Architectural Changes in SharePoint 2013

·  Shredded Storage:

The goal here is to make changes equal to the size of the change, not size of the file. Let’s have a look at how it works in SharePoint 2010 and 2013 to understand the purpose.

How It Works in SharePoint 2010:

When a file is updated via Cobalt, only the bits that have changed are sent over the wire from the client to the SharePoint WFE. However, because SharePoint lacks the concept of incremental updates to SQL it is forced to:

1. pull the entire file to the WFE
2. merge the changes into it
3. write the entire file back to SQL

How It Works in SharePoint 2013:

1. The file is broken into pieces and stored in SQL
2. On update only the shredded blobs that correspond to the updated bits are touched
3. No more round tripping entire files to the WFE and back

·  SQL Improvements:

In SharePoint 2013, Microsoft has tried to make significant improvements in server performance. They have reduced scenarios that might invoke full table scans. Also, there have been lots of improvements around finding docs for link fix-up and alert handling. They have reduced data redundancy for some features using advanced indexing features provided by SQL 2008 R2. The major change in architecture is to support wide lists, i.e. lists where a single item spans multiple rows in the database to hold the data.

·  Cache Service:

There is a new distributed cache service in SharePoint 2013 based on Windows Server AppFabric Distributed Caching. It is used in features like authentication token caching and My Site social feeds. The same time it should be noted that SharePoint 2013 uses caching features that cloud-based cache (Windows Azure Cache) does not support at this time, so only local cache hosts can be used. Also, importantly, SharePoint ONLY supports the version of caching that it ships – you cannot independently upgrade it.

The config DB keeps track of which machines in the farm are running the cache service. It is all provisioned by the SharePoint setup. A new Windows service – the Distributed Cache service – is installed on each server in the farm when SharePoint is installed.

Distributed Cache in SharePoint 2013

·  Request Management:

The purpose of the Request Management feature is to give SharePoint knowledge of and also to have more control over incoming requests

Having knowledge of the nature of incoming requests – for example, the user agent, requested URL, or source IP – allows SharePoint to customize the response to each request.

The goals of request management (RM) are as follows:

• RM can route to WFEs with better health, keeping low-health WFEs alive
• RM can identify harmful requests and deny them immediately
• RM can prioritize requests by throttling lower-priority ones (bots) to serve higher-priority ones (end-users)
• RM can send all requests of specific type, like search for example, to specific machines
• Isolated traffic can help troubleshoot errors on one machine
• RM can send heavy requests to more powerful WFEs

Request Manager Components in SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2013 uses the routing and pools to manage the request. Routing rules route requests and are associated with MachinePools. MachinePools mainly contain servers. Servers use weights for routing – static weights and health weights. Static weights are constant for WFEs; health weights change dynamically based on health scores.

·  Service Application Changes:

There are a few new service applications in SharePoint 2013:

• App Management Service: allows you to install SharePoint apps from the Office Marketplace or the App Catalog
• SharePoint Translation Services: does simple language translation of Word, PPT, and XLIFF files into HTML
• Work Management Service: provides task aggregation across systems such as SharePoint, Exchange and Project.
• Azure Workflow Server is new and not exactly a service app but similar. Provides an externalized host using REST and OAuth to run workflows.

Also, Office Web App and Web Analytics are no longer a service application. Web Application Companions (WAC) is now a separate product altogether and not a service application.You can create a WAC farm that can support multiple SharePoint farms. You can view files from a number of different data sources, including: SharePoint, Exchange, Lync, File servers. 3rd parties can integrate with WAC to provide access to documents in their data stores, e.g. EMC Documentum, IBM FileNet, OpenText, etc.

·  Other Considerations:

Stretched farms are no longer supported in SharePoint 2013. “Stretched” means different data centers with less than 1ms latency. All servers in the farm must be in the same data center now. For 100% fidelity in 100% of features, all content must reside in the same farm.

SharePoint 2013 has a lot of exciting new features and it will be interesting to see how the SharePoint Product Team at Microsoft continues to build and package but the features and solutions within 2013 should give you and your organization added confidence in the fact that you have selected a solution that Microsoft is backing with its full support and has tagged SharePoint as its flagship product.

