Difference Between Site Collection , Sites and SubSites

One of the most frequently asked question about sharepoint is “What is site Collection ? What is Site and What is Sub Site ?“ , so here I have tried to explain it .


Site Collection, Sites And Sub Sites All are same , How ? Think of a Big Box,If you put Small Box in an big Box then first you have to open Big Box and then you have to put a small box in it , similarly if you have another smaller box you can put it in the smaller one now your big Box have a Small Box And Small box have an Smaller Box , you can have as many boxes as you want , but why I am explaining it here Think of Site Collection as a Big Box and Site as Small Box and Sub Site as More Smaller Box , So far all are boxes and have same properties but all Are Dependent in a way that if you are not opening Big Box you cannot get Small Box , Now SharePoint Also works likes this , But why SharePoint have done this ? because to manage things in hierarchies are simple for example "Permissions", If I Lock the big Box no one is going to see Other boxes but if I lock the Second Box no one will be able to See the third one inside it , Logically All of these are same but Site Collection have more Advance features because it is the First Box .

The SharePoint Way :

In SharePoint

1st level is : Site Collection

2nd Level is: Sites

3rd Level is: Sub Sites .

Example : Think of a Bank which have many departments some are related and other are not realted to each other , IT is not related to any other department in sense of Transactions It makes softwares and give support , HR and IT are not linked with Each other as they have different roles . So if I say Create a SharePoint Site One must Create one Site Collection and Called it Bank [ Home] and create two Sub Sites and call them HR and IT .Great I have also done it first .

Now one day HR site is full of documents and IT site is fine they don’t have many documents on their site, Due to HR site IT Guys are also waiting for a long time, Now you have decided to separate them HR on one server and IT on Other server ( If you are not getting me here don’t worry it is only be understood by the one who deploy SharePoint on Farm ),Now you cannot separate them because SharePoint only gives you backup and restore facility at First Level that is Site Collection , It means you cannot separate IT and HR now ,You must have to do some homework for these things in start and identify which are dependent and which are not ? organizations will pay you for this ;)

It means we have done something wrong and now nothing can be done , So think in a broader way when you are creating site collections and sites, If we have created two site collections HR and IT we can shift them from one server to other it is only one benefit or Plus point goes to Site Collection,there are others ... But if you have got a task to create a Team Site for a group of HR people then you will definitely create it Under “HR” site collection you will not create it as another Site Collection ..

I Hope this will help ...
ask @ rahimkhowaja@hotmail.com

What is Difference Between Wss And Moss ? Why Wss Or Why Moss ?

As a beginner of SharePoint when I start looking at books and blogs I was very confused about what really is the difference so I have started going in more depth but the real difference I found when I started installing both of them, So let’s go through my experience and you will come to know what is the difference. I hope so ;)
First rule of learning , Forget everything you have in mind before , think like you are new to SharePoint and have never seen or heard about sharepoint,Here we go now ..
When we install windows 2003 server Microsoft is offering you many free software’s like notepade,sound recorder etc but Microsoft gives you one thing more which is a Website which can be used within an organization for sharing documents or messaging each other and many other collaborative things , so what is that free thing called ? That free thing is SharePoint portal, Microsoft is giving it for free but why organizations of world are buying Microsoft Office SharePoint Server in $45000 for their organization if it is free with windows server 2003,The reason is of features , What Microsoft gives for free have few features in it but if you want all features you have to buy it from Microsoft ,I think it is very simple …
Note : Add and remove program of windows server have Microsoft SharePoint Portal Free one , If it is not there Download it from Microsoft Site for Free

Now Wss And Moss :-

Well think of 3 tier application in which there is a presentation layer , business logic layer and Data layer , Presentation layer have Web Forms ( ASPX ) logic behind these forms Call functions in Business Logic Layer , Now if you create a business logic Layer and expose methods and function and classes so you are basically giving opportunity to Others to use that business logic Layer ( DLL ) , Microsoft have done the same thing They created a Complete Web Portal ( SharePoint ) on Asp.net and given opportunity to developers to do whatever they want by using their DLL ( Windows SharePoint Services ) , you can have it with the free version but API is limited but when you buy Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) you get many other things in that portal , It is same like we buy a trial version with limited functionality and buy full Version by giving Extra amount .
Now many organizations are happy with WSS and I am sure that Free version is also very much usefull and can be used by organizations for Intranet Portals ( Portals runs inside organization ) and if organization need more features then they have to buy Complete version . Even if you want to make that Intranet Portal ( Inside Organization) to run on Internet ( Outside Organization ) You have to pay money 

Difference in Development:-

It is very obvious that if you are developing web parts and other controls on free version you will not get benefit of other functions and methods given by Microsoft in full version ,but you can develop any thing using that basic DLL ( WSS )

ask @ rahimkhowaja@hotmail.com