Guest Blog
SharePoint 2010 is a very complex system… not only for a developer or consultant. It is also very complex for an administrator and regardless of your role as a developer or consultant in your company you need to understand the aspects of SharePoint administration.
And here is why:
As a developer your implementation is required to work not only in your environment but also in your customers environment. Since every customers infrastructure is different in the way it is organized your code might not work. Because of that a replication of your customers environment can save you lots of time and money because you will find errors during the implementation phase of your project instead of the going live phase. Of course it will keep you stress free and doesn’t impact the image of you and your employer.
As a consultant you need to understand the impacts of a SharePoint deployment. SharePoint is always deployed within an existing infrastructure. There aren’t only interfaces between existing servers and system… additionally you need to think about the administrator himself. He is the person who will be responsible for planning, deployment and maintenance. Bringing people with the right knowledge at the right time together is most important.
In order to get such an understanding an experienced SharePoint developer or consultant can be helpful. Otherwise a book about SharePoint 2010 administration is a good start and there are quite some books out there by Wrox, Microsoft Press, McGraw-Hill Osborne Media or Sybex. Usually a book for beginners is accurate since it doesn’t only tell you about administration it also tells you about the things behind features and functionality. Understanding the use case is a central part of the beginners book. If you are already familiar with the background of SharePoint 2010 you can switch to a professional book with a lot more detailed scenarios.
For a successful deployment and implementation of SharePoint 2010 it is the most important thing to get an understanding of basic administration. How do you deploy SharePoint? Which person does it affect? At which time do you need someone? Without thinking about that problems will occur and usually it’s too late or it requires more strength to revise it.
Choosing the right SharePoint book is essential since they cover content in a different way and in different depth.
Markus Ramirez is an independent SharePoint developer mainly in Switzerland but also in Germany and Austria. As a trainer he tries to sensitize people to take a look behind things in order to understand them.