, Tradeoffs and Compromises to meet the ContextAssessing the context…

What capabilities are sought after?What are the environment limitations?Are you building into the cloud?

Consider the context…

Do you feel like it’s like this?

8

Logical Architecture

What defines a logical architecture?Why is a logical architecture important?How can you really make use of a logical architecture?What does a logical architecture consist of and look like?

9

What makes up a logical architecture?

Web Zones (Intranet, Extranet, Internet, etc.) and Zone PoliciesDifferent Authentication ModelsContent DatabasesApplication Pools

Web ApplicationsMultiple SSPsMy SitesCollaborative Team SitesSecure Content Authoring and Publishing

Site Collections

10

Refe

renc

e: h

ttp:

//bi

t.ly/

sps-

ref-w

ssLA

Win

dow

s Sh

areP

oint

Ser

vice

s Ex

ampl

e

12

Reference: http://bit.ly/sps-ref-mossLA

Mic

roso

ft O

ffice

Sha

rePo

int S

erve

r 200

7 Lo

gica

l Arc

hite

ctur

e Ex

ampl

e

How is your logical architecture affected by your requirements?

ExtranetPublic Facing WebsitePermissions modelsAuthentication SchemesInteroperability with other applications

13

What is a taxonomy?

Taxonomy is the science (and art) of classifying a broad range of things. Originally used to classify plants and animals – phylum, genus, species, etc. – taxonomy is now applied to everything from product inventory to web sites.

14

Reference: http://bit.ly/sps-ref-tax

What is SharePoint’s taxonomy?

SharePoint FarmsWeb Applications

Collections of Site CollectionsCollections of Sites

Managed PathsNesting PathsReflection of the OrganizationRequires out of the box thinking

15

What’s that look like?

SharePoint Monkey sharepointmonkey.org

Root Site/

Blog(/blog)

Search Center(/search)

Personal(/personal)

Work Sites/work/

Development(/work/development)

Networking(/work/networking)

SharePoint(/work/sharepoint)

But do I really need a taxonomy?

Why not just deposit everything in a single document library?Why not just use search for everything?

17

What about permissions?

Inheritance and Breaking it……and re-inheriting it

Defined in a Governance Plan hopefully?SharePoint GroupsAD / LDAP GroupsSingle Users

18

Taxonomy & Logical Architecture – What’s the Bridge?

Site collections bridge logical architecture and information architecture. The design goals for site collections in the model are to satisfy requirements for URL design and to create logical divisions of content.*

19

Reference: http://bit.ly/sps-ref-sc

Project Plans

How does a project plan fit into logical architectures and taxonomies?Or rather…How does a logical architecture and taxonomy fit into a project plan…

20

Project PlansMicrosoft has a project plan for planning…

21

http:

//go

.spd

an.c

om/h

mew

o

Technical Requirement Considerations

What will the system do?Collaboration?Publishing?Development Platform?

How big will the system be?How will it be accessed?What will be the level of usage?Are we dealing with a cross domain solution?SQL Mirroring or Clustering?

22

What are your limitations technically?

Surrounding InfrastructureSystem MemoryIIS

Number of Web ApplicationsNumber of Identity Pools

Number of sites / site collectionsDNSAuthentication MethodsPKI / SSL / Wildcard CertificatesNetwork Interfaces / IP AddressesStorage 23

Scenario 1 – Requirements

Small Organization (250-300)Document ManagementCollaborationFederationLow Hardware / Software BudgetInformation Rollups

24

Scenario 1 – Considerations

Taxonomy may reflect an organization’s natural divisionsSingle Site Collection rolls up information easilyWorks well with small numbers of users“Out of the box method”Reutilizes Site Columns and Content Types

25

Scenario 1 – Potential Solution

Small FarmUse of SharePoint DesignerUser Management ToolADFSTaxonomy using Sites

Rolled Up InformationSecurity Group MadnessUser Training

26

Pirate Nosh Taxonomy Example

27

28

Pira

te N

osh

Logi

cal A

rchi

tect

ure

Exam

ple

Pirate Nosh – Example Physical Architecture

29

Scenario 2 Requirements

CollaborationDocument ManagementWorkflowRecords ManagementLarge User base - 100k users

30

Scenario 2 Requirements – But wait there’s more…

Complex PermissionsExtranet AccessSmartcard AuthenticationHigh AvailabilityIntegrity of DataAD Infrastructure - Security Groups

31

Scenario 2 – Potential Solutions

Integration of 3rd Party Records Management SolutionUse of the DOD 5015.2 Record's Management Pack with a Microsoft PartnerThird Party Wiki Integration (Confluence, MediaWiki, etc.)

Rights Management ServerUser Management through AD or Third Party ToolsLarge Farm

32

Scenario 2 – Potential Solutions

SQL ConfigurationMirroring - remove the complexityClustering - better scalabilityMirror the data of the cluster - best of both worlds

Log ShippingThird Party Mirroring ToolSplit DNSWCM SystemCaptaris, K2, Nintex?

33

Scenario 2 – Considerations

34

Typically doesn’t get planned overnightMay or may not reflect what an organization actually looks likeBest to plan it out with timeDiscover what is out there…

35

Bina

ry B

rew

ery

Logi

cal A

rchi

tect

ure

Exam

ple

Binary Brewery Taxonomy Example

36

37

Bina

ry B

rew

ery

Phys

ical

Arc

hite

ctur

e Ex

ampl

e

Conclusion I

Each SharePoint implementation project requires that you examine the contextual considerations of the environment and define a vision.

Defining such a vision will provide goals to work toward, to make your implementation both successful and effective to end users.

38

Conclusion II

Your requirements drive your taxonomy and logical architecture...Which in turn drive your hardware requirements... If you don't know what you're going to use SharePoint for, start off small and scale your farm up as you go...Crawl… Walk… Run…

39

Conclusion III

What you start with on Day One isn’t what you’re going to end up with in…

Six months…A year…Day 472…

40

Remain Flexible!!!

Conclusion IV

User adoption in and of itself will cause your environment to change…

…adapt to the context as it changes.

41

Questions?

And that’s a wrap…

Follow me on Twitter – twitter.com/usherFollow my blog – http://www.sharepointdan.comIM?

gTalk danusher79Live danusher@live.com

E-mail: dan@spdan.com

43