sharepoint what's it for?

[kevinmcaleer]

<---getting a bit off topic here but--->

If a vpn is not an option in your Local Authority, you could try http://www.gotomypc.com or http://www.mywebexpc.com for remote access. I'd say its only really useful for network administrators or possibly senior management. gotomypc isn't free, but mywebexpc allows up to 5 pcs for free. I'd used them both and they're very good. All you need to be able to access is the website from within the school (the Local Authority may block it; proxy avoidance) and have port 443 access (for SSL).

 

-Kev

[Geoff]

Up here in lancs you can tunnel anything and its dog through on SSL (port 443) unfiltered.

[Netman]

Whats the cost of sharepoint these days?

 

 

Under the Schools Agreement about £230 pa for Sharepoint Portal Server and £2 per CAL...

 

Had it installed at half term and have got to say it's an exellent resource. Have published it to the real world through ISA server using an SSL certificate which is working fine so far.

It's early days but would say it will be the killer app in this school. If anyone of the more senior members of the forum would like to take a look, PM me and I'll give you the url and a guest login.

[Geoff]

How does it count CALs? Per connection? Per User? What's a sensible number for an internet facing sharepoint portal?

[kevinmcaleer]

Sharepoint cals (with School agreements) are for the total number of computers in your school. (per seat).

 

-Kev

[Geoff]

That doesn't answer my question though.

[Ric_]

What's the real-world advantage of Sharepoint Portal Server over Sharepoint Services (which is free)?

[Netman]

Yep - had to buy the amount of CALS based on devices in school. However, after some very hard questioning of MS licensing and some very confused answers at times, we were told that that was sufficient and that we could publish externally and allow domain users to connect.

It works out about right - if you licence say 200 pcs under the school agreement you'll have to order 200 CALS. For that sort of number of pcs you'll probably have up to about 800 users. I would expect no more than 50 or so concurrent external connections from that sort of setup...

[Netman]

What's the real-world advantage of Sharepoint Portal Server over Sharepoint Services (which is free)?

 

The full story is here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;830320

 

But in short Portal Server has these additional features...

 

Automatic categorization

Audiences

Topic areas

News

Personal sites

Shared services

Single sign-on

Site directory

User profiles

 

Too early in my deployment to give a real life example though...

[Geoff]

I would expect no more than 50 or so concurrent external connections from that sort of setup...

 

What happens when Google crawls your Sharepoint Portal then?

[Netman]

I would expect no more than 50 or so concurrent external connections from that sort of setup...

 

What happens when Google crawls your Sharepoint Portal then?

 

It can't unless it knows a username and password on my domain methinks...

[indie]

 

oh and a nice robots.txt

User-Agent: *
Disallow: /

 

[kevinmcaleer]

in brief, sharepoint services sites exist as islands. sharepoint portal brings them all together by allowing content from 'island' sites to be pull together and targeted towards 'audiences' <- groups of users. It also allows full text searching of all the 'island' sites.

 

-Kev

[browolf]

you get a trial of sharepoint server :

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=16006564-4575-4463-920d-c920b4aeae64&DisplayLang=en

 

and for those that need, like me: server 2003 trial

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/trial/default.mspx

[SpuffMonkey]

<---getting a bit off topic here but--->

If a vpn is not an option in your Local Authority, you could try http://www.gotomypc.com or http://www.mywebexpc.com for remote access. I'd say its only really useful for network administrators or possibly senior management. gotomypc isn't free, but mywebexpc allows up to 5 pcs for free. I'd used them both and they're very good. All you need to be able to access is the website from within the school (the Local Authority may block it; proxy avoidance) and have port 443 access (for SSL).

 

-Kev

 

I recommend logmein - which works well and is free

 

https://secure.logmein.com

[kevinmcaleer]

Thanks spuffmonkey I'd also recommend http://www.logmein.com.

 

The only differences between the pay per use and the free ones seems to be in the extra functionality: file transfers between local and remote workstations, remote printing and so on.

 

I personally used http://www.gotomypc.com for just over 2 years, its a pay per use, but its really quick and you can even use it on a pocket PC. It also lets you resize the window and the remote desktop shrinks, looks very cool.

 

http://www.gotoassist.com and http://www.gotomeeting.com are also worth a look. I should get shares...

[browolf]

OMG!! logmein.com is soooo coool. its a bit slow but it works ha ha ha.