Windows SharePoint Services 3 - simple Intranet portal?

[gshaw]

Hi all,

 

Had a meeting yesterday about making a shared calendar, resources etc for staff to access and having looked about at Public Folder Calendars (no thanks, Exchange 2007 doesn't like em much, right pain to admin) I came across Windows SharePoint Services 3.

 

Whacked it on the test network and have to say I'm impressed, quick and simple setup (unlike when we tried full blown SharePoint a while back) and very easy to administer permissions etc. I got it running a Shared Document library we could use for Request Forms, Announcements Page and Shared Calendar so seems ideal.

 

Just wondering if anyone else has used it this way for something fairly small scale and simple and would you recommend it?

[apearce]

gshaw,

I do a lot of work with sharepoint and total agree with the fact its very easy to administer. One of the reasons I like it so much.

 

I have used sharepoint across my school and across other and they use the features you talked about and they love the fact its so easy to use from an end users point of view.

 

Even as a single portal page you will find many benefits to it and may find very quickly that others around in your school will want something similar.

 

Best bit about WSS - its free with your server 2003 license

[gshaw]

That's what I wanted to hear

 

For a small site I should get away with putting it on one of the App Servers rather than giving it a whole server to itself? I see it uses "Windows Internal Database", just Googled it and three doesn't seem to be a way to back it up automatically? That then means using the "farm install" with SQL Server, bit more of a pain but at least might be able to get better backups?

 

For a simple Intranet portal I'm guessing the disk space usage shouldn't be huge either?