Summary
Many organizations currently
rely on their on-premise SharePoint systems for hosting public websites,
intranet and workflow applications, and document management. For some
organizations, a cloud-based SharePoint installation could provide significant
cost savings and workload streamlining, could reduce downtime, and improve the
organization's overall IT agility, while it may be unsuitable for others to
support customizations, integration and other unique needs.
Problem
Microsoft Corporation has not
publicly announced new features or enhancements beyond 2015-2016 time frames
for SharePoint on-premise environments while asserting that the best experience
and innovation will occur in the cloud (Gartner, 2014) . This also brings into question if the
gap between SharePoint on-premise and SharePoint online will widen. The
uncertainty of the future of on-premise SharePoint environments, poses the
question of how an organization with on-premise SharePoint can prepare for the
future.
What is Office 365?
Office 365 offers the organizations the opportunity to
subscribe to Microsoft office applications without purchasing full licenses.
The subscription service provides enterprises the ability to deploy Microsoft
Office products to users without the overhead of configuration and maintenance.
A subscription based offering will provide Microsoft’s services including
Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Online and Lync Online. Service
availability with each plan can be found at Office
365 Plans.
What is SharePoint Online?
SharePoint Online can be SharePoint online is offered either
as a part of Office 365 suite or a standalone offering. SharePoint Online offers
a collaborative environment for users with easy integration with corporate MS
Office applications. While providing a cloud based document management
solution, SharePoint online provides the capability of hosting public facing
web site, Intranet, team sites for collaborating groups and my sites (a
personal site for each employee with social networking capabilities).
SharePoint Platform Options
|
SharePoint Online Subscription Options
SharePoint Online Multi-Tenant
In SharePoint online multi tenancy environment, data and
sites and some services are partitioned for each tenant while server farm
resources are shared among several tenants. Each subscription ID is provided
with a host-named site collection.
SharePoint Online Dedicated
SharePoint Online dedicated plans are delivered through
dedicated hardware provided by Microsoft Corporation.
Advantages and Disadvantages of adopting SharePoint Online
Pros
|
Provides better security controls compared to on
premise installations as MS utilizes specialized individuals to secure the
systems and data using industry accepted standards
|
Can be
purchased as part of office 365 or standalone plan
|
|
Enterprises
do not have to purchase next version of Office software, instead they can
switch to a subscription plan and the vendor will be responsible for the
upgrades.
|
|
Reduces
resource requirements to troubleshoot and maintain the system
|
|
Reduces
the investment on hardware
|
|
Can
provide easy access to information that needs access outside the organization
and reduces costs associated with remote access (customer/partner access)
|
|
Service
packs, hot fixes and bug fixes are applied and maintained by the vendor
reducing possible downtime
|
|
OneDrive provides individual storage for each
user. The storage amount depends on the subscription plan
|
|
Service Level Agreements would provide guaranteed
uptime or service credit
|
|
Tenant Administrator can manage multiple
subscriptions from the same admin site providing easy management and
administration of various subscriptions
|
|
MS has
not announced enhancements and new features beyond 2015 on premise version
while MS asserts that “the best experience and innovation will occur in the
cloud”
|
|
Data
and services are logically partitioned without exposing tenant specific data
|
|
Cons
|
The
data is stored in vendor hardware which is not owned by the enterprise
|
Future
migration from SharePoint Online to another system may be a risk factor in
multitenant offering if not built into the contractual terms
|
|
SharePoint
online does not allow highly customized full trust code. Organizations with
highly customized SharePoint applications may be presented with obstacles
when migrating to Office 365
|
|
Depending
on the authentication configuration, there may be extra WCF code needed to be
written and hosted for the people picker to work as expected (dedicated
partner plans)
|
|
Price
increases is a risk unless price protection is built into the terms
|
|
Data,
sites, number of users per tenant limitations
|
|
Site
data may be saved in a single content database shared by several tenants or
data may be saved across multiple content databases which will not provide physical
data isolation or data sovereignty
|
|
SharePoint
Online may not be equipped to integrate with third party software that
integrates with SharePoint either to enhance or fill gaps of SharePoint
|
How Should the SharePoint On-Premise Business Prepare for the Uncertain
Future?
Upgrade to SharePoint 2013
SharePoint environment should be upgraded from SharePoint
2010 to 2013 version in order to start developing new “Apps for SharePoint”.
SharePoint 2013 offers many options for developing applications including client
side programming models and/or REST (TechNet, 2014) . The different
development models in SharePoint 2013 provide the opportunity to deploy the
applications in the cloud, on-premise farm or cross-hosed in both cloud and
on-premises. The migration from SharePoint 2010 to 2013 would start the
preparation process for a future in the cloud.
