Microsoft Sharepoint. Anyone using it?

Monkeydrye

My bosses here are looking to move to sharepoint. I know next to nothing about it, but will be sent to learn to administer it. In the meantime, I am expected to make reccomendation of what kind of hardware we will need. How hard it is to manage and upkeep. What kind of load it creates, etc.

We have about 60 employees and several hundred members that would be hitting it. Anyone out there using it? How is it? What user base do you have? What kind of hardware are you using? How much time is spent managing it?

I know we will soon be getting the sales pitched, but I long ago learned that sales info, and realy world experience are often differing...

Snowcone

I'm using it as a part of Small Business Server. We have about 30 users and SBS has Exchange, SQL 2005, and ISA 2004 all running on it. The box is pretty beefy, but the key to Sharepoint is that it goes to "sleep" when nobody is using it so when the first user hits it there is a lag while it starts back up. With a few hundred users hitting it regularly it should perform very well.

My server is a Dell PE 2900 with dual 3.73GHz Xeon Dual Core chips (HT enabled) and 4GB of ram. All of the above barely taxes the machine.

Monkeydrye

Snowcone wrote: »

I'm using it as a part of Small Business Server. We have about 30 users and SBS has Exchange, SQL 2005, and ISA 2004 all running on it. The box is pretty beefy, but the key to Sharepoint is that it goes to "sleep" when nobody is using it so when the first user hits it there is a lag while it starts back up. With a few hundred users hitting it regularly it should perform very well.

My server is a Dell PE 2900 with dual 3.73GHz Xeon Dual Core chips (HT enabled) and 4GB of ram. All of the above barely taxes the machine.

What is it like to manage? Are you basically just setting it up, and leaving it alone? Also, are you using the part that allows people to have their own web pages that give them access to files?

Morskittar

I use it at work on a fairly regular basis, though only for simple document access. I've been impressed by the integration with Live Comm Server and Exchange; if you've got any sort of remote workforce the high level of availability/integration can be pretty useful.

Hit a Sharepoint doc, check the author and you'll have current availability (based on machine usage, Outlook calendar, and the like) and the abililty to IM, email, or grab their calendar right there.

Are you looking at Sharepoint Services or a full on Sharepoint Portal Server?

Monkeydrye

Morskittar wrote: »

I use it at work on a fairly regular basis, though only for simple document access. I've been impressed by the integration with Live Comm Server and Exchange; if you've got any sort of remote workforce the high level of availability/integration can be pretty useful.

Hit a Sharepoint doc, check the author and you'll have current availability (based on machine usage, Outlook calendar, and the like) and the abililty to IM, email, or grab their calendar right there.

Are you looking at Sharepoint Services or a full on Sharepoint Portal Server?

Well, see, I think everyone wants different things. My Network Admin wants Sharepoint services. He is more interested in document management and access. Others I think wants the Server. They want to be abl to have portals for our outside leadership and members to be given access to files and such with an easy interface and easy setup.

Snowcone

Monkeydrye wrote: »

Snowcone wrote: »

I'm using it as a part of Small Business Server. We have about 30 users and SBS has Exchange, SQL 2005, and ISA 2004 all running on it. The box is pretty beefy, but the key to Sharepoint is that it goes to "sleep" when nobody is using it so when the first user hits it there is a lag while it starts back up. With a few hundred users hitting it regularly it should perform very well.

My server is a Dell PE 2900 with dual 3.73GHz Xeon Dual Core chips (HT enabled) and 4GB of ram. All of the above barely taxes the machine.

What is it like to manage? Are you basically just setting it up, and leaving it alone? Also, are you using the part that allows people to have their own web pages that give them access to files?

For us we just set it up and leave it alone. We don't use it for much at this point. We need to move to document management pretty soon.

Morskittar

Monkeydrye wrote: »

Well, see, I think everyone wants different things. My Network Admin wants Sharepoint services. He is more interested in document management and access. Others I think wants the Server. They want to be abl to have portals for our outside leadership and members to be given access to files and such with an easy interface and easy setup.

Have you seen this? It's a pretty detailed comparison of the different versions.