Features Available in SP 2013

DEVELOPER Features

-->Access Services (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Build web databases and publish them to a SharePoint site. SharePoint visitors can use your database application in a web browser by using SharePoint permissions to determine who can see what. And you can start with a template so that you can start collaborating immediately.

-->App Catalog (SharePoint) (SP 2013, Office 365)

       Publish your apps to an internal corporate catalog, hosted on your SharePoint deployment,

       To make them available to users who have access to that SharePoint deployment.

-->App Deployment: Auto hosted Apps (Office 365)

Autohosted Apps are installed to a host web on the customer’s SharePoint Online tenancy,                   with components automatically installed into a Windows Azure website account. The Windows Azure web Sites infrastructure manages isolation of tenancies.

-->App Deployment: Cloud-Hosted Apps (SP 2013, Office 365)

Cloud-hosted apps for SharePoint includes at least one remote component and may also include SharePoint-hosted components. Cloud-hosted apps include both auto hosted and provider-hosted apps.

-->App Deployment: SharePoint-Hosted Apps (SP 2013, Office 365)

SharePoint-Hosted Apps allow you to reuse common SharePoint artifacts, such as lists and Web     Parts. When you take this approach, you can use only JavaScript and you cannot use any server-side code.

-->App Management Services (SP 2013, Office 365)

The App Management Service database stores licensing information for all of the apps for SharePoint.

-->BCS: Alerts for External Lists (SP 2013, Office 365)

SharePoint now provides the capability of using alerts for external lists, just as they have been used for traditional lists. A user can subscribe to be alerted when data changes on an external list.

-->BCS: App Scoped External Content Types (ECTs) (SP 2013, Office 365)

With the addition of the new App model in SharePoint, Business Connectivity Services (BCS) can now scope external content types at the App level instead of at the farm level. This gives great flexibility to App developers by allowing them to use external data inside their Apps.

-->BCS: Business Data Web parts (ALL versions)

Business Data Web parts are special web parts that work with external data. They are used like standard SharePoint web parts, but are based on external content types, which are XML descriptions of connections to the external data.

-->BCS: External List (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

An external list is a special kind of SharePoint list that displays data from an external data source. It is built on an external content type that describes the data source, and allows users to work with the data in a familiar SharePoint interface.

-->BCS: OData connector (SP 2013, Office 365)

The OData connector is new for SharePoint. It allows for Business Connectivity Services (BCS) to use a Restful OData endpoint as a data source for external lists, Business Data Web Parts, and custom user interfaces.

-->BCS: Profile Pages (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. Business Connectivity Services (BCS) provides a special Web Parts page called Profile pages. Profile pages allows for BCS to display details of the external data in addition to its related external content types.

-->BCS: Rich Client Integration (SP 2013, SP 2010)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. Business Connectivity Services (BCS) uses a complimentary client and server-side architecture that allows for Office clients, such as Outlook and Excel, to work directly with external data exposed to SharePoint through external content types.

-->BCS: Secure Store Service (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

The Secure Store provides single sign on capabilities to Business Connectivity Services (BCS). Using Secure Store, SharePoint Administrators can map user account credentials to external system account credentials so that data can be secured.

-->BCS: Tenant-level external data log (SP 2013, Office 365)

Tenant-level external data logging allows for logging of transactions that affect specific SharePoint tenancies.

-->Browser-based customizations (ALL versions)

You can customize your site without any special tools or coding expertise just by using the site settings. For example, you can change the look, title, and logo, change the navigation links, change the contents of a page, or change the appearance of views for lists and libraries.

-->Client Object Model (OM) (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

SharePoint 2013 has three client object models for managed code: .NET, Silverlight, and mobile. In addition, SharePoint includes a JavaScript client object model.

-->Client-side rendering (CSR) (SP 2013, Office 365)

Client-side rendering provides a mechanism that you can use to produce your own output for a set of controls that are hosted in a SharePoint page.

-->Custom Site Definitions (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 customers can create their own site definitions that customize and extend standard SharePoint site templates.

-->Custom Site Provisioning (SP 2013)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 customers get a quick and easy way for users to make their site requests and to start using their sites quickly.