Convert Existing Customized Applications to SharePoint Apps
The biggest change that SharePoint developers have
encountered in SharePoint 2013 is the introduction of SharePoint Add-ins (apps
for SharePoint) model. These SharePoint Add-ins would work with SharePoint
online. This is new way of developing, packing and deploying custom SharePoint
functionality. These apps run outside the SharePoint server, either on a
Windows Azure platform or a remote server or executing client side code on the
end-user’s browser. These apps interact with SharePoint either through client
side object model (CSOM) or REST API.
Sandboxed Solutions:
While Microsoft promoted the concept of sandboxed solutions in SharePoint 2010
version, sandboxed applications are depricated in 2013. Microsoft has
recommended developing “apps for SharePoint” instead of developing sandboxed
solutions. While no-code sandboxed solutions are still supported in Office 365,
custom managed code within sandboxed solutions have been deprecated (SharePoint
Developer Team, sharePoint Dev Blog, 2014) .
Customizations:
An analysis of required customizations should be made before any solutions are
developed. Considerations must be made to achieve the required customizations
using out of the box configurations, SharePoint Designer, InfoPath Designer or
Office 2013 applications.
Existing and New
Custom Solutions: Apps for SharePoint are self-contained extensions which
includes cloud centered application logic, SharePoint components, and
client-side scripts (TechNet, 2014) . However, apps for SharePoint does not use
SharePoint server side object mode. All new applications must be developed as
“apps for SharePoint” while steps must be taken to analyze and redesign and
transform the existing applications to “apps for SharePoint”.
Reach Out to Third Party Vendors Regarding Their Support for SharePoint
2013 and/or the Cloud Environment
Many vendors have been providing add-on or gap solutions for
the on-premise environments to close capability gaps of SharePoint. While many
organizations are heavily invested in those third party tools, it must be
ensured that organization’s needs, will still be met with either a migration to
2013 or to Office 365 by the vendors or new product features. The organizations
need to perform a careful analysis of how the vendor will be supporting the
product, additional costs, additional management or training requirements.
The organizations also have the option to get apps for
SharePoint from the SharePoint App Store, a public marketplace for a fee or in
some instances for free. The apps available on the App Store help enhance
SharePoint functionalities.
Consider Other Products
While there are long list of established vendors in the
horizontal portals market, there are new products increasingly entering and
evolving. The hype cycle for horizontal portals from Gartner places Microsoft
as one of the market leaders among IBM, Oracle, SAP and Liferay, while
recognizing salesforce.com, Adobe, Backbase and Covisint as visionaries.
Migrating the existing content and adopting a new technology
can produce many challenges and enterprises should make their decision based on
their ability to evolve and adapt to new products.
Conclusion
As the gap between SharePoint on-premise and SharePoint
online will tend to widen, the enterprises need to consider long-term future of
their portal and other integrating systems and transition towards SharePoint
online or move towards a different portal product.
Resources
Gartner. (2014, 10). Magic Quadrant for Horizontal
Portals. Retrieved 12 02, 2014, from Gartner: http://www.gartner.com/document/2861117?ref=QuickSearch&sthkw=horizontal%20portals&refval=145071602&qid=9939e7f646d2c6f5a194617183d3b9ee
Gartner. (2014, 04 09). Redefine Microsoft's Role
in Your Web Strategy as SharePoint Moves to the Cloud . Retrieved December
01, 2014, from Gartner:
http://www.gartner.com/document/2704218?ref=QuickSearch&sthkw=%22Office%20365%22%20tenant&refval=145003173&qid=b839b500e814b4c9971fd944c3b3519c
Microsoft Corporation. (2014, 10 13). Technical
Diagrams. Retrieved 11 26, 2014, from Microsoft Technet:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn635312(v=office.15).aspx
Microsoft TechNet. (2014, 09 30). Weighing your
options for SharePoint, Office 365 or a Hybrid Deployment? Retrieved 11
26, 2014, from Microsoft Technet: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/26933.weighing-your-options-for-sharepoint-office-365-or-a-hybrid-deployment.aspx
Office Development. (2014, 04 11). SharePoint 2013
.NET Server, CSOM, JSOM, and REST API index. Retrieved 12 02, 2014, from
Office Development: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/dn268594(v=office.15).aspx
SharePoint Developer Team, sharePoint Dev Blog.
(2014, 01 14). Deprecation of Custom Code in Sandboxed Solutions.
Retrieved 12 02, 2014, from Blogs for Office developers: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointdev/archive/2014/01/14/deprecation-of-custom-code-in-sandboxed-solutions.aspx
TechNet. (2014, 04 07). Switch from SharePoint
2010 solutions to apps for SharePoint. Retrieved 12 02, 2014, from
TechNet: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/dn449636(v=office.15).aspx
