In this blog article we will look at the new capabilities of SharePoint 2013; explore what’s new and what’s changed.
Cloud computing is definitely a theme of SharePoint 2013 and will continue to be going forward.
The core architecture of SharePoint 2013 has remained more or less the same as that of SharePoint 2010. However, SharePoint 2013 includes a number of performance improvements at the architectural level such as:
The functionality of two service applications has been redesigned to such an extent that they do not exist as entities: The Web Analytics functionality is now incorporated into search, and Office Web Apps is now a separate product that cannot be installed on the same servers as SharePoint 2013, but needs its own servers if you want to use it
Web Applications and site collections from an architectural perspective are much as they were in SharePoint 2010.
Claims-based authentication is now the default and host-named site collections (HNSC) are now fully supported.
Many of the additional functions that have been added to the SharePoint 2013 services can be configured at the site-collection and site level, giving site collection and site owners more options regarding how they prefer to use SharePoint.
A new application framework has been added to SharePoint 2013 that facilitates the development of applications for Office and SharePoint, both in the cloud and on-premises. Organizations can use the Application Management Service Application to host their own Apps
Catalogs rather than to publish their internal Office and SharePoint Apps to Microsoft’s online market place.
The SharePoint 2013 upgrade process only supports the database attaches and separates the upgrade of the database schema and content from the site collections.
Search
Searching in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 is another area in which Microsoft has made major investments.
The new SharePoint 2013 search architecture consists of six components:
The index for an SSA is stored in files on the servers that host the SSA’s index component. You can create many index components associated with one SSA, thereby splitting the index across many servers. There are two ways of splitting your index: index partitions and index replicas. The search index for the service application is the aggregation of all index partitions.
You can spread the query load on an index partition by creating index replicas, which provide a level of redundancy.
SharePoint 2013 also includes a new search user interface with new Search Web Parts that can be customized by using Result Types and display templates. The hover card is prevalent throughout the user interface. It displays information about the returned result item, and if your SharePoint 2013 installation is linked to an Office Web App farm, it displays graphical previews of the content of Office documents.
Microsoft has optimized SharePoint 2013, not only in terms of the code deployed but also with regard to optimizing the site for the visitors, for search engines, for performance, for web designers and content authors. The result is a significant improvement in records management and Web Content Management.
Discovery Center
SharePoint 2013 introduces a new site collection—the Discovery Center, which serves as a portal for managing eDiscovery cases. From this single location, you can discover content in one or more SharePoint farms, in Exchange Server 2013, on file shares, and in Lync 2013 when content is archived to Exchange 2013.
Web Content Management
As far as web content management (WCM) is concerned, there is now a new publishing model involving search-driven content within which you can see content across site collection boundaries and even web application boundaries.
Using Managed Navigation, you can now define the structure of your site, and by tagging the content with the right terms, you can ensure that the content will be published at the right location in your website. Much of this is built about the new features in managed metadata service (MMS) and the new search architecture.
SharePoint and SEO
One of the new capabilities of SharePoint 2013 is the native support for search engine optimization (SEO) of public-facing websites. In this context optimization with SharePoint 2013, Microsoft has not only concentrated on optimizing the code but also optimizing the site for the visitors, the content authors, and provided new tools for the web designer.
Social Capabilities
Social computing is another big investment area in SharePoint Server 2013, which now offers Facebook-like and Twitter-like functionality.
New social functionalities have been added, such as microblogging, the use of #Tags, and @mentions, with which users can mention other people. Users can follow people, content, documents, sites and tags.
The three hubs, Newsfeed, SkyDrive, and Sites, where social activities can be viewed in groups, such as following, likes and mentions.
These hubs are accessed from the global navigation bar.
Business Data Connectivity
In SharePoint 2013, BCS is still implemented as a Business Data Connectivity (BDC) service application.
There is no difference between SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint 2010 with respect to creating the service application topology. BCS continues to centrally store the definition of the external content—its location, the type of data it is, and the behavior of the data when it is integrated into SharePoint and Office client applications—in the BDC metadata store, which is a SQL Server database
BCS support is made available for OData data sources
BDC Models for OData are created by using Visual Studio 2012 only.
BDC Models can be included in SharePoint Apps.
In SharePoint 2013, BCS has the ability to listen for events that occur in an external system. A developer can use remote event receivers attached to external lists and BDC entities to write code that is triggered when data in the external system has changed. This makes it possible to receive notifications of events that occur in the external systems.
Access Service Applications
SharePoint 2013 provides two Access service applications: the Access service application as provided in SharePoint 2010, and Access 2013 service application.
Access 2013 Services service application hosts Access web apps, which are web-based SharePoint applications; you can quickly build with no-code. Data for these apps is stored in SQL Server 2012 databases and not in SharePoint lists. You create Access web apps by using Access 2013, and you use the browser to enter data.
