Chapter 9. Protecting SharePoint Servers

"How does it work?"

"Well, you have front-end servers in a farm hosting the websites, an application layer that handles advanced services like Excel, search, and InfoPath forms, and a database that holds the information."

"OK, how does it work?"

—Ryan, trying to explain SharePoint to someone who has never used it

Ryan's not the only person in the world who has had a tough time explaining the concepts behind SharePoint. For many years, the trick was finding people who'd even heard of it. Although Share-Point has been around as an actual product since 2001, it wasn't until Microsoft released the Office System 2003 wave of products that people really began to hear about it. Even if you could corner someone who knew about SharePoint, getting a coherent description of what it was and what you could do with it was as entertaining as Ryan's quote.