Chapter 2
The SharePoint 2010 Platform
What's in this chapter?
- An overview of the SharePoint 2010 platform and the problems it addresses
- Core SharePoint concepts that are crucial for understanding deeper ECM concepts in this book
- An overview of the technical architecture of SharePoint 2010
- An overview of the SharePoint platform's development capabilities
- An introduction to the SharePoint 2010 ECM features covered in this book
The goal of this chapter is twofold. First, it contains information that provides a broad overview of SharePoint's purpose in general. This important context will provide you with the groundwork needed to understand the ECM-specific features of SharePoint and the remainder of the book. Second, it lays out a map for the rest of the book with regard to ECM functionality in SharePoint 2010. Therefore, use this chapter as a launchpad for determining where you would like to go next in this book.
This chapter is laid out as follows. First, some context around the history of SharePoint is provided. Next, the high-level capabilities of SharePoint 2010 are discussed. These are the items that make SharePoint SharePoint. The next sections discuss core SharePoint concepts (e.g., site collections, sites, etc.) as well as some items from a more technical perspective (Central Administration, features and solutions, etc.). Finally, the remaining sections provide the conduit to the other chapters in this book by covering the pertinent ECM features in SharePoint 2010.
