Yes in early 2011

A. We leverage and expand upon what SharePoint provides. SharePoint is much, much more than just lists and data. Microsoft has spent millions of dollars and a decade on creating a customizable framework that allows development companies like ours to provide a completely usable out-of-the-box application that can also be customized by clients. The CRM and SRM communicate with SharePoint communicates with .NET, which in turn communicates with SQL Server.

A. SharePoint User accounts are Operating System specific or members of the AD (Active Directory). These Users are then applied to the CRM or SRM SharePoint Application at the permission level required given the corporate policies to be determined on a per user basis. There are some good articles on deployment options in the following papers:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261995.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc789337.aspx

A. You configure authentication for Web sites based on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services by configuring authentication methods in Internet Information Services (IIS). Windows SharePoint Services uses the authentication method you specify for a virtual server in IIS to control authentication for all top-level Web site and Subsites of that virtual server. Windows SharePoint Services works with the following authentication methods in IIS: • Anonymous authentication • Basic authentication • Integrated Windows authentication • Certificates authentication (SSL) You can change authentication methods for virtual servers hosting Web sites based on Windows SharePoint Services, and you can change the authentication method used for the SharePoint Central Administration site. You can also enable Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security in IIS to help protect your sites or the administration port for your server.

A. SharePoint can be installed on a Stand-alone server (and the CRM Application can in turn run very well in this setup), however, on a mission critical corporate install a Server farm is more desirable for two main reasons: redundancy and throughput. The Topology of most farms has TWO Web servers and One Back-end SQL Server; this along with a good backup solution will suffice for most corporate needs. The only drawback other than the extra hardware and software costs is the fact that CRM and SRM updates must be applied to both servers at the same time. All these options will have to be measured against expected user activity.

A. We provide documentation and yes it is something you can install yourself. Administrator privileges required to the install, access to GAC and “/common files “. Outside access will require a url accessible from your other locations.

A. List scalability is a hot topic in the WSS/MOSS arena, and for good reason. Pretty much everything in SharePoint is stored in a list. Knowing if you're likely to hit a wall with scalability is a proactive step that can save you a lot of time down the road (and help you decide if a List is an appropriate container in the first place). RULES OF THUMB-DATA When it comes to putting a tone of data into a SharePoint list you may wish to consider the following guidelines: 1. No more than 2000 items per view/container. That could be 1900 items and 100 folders but either way, no more than 2000 per view. A folder is an example of a container, so it is the "root" level of a list. 2. No more than 5 million items per list. 3. No more than 2000 lists per sub site (SPWeb).

A. This is best answered given the quantity of data input. Our largest installation to date has a SQL database mdf file of around 500,000 KB (the ldf varies to about 200,000 KB). This database has over 200,000 records all included.

A. On a 4 Gig system – IIS will typically use 350 Meg and SQL Server will max out at 1.7 Gig – our SharePoint Templates will share a slice of that availability. The rest depends on what else is using up resources.

A. In reference to our CRM and SRM: barebones stp file is less than 629KB.

A. All files required to install and run SharePoint CRM and SRM application are about 20-25 files (1.1 megs).