-->Developer Site (Office 365)

Use an Office 365 Developer Site as a development and testing environment to shorten your setup time and start creating, testing, and deploying your apps for SharePoint.

-->Forms Based Applications (ALL versions)

A form view is basically a view that contains controls. A Forms Based Application lets the user create and use one or more forms within the application.

-->Full-Trust Solutions (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 customers can create full-trust solutions. Also called farm solutions. Unlike apps for SharePoint, farm solutions contain code that is deployed to the SharePoint servers and makes calls to SharePoint’s server object model. These assemblies always run with full trust. Farm solutions should be used for customizations of SharePoint administrative functions, such as custom timer jobs, custom Windows PowerShell cmdlets, and extensions of Central Administration.

-->InfoPath Forms Services (ALL Versions)

Forms Service provides a Web browser form-filling experience in SharePoint, based on form templates that are designed in InfoPath.

-->JavaScript Object Model (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

SharePoint provides a JavaScript object model for use in either inline script or separate .js files. It includes all the same functionality as the .NET Framework and Silverlight client object models. The JavaScript object model is a useful way to include custom SharePoint code in an app. It also enables web developers to use their existing JavaScript skills to create SharePoint applications with minimal learning curve.

-->List and Library APIs (ALL Versions)

SharePoint provides Aps for accessing list and library data in the server object model, managed and JavaScript client object models, and the REST web service.

-->Remote Event Receiver (SP 2013, Office 365)

To handle events in an app for SharePoint, developers can create remote event receivers and app event receivers. Remote event receivers handle events that occur to an item in the app, such as a list, a list item, or a web.

-->REST API (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

SharePoint 2013 provides an implementation of a Representational State Transfer (REST) web service that uses the OData protocol to perform CRUD operations on SharePoint list data. Use this when you must access SharePoint data from client technologies that do not use JavaScript and are not built on the .NET Framework or Microsoft Silverlight platforms.

-->Sandboxed Solutions (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

A sandboxed solution, compared to a farm solution, enables site collection administrators to install custom solutions in SharePoint Foundation without the involvement of a higher-level administrator.

-->SharePoint Design Manager (SP 2013, Office 365)

The Design Manager enables a step-by-step approach for creating design assets that you can use to brand sites. Upload design assets—images, HTML, CSS, and so on—and then create your master pages and page layouts.

-->SharePoint Designer (SPD) (ALL Versions)

Using SharePoint Designer, advanced users and developers can quickly create SharePoint solutions in response to business needs.

-->SharePoint Store (SP 2013, Office 365)

The SharePoint Store provides a convenient location for developers to upload new app solutions that are aimed both at consumers and businesses.

-->Workflow 2010 (.NET 3.5) (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

                SharePoint legacy workflow functionality, compatible with .NET 3.5.

-->Workflow 2010 (out of the box) (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Use out of the box workflows included with SharePoint to model common business processes.

-->Workflow 2013 (SP 2013, Office 365)

SharePoint 2013 workflows are powered by Windows Workflow Foundation 4 (WF), which was significantly redesigned from earlier versions. Perhaps the most prominent feature of the new workflow infrastructure is the introduction of Windows Azure as the new workflow execution host.

-->Workload API: ECM APIs (ALL Versions)

Extend SharePoint enterprise content management capabilities using the Search APIs available in the server, .NET client, and JavaScript object models and REST service.

-->Workload API: Search APIs (ALL Versions)

Extend SharePoint search capabilities using the Search APIs available in the server, .NET client, and JavaScript object models and REST service.

-->Workload API: Social APIs (ALL Versions)

Extend SharePoint social capabilities using the Social APIs available in the server, .NET client, and JavaScript object models and REST service.

ADMINISTRATION Features

-->Active Directory Synchronization (ALL Versions)

If your company has existing users in a local Active Directory environment, there are tools for synchronizing those users to your Office 365 for enterprise directory. The Office 365 directory then feeds the SharePoint Online user profile.

-->Alternate Access Mapping (AAM) (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 customers can configure alternate access mapping to map requests where the URL of a Web request received by Internet Information Services (IIS) differs from the URL that was typed by a user.

-->Analytics Platform (SP 2013)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 customers can use the Analytics Platform, which replaces the Web Analytics service application, to help identify and surface the content that users consider to be the most useful and relevant.

