Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Technologies

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Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

We discussed in previous chapters how WSS 3.0 provides platform services

and a collaboration solution. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, to

give it its name in all its glory, is a complete superset of WSS 3.0. Oftentimes

referred to as MOSS, it extends the solution areas and brings its own shared

services to the table that these solution areas then consume. You can either

upgrade an existing WSS 3.0 installation or deploy a new MOSS installation

in which case WSS 3.0 will be installed for you.

What are the new solution areas that MOSS introduces? We gave a

broad overview of them in Chapter 1, 2007 Microsoft Office System, but

take a look at Figure 4.1. This is the same basic figure we used in Chapter

2, Windows SharePoint Services V3.0, to describe the functional areas that

WSS 3.0 delivers extended with those of MOSS. Separate chapters will

cover all the functional areas, so this chapter will focus mainly on the key

generic additions you get with MOSS and, in particular, the Business Data

Catalog, as this is a shared service that can be exploited in many different

ways to ensure your users are connected to important business data that is

typically locked in back-end enterprise applications.

4.1 Shared Services

SPS 2003 introduced a Shared Services model which, we think it is fair to

say, was not fully baked. It did solve a couple of problems, but there were var-

ious implementation issues that meant it was not embraced as widely as it

could have been.

But it was a good idea, and we are happy to say that its MOSS imple-

mentation is far superior. The idea behind Shared Services in SPS 2003 was

to provide a central place that provided key services and to have multiple

portals consume these shared services. You could share search and indexing,

My Site and Alerts, Audience Targeting, People Profiles, and Single Sign-On.

The implementation meant that you designated one portal as the parent and

then all other portals created on that farm became child portals that con-