Introduction:
Now days, Most of the IT companies are using SharePoint 2007. It has some limitations so Microsoft has launched an improved version of it, which is known as SharePoint 2010. Microsoft tried to remove maximum limitations of SharePoint 2007. Also, the 2010 version has come up with some new features and functionalities.
Comparison between SharePoint 2007 and 2010:
1. SharePoint 2010 needs 64-bit machine:
If we talk about the requirement for the server to run SharePoint 2010 then there is a major difference in requirement in comparison to SharePoint 2007.
To run SharePoint 2007 we need only 32-bit machines. We can run SharePoint 2007 with windows server 2003 also. But we can run SharePoint 2010 only at 64-bit machines. SharePoint Server 2010 requires 64-bit Windows Server 2008 and 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005.
So, the company will experience a huge change of processors if they want to use 2010. Thus, the transform from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 will not be very easy.
2. Terms and Keywords:
One of the major drawbacks of using SharePoint 2007 is that it doesn’t have metadata in hierarchical order. However in SharePoint 2010 this problem is resolved.
A word or phrase which we can associate with context is called as term. In SharePoint 2010, this term can become a managed term or managed keyword.
Managed term: This can be created by the persons who have appropriate permission to create it. ‘Term sets’ means a group of related terms. It has hierarchical structure.
Managed keyword: It can be created by any user. These are kept in non-hierarchical list. This non-hierarchical list is called as keyword set.
Users can turn a managed keyword to a managed term easily in SharePoint 2010 platform.
3. Term store management tool:
Another drawback of SharePoint 2007 is the restriction of site collection libraries while accessing lists. A particular list is specific to a particular site collection. Any other site collections have no access to that list. So, as a result, if the user wants to share the metadata of that list across more than one site collections, he/she has to create the same list for each site collection.
But in SharePoint 2010, managed terms and managed keywords will be in ‘Term store management tool’. This ‘Term store management tool’ is a centralized database. It allows sharing the managed terms and keywords to all the site collection in the farm. So, in SharePoint 2010 there is no need of creating the same list again and again.
4. Add, modify and delete terms:
In SharePoint 2007, if we modify or delete something which is already tagged, then that change doesn’t get reflected in the tagged content. But in SharePoint 2010, this issue is fixed. Now the user can add, modify or delete anything in an already tagged content. And it will be reflected wherever it is tagged.
5. External content:
Another new feature of SharePoint 2010 is ‘External Content Types’. This new feature is included into the new ‘Business Connectivity Services feature-set’ of SharePoint 2010.
The user can create External Content Types by using SharePoint Designer 2010 or Visual Studio 2010. External Content Types are nothing but a definition of an external database table. Once an External Content Type is defined an External List can also be created. Everything which we can do with an original List in SharePoint 2010 (workflows, permissions, views, etc.) can be done with External Lists.
The data that is displayed and stored for an External List is not stored in the SharePoint 2010 content database. It stores in the external database table only. Therefore, if it is updated by a non-SharePoint application, the data that is displayed in the SharePoint External List will update immediately. In SharePoint 2007, the data brought into SharePoint was stored in a List column in the SharePoint Content Database. So, if the data changed in the external database, the values in the corresponding SharePoint List did not get updated immediately.
6. Multiple Browser support:
All the features of SharePoint 2007 are not supported by every browser. For windows, IE6 and IE7 only support all the features of SharePoint 2007. For example, ActiveX controls features are only supported by IE6 and IE7. Mozilla or safari supports the basic functionalities of SharePoint 2007 but not all the functionalities.
In SharePoint 2010, Ajax is working fine not only for IE7 & IE8 but also for Firefox 3.5 & Google Chrome 3. But SharePoint 2010 is no more compatible with IE6.
7. Easy to use templates:
SharePoint 2010 can be integrated with visual studio 2010 very easily. SharePoint 2010 along with visual studio 2010 provides a rich support out of box. Visual studio provides many readymade project templates.
8. Scalability:
SharePoint 2007 has another limitation about its item limits in a list or library. Maximum 2000 items can be entered in a list or library in SharePoint 2007. There are some other scalability issues like size of content database; numbers of permissions are also present in SharePoint 2007. In one line, both back-end and presentation layer has some scalability issues.
In SharePoint 2010, most of the scalability issues have been fixed.
9. Virtualization:
SharePoint 2010 can be used on Windows 2008 or Vista client. The developers can install what they need to make it work, and they don’t need to be developing directly on an OS server any longer.
10. Getting merged with Microsoft office 2010:
SharePoint 2010 has come up with Office 2012. As a result, now the developer can use Microsoft office features (word, excel etc.) more comfortably.
Apart from above mentioned features there are many more interesting features are present in SharePoint 2010, which is going to help the developers to work more efficiently.
Conclusion:
Although there are many extra features are available in SharePoint 2010. But to use SharePoint 2010, the developers have to change or modify some requirements and some existing solutions. First they need 64-bit machine to use SharePoint 2010.
Most of the existing solutions present in SharePoint 2007 will work fine in SharePoint 2010 without any modification. However few will need modification to become compatible with SharePoint 2010.
Search Terms: SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2007 vs 2010
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