Microsoft SharePoint 2016: News and Roadmap!

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1 Whitepaper Microsoft SharePoint 2016: News and Roadmap! On 4 May 2016, Microsoft not only announced the market availability of SharePoint Server 2016, but also introduced key enhancements for SharePoint and OneDrive. As a close Microsoft partner, Campana & Schott is in constant contact with the product teams, and was able to analyze several new developments in advance. Anyone following development of SharePoint Server 2016 during the last 18 months will have noticed a certain lack of excitement in the community. The reasons can easily be found: On the one hand, many of the innovations are developed under the radar, so that end users actually see relatively few of these new developments. On the other hand, this development process has been characterized by a high level of transparency if you closely followed the public O365/ SharePoint Online Roadmap, you would have already known what types of innovations SharePoint Server 2016 would offer. At the same time, SharePoint Server 2016 nevertheless constitutes an important enhancement. SharePoint Server 2016 is a milestone release. With SharePoint Server 2016, Microsoft has created a uniform code basis for its on-premises and Cloud product. SharePoint Server 2016 is thus less a fi nal product, but rather a starting basis for something new. This becomes particularly evident when one looks at the announcements that were made in connection with Microsoft s virtual launch event. These announcements are examined and assessed below. 1. SharePoint Roadmap User Experience Providing the best user experience also compared to the competition in the consumer area, e.g. Dropbox in the fi le sharing segment - has become a new claim for Microsoft. At this time, more than 35 designers are working on ensuring the intuitive and consistent use of the different SharePoint and OneDrive Figure 1 functionalities whether from a PC, tablet or Smartphone. New dedicated and revised mobile apps (e.g. OneDrive, SharePoint) and the fundamental revision of publishing and team sites, document libraries and lists are the fi rst results of this process, and offer a glimpse of the direction taken by the company. New team site and new publishing function 100% responsive by design During the last couple of years, Microsoft has been working on ensuring a good user experience for SharePoint used on mobile devices. Functions such as channels in SharePoint 2013 for publishing/web content management, or the mobile views for team sites, were never entirely convincing however, since they were essentially special solutions. With a responsive UI package for SharePoint, Microsoft s PnP (Patterns & Practices) team already delivered an open-source solution for introducing responsive design into existing SharePoint pages a few months ago.

2 2 The company goes a step further with its recent announcements at the launch events: Team and publishing pages will be extensively revised, making them 100% responsive by design - hence enabling them to deliver optimized views directly for mobile devices without extensions. Existing solutions on the basis of the old page functionality can continue to be operated simultaneously, so that customers will not be required to make any adjustments in the short term. New SharePoint (DEV) Framework OneDrive for Business and SharePoint As early as April, Jeff Teper, Microsoft Corporate Vice President OneDrive and SharePoint, introduced key improvements for the Next Generation OneDrive Sync Client (e.g. Windows 8.1 Support, Office 2016 support or various performance optimizations), as well as additional improvements. The launch event also highlighted the positioning between OneDrive for Business and SharePoint, along with supporting functions. At the core of this layer lies the deeper integration of both, allowing for the These innovations are based on a new SharePoint (DEV) framework, which is greatly reliant on client-side developments, and also forms an integral part of SharePoint mobile apps and new SharePoint pages. For example, the new page types are based on client-side HTML and JavaScript. Figure 4 Figure 2 In the future, developers will be able to embed their applications directly into SharePoint at the spot where actions are only performed in the context of the current user. This is done with the extension of Canvas actions, which are already used in the O365 blogs. It will also allow for client-side modifications of entire page contents. To ensure a unified design, Microsoft also supplies pre-defined styles and components through the Office Fabric UI Framework ( office.com/fabric), which are continuously expanded. Using these tools, in-house applications can be easily integrated into existing environment, and globally defined designs can also be used in in-house applications. The new framework also supports modern tools and Java Script frameworks such as AngularJS. Microsoft Graph API On the back end, Microsoft Graph will become the central data layer, which can be used to contact all relevant APIs of SharePoint and O365 workloads, such as lists, pages, videos and comments. depiction of the entire document life cycle. OneDrive provides the option of accessing own documents from anywhere, with all devices, and sharing these with others. SharePoint, on the other hand, is the platform for the professional administration of documents, and for working on these documents in teams or organizations. Or put another way: In the future, OneDrive will be the personal access point for all relevant documents, whether these are made available in OneDrive or SharePoint. It will also offer basic collaboration functions such as real-time co-authoring, comments and notifications, along with simple B2C and B2B sharing. For real ECM functionalities, documents must be transferred to SharePoint - and for this purpose, Microsoft also offers a oneclick move function out of OneDrive, which also suggests more relevant SharePoint pages as possible destinations. PowerApps and Microsoft Flow Microsoft also continues its course with respect to simple business applications, which can be generated by PowerUsers without coding. In that sense, PowerApps represent an evolution from the Access Apps, which users are already familiar with from SharePoint hence the option of making simple forms with workflow logic available on the basis of SharePoint data. Full mobile readiness and embedding into SharePoint pages is a new feature. Workflow logic can be provided using Microsoft Flow, an Azure-based service, which essentially represents a type of successor to the discontinued SharePoint Designer Workflows, and now also offers integration into other applications such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Figure 3