Business Intelligence
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 provides a comprehensive set of Business Intelligence (BI) tools that integrate across Microsoft Office applications and other Microsoft technologies.
Excel 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013 include enhanced support for BI.
New BI features in the client application Excel, such as calculated measures and timeline controls are supported by Excel Services.
Excel 2013 also includes an in-memory tabular engine called the xVelocity engine.
Excel Data Models can be used as a basis for PowerPivots, PivotTables, PivotCharts and Power View reports. When you save workbooks that contain these PowerPivots, PivotTables, PivotCharts and Power View reports to SharePoint, you can display them in webpages, because the same in-memory engine can be used in SharePoint 2013.
If you want the full PowerPivot and Power View functionality that users experience in Excel, such as clicking slicers and doing analysis, Excel Services must be connected to an instance of Analysis Services SharePoint Mode. An instance of the Analysis Service SharePoint Mode does not need to be installed on a server where SharePoint is installed; however, the server must be joined to a domain in the same Active Directory forest as the SharePoint farm that contains the Excel Services service application where you will register the Analysis Service instance.
To use features, such as scheduling data refresh, PowerPivot for SharePoint needs to be installed.
Reporting Services on SharePoint
There are two components that integrate SQL Server Reporting Services with SharePoint:
The Reporting Services add-in for SharePoint provides features to integrate a SSRS report server with a deployment of SharePoint product. These two components, together with Analysis Services SharePoint Mode and the PowerPivot add-in for SharePoint, can be installed from the SQL Server 2012 SP1 installation medium.
Although these four components must be SQL Server 2012 SP1 components, the instance of SQL Server that is hosting your SharePoint databases does not need to be SQL Server 2012 SP1; it could be SQL Server 2012 or SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1.
Reporting Services SharePoint Mode and Analysis Service SharePoint Mode are installed as service applications and are managed by using the SharePoint Central Administration website or Windows PowerShell.
Thus we see that SharePoint Server 2013 provides a comprehensive solution for connected information work that enables people to transform the way they work while preserving the benefits of structured processes, compliance, and existing IT investments.
Cloud computing is definitely a theme of SharePoint 2013 and will continue to be going forward.
The core architecture of SharePoint 2013 has remained more or less the same as that of SharePoint 2010. However, SharePoint 2013 includes a number of performance improvements at the architectural level such as:
- Shredded storage, whereby versions of the same file are saved as deltas of the original file;
- SharePoint farm-level cross-server caching, whereby the same information is synchronized across every web server and
- A new Workflow Framework that can be hosted on servers on which SharePoint 2013 is not installed.
- Machine Translation,
- Work Management and
- App Management
The functionality of two service applications has been redesigned to such an extent that they do not exist as entities: The Web Analytics functionality is now incorporated into search, and Office Web Apps is now a separate product that cannot be installed on the same servers as SharePoint 2013, but needs its own servers if you want to use it
Web Applications and site collections from an architectural perspective are much as they were in SharePoint 2010.
Claims-based authentication is now the default and host-named site collections (HNSC) are now fully supported.
Many of the additional functions that have been added to the SharePoint 2013 services can be configured at the site-collection and site level, giving site collection and site owners more options regarding how they prefer to use SharePoint.
A new application framework has been added to SharePoint 2013 that facilitates the development of applications for Office and SharePoint, both in the cloud and on-premises. Organizations can use the Application Management Service Application to host their own Apps
Catalogs rather than to publish their internal Office and SharePoint Apps to Microsoft’s online market place.
The SharePoint 2013 upgrade process only supports the database attaches and separates the upgrade of the database schema and content from the site collections.
Search
Searching in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 is another area in which Microsoft has made major investments.
The new SharePoint 2013 search architecture consists of six components:
- Crawl,
- Content Processing,
- Analytics Processing,
- Index,
- Query Processing, and
- Search Administration.
- Crawl,
- Link,
- Analytics Reporting, and
- Search Administration.
The index for an SSA is stored in files on the servers that host the SSA’s index component. You can create many index components associated with one SSA, thereby splitting the index across many servers. There are two ways of splitting your index: index partitions and index replicas. The search index for the service application is the aggregation of all index partitions.
You can spread the query load on an index partition by creating index replicas, which provide a level of redundancy.
SharePoint 2013 also includes a new search user interface with new Search Web Parts that can be customized by using Result Types and display templates. The hover card is prevalent throughout the user interface. It displays information about the returned result item, and if your SharePoint 2013 installation is linked to an Office Web App farm, it displays graphical previews of the content of Office documents.
Microsoft has optimized SharePoint 2013, not only in terms of the code deployed but also with regard to optimizing the site for the visitors, for search engines, for performance, for web designers and content authors. The result is a significant improvement in records management and Web Content Management.