-->Claims-Based Authentication Support (SP 2013, SP 2010)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 customers configure claims-based authentication for web applications that support SharePoint Server 2013 server-to-server authentication and app authentication.

-->Configuration Wizards (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 customers can use the Farm Configuration Wizard to configure some SharePoint Server 2013 services automatically. Or they can configure services manually, which gives greater flexibility in designing a logical architecture.

-->Deferred Site Collection upgrade (SP 2013, Office 365)

Site owners can perform their own self-service upgrades to their sites, when it is most convenient for them. SharePoint Online also provides new features to support upgrade, such as the health checker and evaluation site collections.

-->Distributed Cache (SP 2013)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 customers can use the Distributed Cache service to cache feature functionality, which improves authentication, newsfeed, OneNote client access, security trimming, and page load performance.

-->Host Header Site Collections (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 site collections can have their own unique host header. Creating a host-named site collection enables organizations’ to host multiple site collections with vanity URLs, which are easier for people to remember.

-->Permissions Management (ALL Versions)

Three key security elements work together to control user access to sites and site content:

·         Permissions inheritance

·         Permission levels (sometimes known as SharePoint roles)

·         SharePoint groups (or SharePoint security groups)

-->Improved Self-Service Site Creation (ALL Versions)

SharePoint Server 2013 customers can use self-service site creation to configure things such as: whether to use a custom form to create the site, whether to create a sub web or site collection, what path should be used when the site collection is created, and whether to ask or require that a site policy be selected when the site is created.

-->Managed Accounts (SP 2013, SP 2010)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 system administrators can use a Managed Account, an Active Directory user account whose credentials are managed by and contained within SharePoint, to easily manage administrative tasks. That way the fate of your organization’s deployment does not rest on just one person’s account.

-->Minimal Download Strategy (MDS) (SP 2013, Office 365)

The minimal download strategy will use a single .aspx file (start.aspx) for your pages, with the actual URL encoded in the text following the hash mark (‘#’). When moving from page to page, only the changes between two compatible pages will be downloaded. Fewer bytes will be downloaded and the pages will appear more quickly.

-->OAuth (SP 2013, Office 365)

Oauth is an Internet protocol for creating and managing app identity. Oauth allows for app identity to be recognized apart from user identity. This cross-platform mechanism means apps can be granted more permissions than the current user has.

-->Patch Management (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 updates will be released by using a two-step phase process: patching and upgrading. During the patching steps, new binary files are copied to the Central Administration server. Any services that are using files that have to be replaced are temporarily stopped. There are some instances when a server must be restarted.

-->Quota Templates (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. A quota template consists of storage limit values that specify the maximum amount of data that can be stored in a site collection. When the storage limit is reached, a quota template can also trigger an email alert to the site collection administrator. SharePoint Online administrators and SharePoint Server 2013 farm administrators can create a quota template that can be applied to any site collection.

-->Read-Only Database Support (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 administrators can set content databases to be read-only.

-->Remote Blob Storage (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) is an add-on feature pack for Microsoft SQL Server. RBS is designed to move the storage of binary large objects (BLOBs) from database servers to commodity storage solutions. If the content databases in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 are 4 gigabytes (GB) or larger, consider using RBS as part of your data storage solution.

-->Request Management (SP 2013)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 administrators can define rules, by using Request Manager, to do request routing and throttling to improve performance.

-->Request Throttling (SP 2013, SP 2010)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. Request throttling provides SharePoint Server 2013 administrators with options for throttling HTTP requests when front-end web servers become too busy to handle all the incoming requests.

-->Resource Throttling (SP 2013, SP 2010)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. Resource throttling provides SharePoint Server 2013 administrators with options for monitoring and throttling server resources and large lists for Web applications. Resource throttling can monitor such resources as CPU, memory, and Wait Time, checking resources every 5 seconds.

-->Service Application Platform (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

SharePoint services can be individually consumed from any Web application. This platform provides the flexibility needed to use services, depending on application needs. Web Analytics is no longer a service application. Analyses and reporting processes were incorporated into the Search service application. Office Web Apps is no longer a service application. Office Web Apps Server is now a separate server product. Depending on what Office 365 plan your organization subscribes to, Office Web Apps may be available to SharePoint Online customers.

