RTM’d today: Deploying Cloud-Based Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Solutions

We’re very pleased to announce that Phillip Wicklund’s book, Deploying Cloud-Based Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Solutions has shipped to the printer!

Take team collaboration to the cloud with Microsoft SharePoint Online. SharePoint expert Phil Wicklund shows you the benefits of maintaining SharePoint 2010 business solutions in either the public or private cloud, and provides step-by-step procedures on how to deploy to both. Ideal for SharePoint architects and IT professionals, this book also helps you determine the return on investment (ROI) for using cloud technology. You’ll learn how to build public cloud SharePoint solutions with Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint Online; compare the Standard and Dedicated hosting options in SharePoint Online; migrate your on-premise SharePoint deployment to SharePoint Online; deploy and monitor SharePoint in a private cloud with Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center; help increase automation, availability, and data-isolation using the multi-tenancy features in SharePoint 2010; and evaluate the ROI for using cloud-based solutions

Phil’s book will be available via online retailers around September 25. In the meantime, here’s more information about the book:

Contents at a Glance

Chapter 1: Introducing SharePoint Online

Chapter 2: Office 365: Features and Overview

Chapter 3: Planning for SharePoint Online

Chapter 4: Administering SharePoint Online

Chapter 5: Identity Management and Authentication

Chapter 6: Migrating to SharePoint Online

Chapter 7: Introduction to Customizing and Developing in SharePoint Online

Chapter 8: Introduction to Creating a Private Cloud

Chapter 9: Introducing Multi-Tenancy in SharePoint 2010

Chapter 10: Configuring Tenant-Aware Service Applications

Chapter 11: Configuring Tenant-Aware Site Collections

Introduction

This book is about SharePoint in the cloud. That may entail SharePoint in a public cloud, such as SharePoint Online, or SharePoint in a private cloud, such as your own datacenter. It also may mean SharePoint in a hybrid cloud, where you have SharePoint deployed to both the public and private cloud for various reasons.

So why a book on SharePoint in the cloud? Isn’t cloud-based SharePoint the same as on-premise SharePoint? It’s commonly understood that the cloud offers significant benefits over standard datacenters. These benefits include being highly available and saleable. The also includes robust automation and self-healing, bringing the average admin to server ratio from 50:1 all the way up to 500:1. But how about SharePoint in the cloud specifically? Well, the differences are probably more than you’d think. In one obvious sense this book will help you learn various techniques on how to migrate to the cloud, but the book goes well beyond that.

Consider how the administration effort is quite different between on-premise and public cloud based admin tools, such as the Office 365 admin center. Additionally, licensing varies dramatically, along with authentication and authorization (identity management). Cloud-based customizations are also quite different, and rely heavily on sandboxed solutions, for example.

From a private cloud perspective, SharePoint is a unique animal. It benefits from the technologies that provide the foundation, namely Hyper-V for virtualization and Systems Center for automation. But it also relies on the multi-tenancy capabilities to support tenant isolation, a key pillar for any private cloud.

All these topics and more is the scope of this book. Come, learn, and see the powerful capabilities of SharePoint in the cloud. After all – the cloud is the future!

Who This Book Is For

This book is primarily for IT-Professionals, architects, and IT decision makers who wish to understand the capabilities of SharePoint in the cloud, and want to know what it takes to either get their on-premise SharePoint deployments into the public cloud or want to build their own private cloud – or perhaps a little of both.

The earlier chapters are higher level, and can appeal to a wide audience of readers who are simply interested in what it means to have SharePoint in the cloud. However, as the book progresses, the chapters get increasingly more technical.

Assumptions

The book focuses on the technologies, techniques, and planning that is required to support SharePoint in the cloud. This means questions such as “what is SharePoint” are not covered in great detail, and not at all beyond Part 1. It is assumed you have a general reference as to what SharePoint is, and how you use it from an end user perspective. As the book progresses, you’ll see it become more technical, and it will discuss techniques such those in the following list. Note however that previous knowledge of these topics isn’t required, but is helpful.

· Out-of-the-box SharePoint capabilities, such as site collections, sites, document libraries, pages, content types, workflows, etc.

· Remote PowerShell

· Identity management, such as user accounts, Active Directory, and identity federation.

· Networking concepts such as DMZs, NLBs, DNS, reverse proxies, etc.

· Customizations with Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer

· Infrastructure technologies such as Hyper-V and Systems Center

· Lots more PowerShell!

