Monthly Archives: June 2015

Difference between Apps and Farm Solutions in SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2013 has brought exciting new features which extend SharePoint Apps as well as Farm solutions. These two are used in different ways, hence the need to know which one to choose depending on the scenario at your disposal. Here is a comparison between the app and farm solutions in SharePoint 2013.

SharePoint 2013 Apps

SharePoint 2013 Farm Solutions
A SharePoint App is a mere user friendly stand-alone computer program that can solve a specific end user problem. A farm solution is a piece of functionality that extends the abilities of a SharePoint website. The farm administrator is responsible for installing such functionality pieces.
SharePoint 2013 Apps code can run in different places. Important thing to remember about SharePoint App is that it always operate by the context of the web browser that they are running on or the hosted platform instead of running in the context of SharePoint server. These are installed by a farm administrators, to the solution store belonging to a farm. Their point of operation is the SharePoint server.
SharePoint hosted Apps cause SharePoint to create a new website referred to as web app. You can store pages, libraries and lists using the web app. Deployment of a farm solution causes changes to one or more web applications. It can be used in any site collection of the web based applications where it has been deployed
Event receivers, custom field types, custom web parts, application pages can be created as SharePoint Apps. Almost all components can be deployed as farm solutions.
Authentication mechanisms depend on where the code of the application is running. Inside SharePoint, authentication is already taken care of. You simply have to use JavaScript and HTML. Inside the cloud, there are two choices for you. You can use the client side code or the server while using cross domain libraries and OAuth respectively. The components in the solution often run in full trust.
Resource allocation can be monitored and allocated accordingly by tenants and administrators. There are no resource usage and allocation that are placed on Farm solutions.

Hopefully, the reader will be clear about the differences between Apps and Farm Solution in SharePoint 2013 with respect to Operations, Security and resource allocation.

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What’s New in SharePoint 2013 for Administrator

This SharePoint for dummies tutorial is part-3 in series of “What’s New in SharePoint 2013“. This post is focused on new and updated features for administrators in SharePoint 2013. In previous parts we discussed new features targeting End Users as well as Developers that you can find here:

SharePoint 2013 comes with a variety of tools that you can use to see that the health and security of your working environment. Its administrative tools are tailored to enhance functionality and performance.  It comes with numerous which are aimed at streamlining the work of a farm administrator. The following features are found in the Administration mode of SharePoint. We will explore new and updated features in all major areas including Central Administration, App Management, Power Shell, SharePoint Designer, Identity Management, Performance and Scalability as:

Central administration – SharePoint 2013

  • Application Management: this is where you can manage web based applications, site collection, service applications and database management.
  • System Settings: modify and customize settings for your server, email, SMS and general farm management.
  • Monitoring: health analysis, timing of jobs and reporting.
  • Security: users, information policy, general security.
  • Backup and Restore: general security issues, users and information policy.
  • Apps: Sharepoint, App management and office store.
  • Upgrades and mitigation: the upgrade and patch management is done here.
  • General Settings for Applications: SharePoint designer, content deployment, external server connections, report server settings, info Path forms services.
  • Configuration wizards: The farm configuration Wizard is the only wizard.

 SharePoint 2013 PowerShell

  • PowerShell 3.0 (web access, tab completion, Task scheduler integration).
  • Better code writing.
  • Easily update help documentations.
  • More than 300 New cmdlets.

Identity Managment in SharePoint 2013

  • Streamlined usage process of claims based authorization.
  • Authorized users allowed to use system.
  • Claims based identity plus authentication is supported.
  • All IIS as well as options for Windows authentication are supported including Digest, certificates, Basic and NTLM.

SharePoint 2013 with new App management features

  • Buy apps directly from Microsoft SharePoint App using the Central Administration.
  • Management of all app licenses is possible.
  • Monitoring of the performance of all the apps.
  • Management and control app permissions.
  • Management of the App catalog.

SharePoint 2013 Designer

Create your own SharePoint landscape that has features of the advanced 2013 version of SharePoint Designer. Web design tools are also available which enables you to customize page layouts, integration of line business data, automation of manual processes using workflows as well as coming up with business solutions.

This is due to the following new features:

  • The latest HTML 5 as well as CSS support feature.
  • Advanced designer interface.
  • Integration of loops and workflow stages in workflows.

Performance & Scalability – SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2013 comes with various performance enhancements and scalability which include speed and elasticity improvements. For example, the server response is 50 % faster than it was in the previous version and the Active Directly is 10x faster.

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