-->SharePoint Health Analyzer (SP 2013, SP 2010)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. New for SharePoint Server 2013, site collection pre-upgrade health check examines a site collection and then generates a report listing ay potential upgrade issues and how to address the issues. For example, if a file has been customized, it will be flagged, so your organization can identify the custom file and reset it to the default template if the site definition, if you want.

-->SharePoint Online Admin Center (Office 365)

The SharePoint admin center, available to certain SharePoint Online customers only, enables administrators to manage features such as the following:

·         Site collections

·         InfoPath forms

·         User Profiles

·         Business Connectivity Services (BCS)

·         Managed metadata and the Term Store

·         Records management

·         Search

·         Secure Store

·         Apps for SharePoint

·         External sharing

·         Information Rights Management

·         Self-service site creation

-->Shredded Storage (SP 2013)

Shredded storage is essentially the chunking of data—only differences are saved. That means if versioning is enabled and someone makes a change to a document, only changes, or “shreds,” are added to the storage footprint of that document. Shredded storage reduces storage usage and improves I/O performance by reducing how much information is retrieved by the web server from the content database. Shredded storage removes duplicate files and improves data transmission speed.

Shredded Storage can’t be set up by customers in SharePoint Online. Instead, Microsoft sets up and monitors Shredded Storage to optimally account for the scale of a multitenant environment. This helps provide a more reliable experience across the service, and it allows customers to submit feedback to Microsoft that can affect future changes.

-->Site Collection Compliance Policies (SP 2013, Office 365)

A site collection policy can be created in the Site Collection Policies list for the top-level site in a site collection. After a site collection policy is created, it can be exported so that site administrators of other site collections can import it into their Site Collection Policies list. Creating an exportable site collection policy enables SharePoint administrators to standardize the information management policies across the sites in an organization.

-->Site Collection Health Checks (SP 2013, Office 365)

Site collection owners or administrators can use the site collection health checker to detect issues with their site collections and address them before upgrading the sites to the new version.

-->State Service (SP 2013, SP 2010)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. The State Service allows SharePoint Server 2013 customers to check whether all services in their farm are configured correctly.

-->Streamlined Central Administration (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 administrators can use Central Administration to perform administrative tasks from a single location.

-->System Status Notifications (SP 2013)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 site collection owners will receive an email message and a status bar notification in a site collection when an upgrade is available.

-->Unattached Content Database Recovery (SP 2013, SP 2010)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 customers can recover content from an unattached content database by using Central Administration.

-->Upgrade evaluation site collections (SP 2013)

A key benefit of separating the process of upgrading software and data from upgrading sites is that it allows site owners or administrators to run sites in SharePoint 2010 mode until the sites are ready to be upgraded to the latest version. In preparation for upgrading the site, site owners or administrators can request an evaluation site collection, which is a copy of the site, for review purposes. Evaluation sites are set to automatically expire and be deleted.

-->Usage Reporting and Logging (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 administrators use audit log reports to view the data in the audit logs for a site collection.

-->Windows PowerShell Support (ALL Versions)

SharePoint Online administrators can use SharePoint Online Windows PowerShell cmdlets to script and automate administrative tasks for their subscription, such as the following:

·         Site creation

·         Evaluation for site upgrade

·         Site upgrade

·         Adding and removing SharePoint users and groups

·         Site repair

·         Recycle bin management

CONTENT Features

-->Accessibility Standards Support (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Most SharePoint user interface (UI) elements, such as links, form controls, and buttons are designed to use Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA). MSA enables people with disabilities to interact with content by using assistive technologies, such as a screen reader.

-->Asset Library Enhancements/Video Support (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

An Asset Library is pre-configured to use special features that help users manage rich media assets, such as image, audio, and video files.

-->Auditing (ALL Versions)

SharePoint Online site collection administrators can use the audit feature to track which users have taken what actions on the sites, content types, lists, libraries, lit items, and library files of site collections.

-->Auditing & reporting (e.g. doc edits, policy edits, deletes) (ALL Versions)

SharePoint Online site collection administrators can use the audit feature to track which users have taken what actions on the sites, content types, lists, libraries, and list items of site collections.

