Research and Recommendation – SharePoint for Design Team File Storage
This is an example of researching options proposed by leadership and providing my findings and recommendation for implementation.
Recommendations based on research findings:
- Utilize SharePoint lists and libraries as the central hub of information.
- Provide links to large and specialized files stored in a file or media server.
- Library Catalog should be the database of record for all Learning Department training content.
SharePoint for Large File and Design Application File Storage
The Learning Department has made great strides in creating policies and tools to store, track, and secure all intellectual property (IP) associated with training. SharePoint is the enterprise collaboration platform and OKM has developed the Learning Department Library Center site to meet the needs of cataloging and storing training and other department documents in a central location. The SharePoint lists and libraries provide a higher level of functionality than file servers by providing automatic versioning, ease of collaboration ability, item level security, and metadata to enable search and classification. Barring the purchase of an Enterprise Content/Document Management solution, SharePoint is the most flexible available option for storing, securing, and making documents accessible to the enterprise.
SharePoint is Not a Traditional File Server
Many companies that utilize SharePoint seek to replace the traditional H drive with SharePoint libraries due to the previously stated benefits. However, SharePoint is designed to be a collaboration platform and is not designed to be a replacement for local file servers as a pure storage platform. It is important to keep in mind that SharePoint servers and file storage servers function differently and are best utilized for different purposes due to their individual limitations. Just as file servers are unable to provide the collaborative and database benefits of versioning and metadata associations, SharePoint is unsuitable for storage and management of all file types and sizes.
Design Teams Have Special File Needs
The Learning Department has several design and development teams that use industry standard high-end graphic applications to develop content. The Creatives team produces many forms of multimedia content including but not limited to graphics, interactive flash files, and videos. The eLearning team uses several different applications in the development of interactive training material, several Adobe products, Lectora Inspire, TechSmith Camtasia and others. The Instructional Design and Editing teams are transitioning from using standard Microsoft Office products to state of the art publishing software in Adobe InDesign.
The very things that make these applications a benefit in the development of training content are what make them ill suited for management within the SharePoint environment. Multimedia authoring tools allow designers to build mashups of different types of content (text, images, audio, video, flash, html, etc) and export the final product into a smaller, portable format consumable by users with commonplace applications; a web browser, flash player, PDF viewer, and media file players. There are three major features inherent in these tools that make it necessary to use either a traditional file storage server or a specialized content management solution to manage the source files. The first challenge is the size of the source files created by these powerful tools, the second is the way the files function during editing, and the third is the necessary dependencies created in embedded content.
Large File Storage
It is possible to store almost any file type on SharePoint as long as the files are each smaller than 2GB which is a hard limit. Our enterprise follows industry standards in limiting individual file upload size to 50 MB. Even at the Microsoft company, IT limits their environment at 100 MB file upload size to ensure supportability. The server time out settings, browser and network speed play a large part in performance. The larger the file, the bigger the strain on the network, and the higher the likelihood business users will receive time out errors.
The recommendation for larger files is to utilize file servers for storage and media servers for streaming content. It is still possible to use SharePoint lists and libraries to create links to wherever the file might live to provide a common access interface and the ability to save metadata about the file.
Files with Dependencies
Linked documents and files cannot be run from a SharePoint site, as the dependency on an external sources isn’t captured in SharePoint. For example, the URL references created in a linked Excel file when it is uploaded to a SharePoint site are not translated by Excel, and the links will not work. In all situations, SharePoint is unable to resolve embedded links in documents/files. They can, however, be stored in SharePoint, but would need to be downloaded to the local machine to work effectively.
Database, Configuration, and Log Files and files which require locks
In order to properly use database files, configuration files and log files, they need to be open and in a locked (writable) state. For example, in a normal file server scenario, shared MS Access databases need have several instances of the database open and locked to allow for users to update it. Similarly, log files and configuration files must be locked and in a writable state. Outlook *.pst files are designed to be used locally, as they have a one to one relationship with the *.pst file owner. SharePoint is not designed to manage locked files (.lck) and therefore it would not be a best use of the platform to run these types of files from a SharePoint site. They can, however, be stored in SharePoint, but would need to be downloaded to the local machine to work effectively.
Recommendations
Utilize SharePoint lists and libraries as the central hub of information providing links to large and specialized files stored in a file or media server. The Library Catalog should be the database of record for all Learning Department training content.
Notes and considerations
- SharePoint invalid characters for use in filenames ” # % & * : < > ? \ / { | } ~
- Can not be longer than 128 characters
- The default max single file upload size is 50 MB by default for a web application.
Reference
Oleson, J., (2007), MSDN Blogs, File Name, Length, Size and Invalid Character Restrictions and Recommendations. Retrieved from http://blogs.msdn.com/b/joelo/archive/2007/06/27/file-name-length-size-and-invalid-character-restrictions-and-recommendations.aspx (Oleson, 2007)
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