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Leave Your SharePoint To Us

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There are many different definitions of what SharePoint is on Google, but my favourite explanation is the following:

SharePoint is a web application from Microsoft that enables organizations to work more efficiently by letting users share documents, data and information.

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SharePoint is really underrated in my opinion and the later versions have the scope of being extremely beneficial for businesses – and not just from a functional point of view. Microsoft have put a lot of emphasis on compliance and security with the latest SharePoint 2016, adding new features and upgrading existing ones. After the recent hackings and outages, I think everyone can be relieved they have!

SharePoint however, from a back-end perspective, can be troublesome to manage. This can put a lot of people off, but the benefits (and uses) far outweigh the nuisances. Four main factors affect how complex SharePoint is to support – and why outsourcing may be your most convenient option:

Size of environment
(users/servers)​:
In an enterprise environment, a medium size SharePoint farm would have 3-7 servers, with at least 1, ideally 2 SQL servers. Large farms (for 10,000+ users) may have 10 or more servers, potentially alongside a dev/test farm too. A lot of storage is needed for this type of an environment, plus high availability features and backup/disaster recovery.
Features used:
Some organisations use SharePoint purely as storage, others will use for data processing, workflow, collaboration, publishing, BI, as a reporting solution… The search component alone can get very complex with this.
Customisation:
One popular characteristic, especially in the later versions of SharePoint, is the ability to customise the look/feel of the portal. Creating own web parts, own content engine, layouts, workflows, integration with 3rd party systems etc.
Performance:
Largely down to SQL performance, and storage system of SQL underneath. Most SharePoint performance issues are down to SQL layer.
​The biggest 'complexity' with SharePoint, even single server farms, is the patching. It's quite a complex process, and can cause problems with the farm, including stopping it working completely. A lot of the time (with our support calls), this is due to a failed upgrade.

If you want to adopt SharePoint, but don't have the expertise or means to manage it, call us for a no-obligation chat on how we work with you on maximising you. From integration, upgrade, support or a total solution package of your SharePoint environment, our expert technicians make the process hassle-free.

About the author

Fuse

Fuse is a Microsoft Partner, based in Northampton. We help organisations of all sizes to maximise IT efficiencies through the use of Microsoft cloud computing solutions.

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