By Chris Alliegro [bio]
Posted: Apr. 2, 2007

The following an excerpt of a Research Report published by Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy & technology. More samples of our content, as well as a list of upcoming articles and reports are also available.

Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007 use a multitier architecture that relies on a variety of Microsoft products and technologies, including SQL Server, the .NET Framework 3.0, and Windows Server 2003. WSS and SharePoint Server are closely related—SharePoint Server is built on WSS and relies on it for basic plumbing. For example, SharePoint Server's document management features rely on document libraries, a feature of WSS.

Data tier. SharePoint Server 2007 and WSS 3.0 rely on SQL Server databases to store configuration, administrative, site content, and search data. A SharePoint installation will have a configuration database that contains information such as global configuration data (e.g., information on the Web servers in the installation) and server settings (e.g., to map SharePoint sites to their content stored in content databases). SharePoint also maintains all site content in SQL Server databases—for example, documents managed in SharePoint document libraries are stored in databases instead of the Windows file system. Other databases store information used by SharePoint's search services (indexes, for instance) and for features that are unique to SharePoint Server, such as shared service providers, a set of centralized, shared services that are not specific to any one SharePoint Server site. (Excel Services, SharePoint Server's server-based spreadsheet calculation and rendering engine, is one example of a shared service.)

Application tier. The application tier runs SharePoint's administration Web sites, end-user Web sites, and shared service providers. (SharePoint Web sites and shared service providers can be run on separate physical servers.) Administrative sites are special SharePoint sites that allow administrators to set up and configure sites for end users. Both WSS 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007 require the .NET Framework 3.0, the latest version of Microsoft's Web development platform, which includes the Windows Workflow Foundation and ASP.NET 2.0. Both products make extensive use of ASP.NET 2.0 features such as master pages and Web Parts.

User interface. Users can access SharePoint sites from Windows, Macintosh, and Unix machines running a variety of browsers, including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Netscape. However, best support is reserved for users of Internet Explorer 6 and higher; not all SharePoint features may be available to other browsers running on other platforms. Users can also work with SharePoint Server using Office applications and a Web service API. For example, users can check documents in and out directly, enter and update metadata, and trigger document management workflow directly from Word 2007. Although SharePoint Server supports previous versions of Office, some features are available only with Office 2007.