3 3 2. SharePoint Server 2016 Key innovations A look back to the past helps better understand the development of SharePoint Server 2016 and the context of Microsoft s promises. With SharePoint Server 2013, Microsoft created the architectural basis for offering Office365 and SharePoint Server 2016 Online as a Cloud service. Subsequently, all investments were made into the Cloud services. The reverse method has now been selected for the provision of SharePoint Server 2016: Office365/ SharePoint Online delivered the code-side basis for the new server version. Hence the experience from several years of Cloud/own operation of Office365/ SharePoint Online has been included in SharePoint Server this is the context in which the statement Share- Point Server 2016 is the most secure, stable and reliable version to date must be understood. SharePoint Evolution. SharePoint 2016 emerged from Office 365. Figure 5 Or put another way: SharePoint Server 2016 adapts a Cloudoriented infrastructure and architecture. In addition, it offers innovations in the area of user experience, compliance and data security. Increased capacity. More storage capacity, fewer limits. Size of content databases One database can store several terabytes Figure 7 Site collections per content database Up to 100,000 site collections per content database Limits for SharePoint lists The limit was raised above the previous limit of 5,000 Cloud-oriented infrastructure Maximum file size Files can now be up to 10 GB Indexed items (search) Up to 500 million items can be indexed Using a Cloud-oriented infrastructure as its basis, Microsoft Share- Point 2016 offers considerably better performance than earlier versions. Numerous size restrictions and limits were either eliminated or greatly increased (see Figure 7). Upload and download times, page loading times and synchronization processes also saw significant improvements. A revised distributed cache, traffic management with intelligent routing and a site collection facility directly at the database level represent important pieces of the puzzle in this context. With MinRole, SharePoint Server 2016 now also has a new server concept. Servers are assigned dedicated roles, and can now be automatically integrated into existing farms and updated without downtime. This requires a large farm configuration of at least nine servers. Even if these can be made available on a virtual basis, they nevertheless represent a certain barrier, particularly for mediumsized companies. Microsoft has already responded to the critical feedback and will continue to develop the concept (MiniminRole), so that the advantages can also be exploited with a smaller number of servers in the future. At the same time, the current topologies continue to be available without MinRole. Simplified server/services deployment Improved availability and performance Simplified capacity planning and farm scaling Smalles MinRole configuration requires 4 servers (1 FE, 1 APP, 1 Search, 1 DC) Highly available MinRole configuration requires 7 servers (2FE, 2 APP, 2 Search, 1 DC) Current topologies still available through Custom (no MinRole) Server Role Front end Application Distributed cache Search Custom Single Server Includes user inquiries back end inquiries back end inquiries that are required for the distributed cache back end inquiries that are required for search purposes Service applications, services and components that cannot be integrated with the MinRole concept Service applications, services and components for a single-server farm : Only for development, testing and limited live use Figure 6

4 4 It is not just the installation and extendibility of farms that will be improved - it is also the first time that zero downtime patching i.e. the importing of updates without downtimes will be made possible with SharePoint Server The basis for this new feature is incremental patching, which divides updates into smaller packages. Please note that this requires a redundant farm configuration. User Experience Even if SharePoint Server 2016 is primarily characterized by improvements to architecture, it also offers an improved user experience, which some users have already been waiting for some time. Using fixed (durable) links, SharePoint Server 2016 can now be used to move documents to another folder, library, site or another site collection, without changing the link to the document. Many companies no longer send documents by attachment, but rather include a link to the document in the . These will continue to apply, even if the document is moved to another location. The durable links are based on a new Document ID Service, which can be activated at the level of the Site Collection. Another small but nonetheless relevant improvement for working with files consists of the addition of special characters, new formats and greatly increased file sizes. The newly added characters include %, ~, { and }. File names can now start with., and can be longer than 128 characters. ODF files can be created in libraries and edited with any editor. The maximum file size can now be defined for each site collection, whereby the current limit of 2047 MB was increased to 10 GB. Now fewer clicks will be required to work with files. The new menus include standard actions above the level of the libraries, a context menu with right-click and keyboard short-cuts, e.g. Alt+U for Upload. The exchange of contents facilitates the sharing of folders, the new column Shared with and the revised invitation with one-click approval. In addition, images and videos in libraries can now be viewed using the preview function. Microsoft also continued to work on a uniform UI for Cloud and on-premises SharePoint. Now the familiar AppLauncher from Office365 (top left) is now also available in SharePoint Server 2016, and apps from O365 will also be added with hybrid installations. End users benefit from uniform, centralized and personalized navigation to the different services no matter where these are provided. OneDrive in SharePoint Server 2016 offers a central entry point to SharePoint Server pages with a personalized library portal. Using the Site Folders in OneDrive for Business, users can now store pages as favorites by series. These pages and their libraries are displayed at one central point, meaning users no longer have to know the storage location. Compliance and data security With SharePoint Server 2016, some of the already familiar O365 functionalities for compliance and data security can now also be used in the company s internal Data Center. New compliance functions include deletion rules for contents in OneDrive for Business, and the freezing of documents. Automated deletion makes it possible to provide a range of rules for users that can be selected, as well as the introduction of mandatory specifications, e.g. for all pages in OneDrive for Business. Using the freeze function In-Pace Hold Policy, documents, s and other contents can be protected against modification based on time frames and rules, and hold policies can also be linked to deletion rules. The search for and the identification of sensitive data with defined search patterns protects against data loss. This search for sensitive data within SharePoint and OneDrive for Business is made very efficient with 51 defined search patterns such as ID numbers, IBAN, SWIFT codes or credit card numbers. For the purpose of identifying breaches, data can be searched and reports can be prepared. Finally, companies can make adjustments and remove authorizations and/or data. Dedicated policies can be developed for information rights management purposes. Such a function can be set up for OneDrive for Business and other libraries. Companies can define specific guidelines for individual libraries, such as editing printing, but not forwarding. In addition, documents will remain encrypted after the download process, and follow the specified guidelines. In this way, data security can also be warranted in the background. SharePoint 2016 now offers default encrypted connections per TLS 1.2, the robust ReFS file system for hard drives and the delivery of s to SMTP servers, which use the STARTTLS method to encrypt connections. Discontinued functions In addition to the aforementioned new functionalities offered by SharePoint Server 2016, several existing functions of former SharePoint versions were also discontinued. For example, there will no longer be a SharePoint Foundation on the basis of Share- Point Server SharePoint Designer Support (End of life: April 2023), InfoPath Designer Support (End of life: April 2023) were discontinued; FIM as User Profile Sync Engine, Tags and Notes along with STSADM.EXE. are no longer available. Figure 8