How This Book Is Organized

The book is organized into 3 parts. Part 1 focuses on introducing you to what it means to have SharePoint in the cloud. Part 2 focuses on SharePoint in the public cloud. Part 3 focuses on SharePoint in the private cloud.

Part 1 is helpful to read first in its entirety. Thereafter some may jump to Part 3, say, for example, if they’re not interested at this point in the public cloud. Others may skip Part 3 if they’re only interested in SharePoint in a public cloud. Many others will be helped by understanding both worlds, namely public and private clouds, because most will need to support some sort of hybrid deployment.

It should also be noted that Chapters 2 and 7 are more or less “swing” chapters, in that they are relevant to both public and private cloud models. Chapter 2 is on planning, and Chapter 7 is on customizing SharePoint Online. While both of these chapters reference SharePoint Online (Microsoft’s public cloud), they are very much relevant to on-premise deployments as well.

The following are brief chapter descriptions to help you understand the contents of the book:

Part 1, Introducing SharePoint in the Cloud

Chapter 1, Introducing SharePoint Online: Chapter 1 opens with an introduction into what the cloud is, and why SharePoint works so well in the cloud. With that cloud primer under your belt, chapter 1 turns to discuss the core features of SharePoint in general, followed by a discussion around various cloud models that SharePoint fits into, such as SharePoint in the public, private, and hybrid clouds.

Chapter 2, Office 365: Feature and Overview: Chapter 2 takes the public cloud concepts a bit further by introducing you to Office 365, Microsoft’s SharePoint public cloud offering, as well as the umbrella offering for other products such as Exchange Online, Lync Online, and Office Professional Plus.

Chapter 3, Planning for SharePoint Online: Chapter 3 ends part one by introducing you to all the considerations around planning for SharePoint Online. This includes planning for SharePoint’s core capabilities, as well as defining your information architecture. The chapter concludes with a discussion around governance in SharePoint Online.

Part 2, Deploying SharePoint in the Public Cloud

Chapter 4, Administering SharePoint Online: Chapter 4 introduces you to all the techniques on how to administer your SharePoint Online sites. This includes global administration through the Office 365 admin center, such as creating and managing sites, site quotas, user profiles, and managed metadata.

Chapter 5, Identity Management and Authentication: In chapter 5 you’ll learn all the different identity provider options and the pros and cons of each. The chapter focuses a lot of attention on identity federation, the technology whereby your users can achieve a single sign-on experience between their on-premise sites and SharePoint Online. The chapter concludes with a talk on managing identity with remote PowerShell.

Chapter 6, Migrating to SharePoint Online: Chapter 6 helps you understand how to migrate SharePoint on-premise into SharePoint Online. It compares the different migration approaches between SharePoint Online standard and dedicated editions.

Chapter 7, Introduction to Customizing and Developing in SharePoint Online: Chapter 7 concludes part two with an introduction to customizing SharePoint Online to meet your company’s unique solution needs. This includes a discussion around building your own custom sandboxed solutions, using SharePoint Designer to brand your sites, as well as a brief discussion on how to integrate SharePoint Online with Windows Azure.

Part 3, Deploying SharePoint in a Private Cloud

Chapter 8, Introduction to Creating a Private Cloud: Chapter 8 kicks the part off with an introduction in what a private cloud is. In one sentence, a private cloud is the intersection of virtualization and automation. However, there are a lot of technologies that help make this marriage work, such as Hyper-V, the Systems Center suite, as well as Opalis workflows.

Chapter 9, Introducing Multi-tenancy in SharePoint 2010: Chapter 9 walks you through the fundamentals of multi-tenancy in SharePoint. You see examples showing how multi-tenancy keeps data and customization isolated from one tenant to another, a key element to SharePoint in a private cloud.

Chapter 10, Configuring Tenant Aware Service Applications: Creating your service applications is the first logical step when configuring SharePoint for a private cloud. Chapter 10 walks you through the less obvious process of configuring your service applications in a tenant-aware fashion using PowerShell.

Chapter 11, Configuring Tenant Aware Site Collections: Chapter 11 builds on the foundation set in Chapter 10 by showing you how to create tenant site collections and features. You’ll also see how to associate your tenants to popular service applications such as the User Profile and Managed metadata services. PowerShell again plays a significant role in configuring these multi-tenancy capabilities.