-->Document Sets (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Document sets let users store, act on, export, and add a description to multiple files as a single entity. Policies, tagging, and templates can be applied to any document set that is created.       

-->Document Translation in Word Web App (SP 2013, Office 365)

In Reading View, Word Web App now features an option to let organizations translate their documents directly in the browser. Even document comments are translated.

-->eDiscovery (SP 2013, Office 365)

Electronic Discovery, or eDiscovery, features allow organizations to identify, hold, search, and export content from Exchange mailboxes, SharePoint sites, and file shares to support case management in addition to preservation and compliance.

-->External Sharing: External Access (Office 365)

If your organization performs work that involves sharing documents or collaborating directly with vendors, clients, or customers, then you might want to use one or more of your SharePoint Online sites to share content with people outside your organization who do not have licenses for your organization’s Microsoft Office 365 subscription. When a site is shared in SharePoint Online, an email message is sent to the external user containing the invitation to join the site. Invitations can be sent to people with any type of email address, such as user@gmail.com, user@contoso.com, or user@Comcast.net. External users sign in to the shared site via a one-time association of their email address with a Microsoft account.

-->External Sharing: Guest Link (Office 365)

Site users can generate a Guest Link (an anonymous link to a document) to share documents stored in SharePoint Online with external users without requiring the external user to sign in. Site users can create a Guest Link right from where the document is stored, such as in SkyDrive Pro or a team site library, by using the “Get a link” button.

-->Folder Sync (ALL Versions)

Users can sync a SharePoint library to their computers, and then work with those files in the library by using File Explorer. Updates to files sync to SharePoint when users are online. SkyDrive Pro or a document library on a team site can be synched.

-->Information Rights Management (IRM) (ALL Versions)

SharePoint Online IRM uses Windows Azure Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS), an information protection technology in Office 365. IRM protection is applied to files at the SharePoint list and library levels.

-->In-Place Hold (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

When a content source is part of an eDiscovery case, organizations can place it on hold so that a copy is preserved while people continue to work. Holds can be placed on content in SharePoint sites (including SkyDrive Pro sites), in file shares crawled by SharePoint, and in Exchange mailboxes (including archived Lync conversations). Site collection administration permissions must be granted for searching each site in SharePoint Online.

-->Managed Metadata Service (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Metadata management provides multiple taxonomies and folksonomies from a tenant-level store service that can be consumed at the site collection level. Metadata fields can even be embedded in documents.

-->Metadata-driven Navigation (SP 2013, Office 365)

Metadata-driven navigation makes it easier to discover content in large lists and libraries. User tagging incentives are introduced and offer anticipatory suggestions of appropriate metadata based on location and context.

-->Multi-stage Disposition (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Retentions policies can have multiple stages, allowing you to specify the entire document lifecycle as one policy. For example, review contracts every year, and delete after seven years.

-->Office ProPlus (Osub) (Office 365)

Office ProPlus provides the complete Office 2013 application suite as a monthly subscription service. This lets customers purchase monthly licenses for each user that allow five concurrent installations.

-->Office Web Apps (edit) (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

If you’re an Office 365 customer, then you can automatically create and edit Office files using Office Web Apps from an Internet browser.

-->Office Web Apps (view) (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

                By default, Office Web Apps are view-only. View-only functionality is provided for free.

-->Office Web Apps Server integration (SP 2013)

Not applicable to SharePoint Online customers. In SharePoint Server 2010, Office Web Apps was a SharePoint service application. For SharePoint Server 2013, Office Web Apps are now delivered in a new Office server product, Office Web Apps Server. A single Office Web Apps server farm can support users who access Office files through SharePoint Server 2013, Exchange Server 2013, shared folders, and websites. It’s a simpler way of deploying and managing Office Web Apps in an on-premises environment.

-->PowerPoint Automation Services (SP 2013)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. PowerPoint Automation Services helps enterprises manage their presentations. It is a shared service that provides unattended, server-side conversion of presentations into other formats.