5 5 3. Outlook SharePoint is back is how Jeff Teper greeted selected partners following his return to Microsoft s SharePoint and OneDrive team a few months ago. And it really does appear that the reunified team surrounding Seth Patton, General Manager of Share- Point and OneDrive, has regained its former focus. SharePoint s focus on an integrated, intelligent Intranet for content and collaboration in a mobile-first world is clearly defined. The same applies to the claim of delivering best of breed in each category. Of course such marketing announcements must be treated with a certain amount of caution. Nevertheless, there are some indications that Microsoft and SharePoint are on the right path: Focus on user experience: Even more so than three years ago, Microsoft is relying on UX-centered development, and following a number of acquisitions has assembled the right team for this purpose. Taking customer and partner requests seriously: The current roll-out of modern and mobile-ready team sites and the local provision of O365 services address two of our and most certainly also many other partners and customers key requests from last year s Ignite conference. Today, Microsoft does a much better job of including important customers and partners in the development process, and obtains feedback at a very early stage, so as to avoid developments that miss the mark. Competition as a guide: On the tool side, many social collaboration application cases are initially investigated in the consumer segment using apps, e.g. private file exchange using Dropbox. Microsoft views these competitors as a guide to user experience, and is working on beating the competition in the business context. Integrated platform: Gartner has been saying for several years that Microsoft has the most comprehensive platform vision for social collaboration (UC, Social, WCM, Collaboration, Mobile). But with the most recent developments, Microsoft is taking a big step towards the simple and integrated provision of services with SharePoint at the center of the platform. The general direction taken by Microsoft Mobile first, Cloud first was again underlined with the aforementioned announcements. In terms of the Roadmap, this also means that the innovations will initially be available in the Cloud, hence in O365/ SharePoint Online. May to end of July 2016 were noted as time frames in this respect. The functions will be gradually provided on-premises with big updates, which have been announced for the fall of 2016 and Q2/2017. Therefore it is expected that exciting new innovations for SharePoint on-premises will again be announced at this year s Ignite conference in September 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia. At the end, we take a look at one last aspect that resulted in much discussion and uncertainty last year: Microsoft s Social Roadmap. Yammer continues to be a central building block for the social functionality in Microsoft Stack. Even though SharePoint Server 2016 again includes a Share- Point Server 2016 Social Feed, it is only provided for compatibility reasons, and without any upgrade from SharePoint Server By comparison, the integration of Yammer in the O365 family has gained speed again. Boris Ovcak Boris Ovcak is the manager of the Social Collaboration division. His area of responsibility includes the development of collaboration strategies for large international companies, the introduction of technologies such as O365, SharePoint or Yammer, and the successful establishment of the same at companies. Mr. Ovcak has been with the company for more than ten years, is the author of numerous publications on this issue, and maintains close contacts with software manufacturers and the research sector. Campana & Schott Campana & Schott is an international management and technology consulting firm that covers all aspects of human collaboration in organizations and projects. Using an integrated and dedicated approach, we have helped large corporations and medium-sized businesses to manage changing work environments and complex change progresses for more than 20 years. Additional information: Campana & Schott GmbH Gräfstr Frankfurt T info@campana-schott.com