What is SharePoint?

Microsoft SharePoint is a web application that enables users within an organization to work together, collaborate, more efficiently through its vast number of features.

Although collaboration is at the heart of SharePoint, it includes many other important core features to help in the following business needs: 

• Document Management
• Web Content Management
• Business Process Management (Workflows)
• Enterprise Search
• Business Intelligence (Dashboards, Reports)  
• Electronic Forms (InfoPath)
• Social Networking

And that’s just out-of-the-box features. Not only can all these features be customized to fit any organization but SharePoint can also serve as a platform to build solutions (custom applications) for any type of organization or need.

SharePoint Server 2010 Installation

SharePoint Server 2010 can be complex to deploy across a farm of servers but the installation itself is relatively simple. SharePoint must be installed on every web server and application server within the farm except for the database servers. The option to create or join a new farm is part of the install. You will create a new farm on the first server and join that farm on the rest of the servers.

Run the SharePoint installation as an administrator by right-clicking the installation application and selecting "Run as administrator". You must first run "Install software requirements". The installation will install all the prerequisite software and server roles required by SharePoint to run.

SharePoint will display a list of the software and server roles required. Click "Next".

Check the "I accept" license agreement checkbox to continue.

Your server may need a restart after the prerequisites have been installed.

Now you're ready to install SharePoint Server 2010 itself. Once again right-click on the install executable and run as administrator.

Enter your product key and click "Continue".

Check the "I accept" lincense agreement checkbox and click "Continue".

If you're installing all of SharePoint on one server you may click the "Standalone" button. This will install SharePoint and SQL Server Express, for the database services, all on the same machine. If you are installing SharePoint on two or more computers, for example if the database will be located on another server or you will have two or more web or application servers, click on the "Server Farm" button.

If you are deploying SharePoint on more than one server select "Complete". If all of SharePoint, including database services will be located on one server, select "Stand-alone". Click "Install Now" to begin the SharePoint 2003 Server installation.

Once the installation is completed and successful, leave the "Run the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard now." option checked to configure SharePoint on that server.

Click "Next" to begin configuration.

If this is the first server in the farm, select the "Create a new server farm" option. All the other servers will connect to this farm.

Enter the name of the database server as well as the SharePoint configuration database. The SharePoint configuration database stores all the information about the SharePoint farm.

Enter a passphrase for encrypting the configuration data. You will need to remember this passphrase to join other servers to the farm.

Now specifiy a port number for the "Central Administration Web Application" or leave the default entered. Choose the type of authentication provider. NTLM will work with any IIS application pool account whereas Kerberos will only work with a domain service account. Click "Next" to review your settings.

Review your settings and click "Next" to begin the farm configuration wizard.

Now you must configure the services that will run on the server. Selecting the wizard makes it fast and easy to do so. The wizard will also create a new site collection and top-level site. If you want to do it manually, then click on "Cancel".

In this tutorial, we chose the wizard. You must enter an account that will run the services as well as the services that will run on the server. It is recommended that your services account be different than you farm admin account for increased security. Click "Next" to continue to the top-level site configuration.

Now that the services have been configured, we can go ahead and create the new top-level site of the new site collection created by the wizard. Enter the name, description and url of the site and scroll down to select a site template.

If you will be creating an intranet or internet site, then the "Publishing Portal" template is recommended. The web content management feature is enabled and a search site is included. You can easily make page branding and layout customizations to this type of site. You may decide to select something as simple as a blank site, though, as your new top-level site. Click "Ok" to create it whatever you chose.

SharePoint is deployed and your new site has now been created.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010

Microsoft SharePoint is a software platform developed by Microsoft which provides collaboration, web content management, documents management, enterprise search, web 2.0 features, and many more under a single platform.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010^[1] is the latest version of SharePoint which has been released by Microsoft in the month of May, 2010. Just like SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010 also available in two editions: SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010. SharePoint 2007 was also available in two editions: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007). Basically SharePoint Foundation 2010 is the upgraded version Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and similarly SharePoint Server 2010 is the upgraded version of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.