Generate WSS Sitetree structures? MS Expert says no at TechEd..

Well, actually not NO but:

I was just over at the "Ask the Experts" stand talking to the Sharepoint guys from Microsoft Netherlands. I was describing a scenario where I was planning to generate a WSS site tree structures based on MS CRM Account, Opportunity and Contract entities.

My reasoning for creating WSS site trees under a top-level website was largely based on the following:

  • Global authentication and authorization can be set for the entire tree under the top-level website. Administration of this can be desentralized.
  • The sitetree structure can align with existing categories as the customer uses today.
  • The top-level website can be placed in the DMZ for this certain type of site. For example post-sales collaboration (Contracts) would be a candidate for extranets, as pre-sales (Opportunities) seldom would.
  • The site structure should be generated so that Sharepoint performace limitations does not kick in. Rumours has it that no site should have more than ~2k subsites.
  • The generated site structure could also scale by moving it to another top-level website.
  • The sites generated in the sitestructure would then be indexed in a site directory in the Sharepoint Portal with suitable metadata.

The experts standpoint was that structuring data in folderlike hierarchies has proven not to work. His main concern was to locate information. The recommendation was basically to follow the SPS Site Directory area approach: To create a new top-level website for every site in the portal.

He saw no reason for logically grouping the sitestructures under top-level websites because they would all be organized in the site directory. This is the way Microsoft does it on their portal with more than ~30k sites. According to the MS rep: all as top-level websites.

I am still letting this sink in, and as a programmer the unstructured fashion of this principle feels icky. I'd like to get more people involved discussing sharepoint architecture in general, and site generation (in integration scenarios) in particular. Sharepoint is no huge focus here this year so are anyone up for a Session?

 

2 Comments

  • I was wondering about larger scale deployments - whether, using your WSS construct (under top-level site) would have any bearing when used with NLB (network load balancing). Since SPS does not depend on NLB.

  • WSS's mechanism for cleaning up unused sites also relies on top-level sites 9which are also site collections).

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