Professional SharePoint 2013 Administration

Chapter 2

Architecture and Capacity Planning

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• SharePoint products and licenses
• Critical non-SharePoint servers
• Hardware specifications
• Terminology
• Tools for controlling your deployment

SharePoint 2013 has greatly expanded its functionality from previous versions. New features include the following:

• An enhanced social experience, including microblogging, enhanced social experience, communities, and the capability to “follow” people, items, and sites
• More flexibility regarding how web applications consume services through service applications
• The Distributed Cache service, which helps relieve the workload on SQL, increase performance, and ease the technical networking complexity of multi-SharePoint server farms
• A new Request Management service that helps to distribute specific workloads

Applications that have undergone significant change include the following:

• Office Web Apps — Is now required to be installed on a separate server and is a shared service between SharePoint 2013, Exchange 2013, and Lync 2013.
• FAST Search Server — No longer exists as a unique product (or SKU) which can be purchased from Microsoft – it has been fully integrated into SharePoint.
• 2013 Workflow — While all the goodness you came to know and love in SharePoint 2013 is still available to you, SharePoint 2013 Workflow contains new capabilities that require the Azure Workflow Manager.

Those and numerous other new features in SharePoint 2013 are reasons why people are so excited about ...