Discovery Center
SharePoint 2013 introduces a new site collection—the Discovery Center, which serves as a portal for managing eDiscovery cases. From this single location, you can discover content in one or more SharePoint farms, in Exchange Server 2013, on file shares, and in Lync 2013 when content is archived to Exchange 2013.
Web Content Management
As far as web content management (WCM) is concerned, there is now a new publishing model involving search-driven content within which you can see content across site collection boundaries and even web application boundaries.
Using Managed Navigation, you can now define the structure of your site, and by tagging the content with the right terms, you can ensure that the content will be published at the right location in your website. Much of this is built about the new features in managed metadata service (MMS) and the new search architecture.
SharePoint and SEO
One of the new capabilities of SharePoint 2013 is the native support for search engine optimization (SEO) of public-facing websites. In this context optimization with SharePoint 2013, Microsoft has not only concentrated on optimizing the code but also optimizing the site for the visitors, the content authors, and provided new tools for the web designer.
Social Capabilities
Social computing is another big investment area in SharePoint Server 2013, which now offers Facebook-like and Twitter-like functionality.
New social functionalities have been added, such as microblogging, the use of #Tags, and @mentions, with which users can mention other people. Users can follow people, content, documents, sites and tags.
The three hubs, Newsfeed, SkyDrive, and Sites, where social activities can be viewed in groups, such as following, likes and mentions.
These hubs are accessed from the global navigation bar.
Business Data Connectivity
In SharePoint 2013, BCS is still implemented as a Business Data Connectivity (BDC) service application.
There is no difference between SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint 2010 with respect to creating the service application topology. BCS continues to centrally store the definition of the external content—its location, the type of data it is, and the behavior of the data when it is integrated into SharePoint and Office client applications—in the BDC metadata store, which is a SQL Server database
BCS support is made available for OData data sources
BDC Models for OData are created by using Visual Studio 2012 only.
BDC Models can be included in SharePoint Apps.
In SharePoint 2013, BCS has the ability to listen for events that occur in an external system. A developer can use remote event receivers attached to external lists and BDC entities to write code that is triggered when data in the external system has changed. This makes it possible to receive notifications of events that occur in the external systems.
Access Service Applications
SharePoint 2013 provides two Access service applications: the Access service application as provided in SharePoint 2010, and Access 2013 service application.
Access 2013 Services service application hosts Access web apps, which are web-based SharePoint applications; you can quickly build with no-code. Data for these apps is stored in SQL Server 2012 databases and not in SharePoint lists. You create Access web apps by using Access 2013, and you use the browser to enter data.
Business Intelligence
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 provides a comprehensive set of Business Intelligence (BI) tools that integrate across Microsoft Office applications and other Microsoft technologies.
Excel 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013 include enhanced support for BI.
New BI features in the client application Excel, such as calculated measures and timeline controls are supported by Excel Services.
Excel 2013 also includes an in-memory tabular engine called the xVelocity engine.
Excel Data Models can be used as a basis for PowerPivots, PivotTables, PivotCharts and Power View reports. When you save workbooks that contain these PowerPivots, PivotTables, PivotCharts and Power View reports to SharePoint, you can display them in webpages, because the same in-memory engine can be used in SharePoint 2013.
If you want the full PowerPivot and Power View functionality that users experience in Excel, such as clicking slicers and doing analysis, Excel Services must be connected to an instance of Analysis Services SharePoint Mode. An instance of the Analysis Service SharePoint Mode does not need to be installed on a server where SharePoint is installed; however, the server must be joined to a domain in the same Active Directory forest as the SharePoint farm that contains the Excel Services service application where you will register the Analysis Service instance.
To use features, such as scheduling data refresh, PowerPivot for SharePoint needs to be installed.
Reporting Services on SharePoint
There are two components that integrate SQL Server Reporting Services with SharePoint:
- Reporting Services SharePoint Mode and
- A Reporting Services add-in.
The Reporting Services add-in for SharePoint provides features to integrate a SSRS report server with a deployment of SharePoint product. These two components, together with Analysis Services SharePoint Mode and the PowerPivot add-in for SharePoint, can be installed from the SQL Server 2012 SP1 installation medium.
Although these four components must be SQL Server 2012 SP1 components, the instance of SQL Server that is hosting your SharePoint databases does not need to be SQL Server 2012 SP1; it could be SQL Server 2012 or SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1.
Reporting Services SharePoint Mode and Analysis Service SharePoint Mode are installed as service applications and are managed by using the SharePoint Central Administration website or Windows PowerShell.
Thus we see that SharePoint Server 2013 provides a comprehensive solution for connected information work that enables people to transform the way they work while preserving the benefits of structured processes, compliance, and existing IT investments.
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