-->Preservation hold library (SP 2013, Office 365)

Content that is placed on hold is preserved, but users can still change it. The state of the content at the time of preservation is recorded. If a user changes the content or even deletes it, the item is retained at the time of deletion and the original, preserved version is still available.

-->Quick Edit (ALL Versions)

Quick Edit, formerly known as Datasheet View, allows you to simply and quickly edit items inline on a SharePoint list. Quick Edit can be helpful if you have to edit many items in a list or library at the same time from within a grid, similar to a spreadsheet.

-->Related Items (SP 2013, Office 2013)

Related Items is a site column that enables you to associate a related list item with another item.

-->Rich Media Management (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

An Asset Library is pre-configured to use special features that help you manage rich media assets, such as image, audio, and video files.

-->Shared Content Types (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

To share content types among site collections, you make on content type gallery the “hub” of a managed metadata service, create connections to the service from each web application that contains a site collection, and specify that site collections should use the content types in the service.

-->SharePoint Translation Services (SP 2013, Office 365)

The Machine Translation Service lets users automatically translate documents. You can create a Machine Translation service application and configure the Machine Translation Service by using Central Administration, or Windows PowerShell.

-->Site mailbox (SP 2013(Exch 2013), Office 365)

A site mailbox is a shared inbox in Exchange Online that all the members of a SharePoint Online site can access. It is implemented in SharePoint Online as an app.

-->Unique Document IDs (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

The unique Document ID services improves the managing and tracking of information by assigning a unique, human-readable identifier to every piece of content, making it easier to locate, even if the content was moved from its original location.

-->Video Search (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

An Asset Library is pre-configured to use special features that help you manage rich media assets, such as image, audio, and video files.

-->WCM: Analytics (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. The Analytics Processing Component helps SharePoint Server 2013 administrators identify and surface content that users consider to be the most useful and relevant. The component analyzes both the content itself, and also the way users interact with it. The results from the analysis are added to the items in the search index so that search relevant improves automatically over time. Also, the results are used in reports that help search administrators see which manual steps they can take to improve the search system.

-->WCM: Catalog (SP 2013)

Only available for Private Site Collections. A catalog is a library or list that is shared across other sites and site collections.

-->WCM: Cross-site publishing (SP 2013)

Only available for Private Site Collections. Cross-site publishing is a publishing method. It lets you create and maintain content in one or more authoring site collections and publish that content across one or more publishing site collections using Search Web Parts.

-->WCM: Faceted navigation (SP 2013)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. Faceted navigation help users browser for content more easily by filtering on refiners that are tied to terms in a term set. By using faceted navigation, SharePoint Server 2013 administrators can configure different refiners for different terms in a term set without having to create additional pages.

-->WCM: Image Renditions (SP 2013)

Image renditions let organizations have large source images on a SharePoint site and also have places on a site where pages only use smaller versions.

-->WCM: Mobile and Device Rendering (ALL Versions)

SharePoint supports targeting different devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and set-top boxes. Designers can create channels that allow a single publishing site to be rendered in multiple ways by using different designs that target different devices.

-->WCM: Multiple Domains (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 can create host-named site collections with the host header. Host-named site collections in SharePoint provide URL management and scalability of sites within a single web application. This feature is not available to SharePoint Online customers.

-->WCM: OOTB Recommendations Webparts (SP 2013, Office 365)

Only available for Private Site Collections. By using recommendations, you can guide users to other content that may be relevant for them. For example, you can add a Recommended Items Web Part to a catalog item page. If a user views an item, the Recommended Items Web Part will show other items that users have previously viewed, such as “Users who viewed this item also viewed these items.

-->WCM: Search Engine Optimizations (SEO) (SP 2013, Office 365)

Optimizing a public website for search is very important to connecting with new and returning customers. SharePoint Online includes built-in SEO features, such as customizable robots.txt and page-level meta tagging so organizations can easily tune sites for better search results.

-->Word Automation Services (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. Word Automation Services enables unattended, server-side conversion of documents that are supported by Microsoft Word. With Word Automation Services, tasks that previously required you to run the Word desktop application can be automated in SharePoint Server 2013.

BI Features

-->Business Intelligence Center (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

The Business Intelligence Center site enables you to store data connections, workbooks, reports, scorecards, and dashboards in a central, secure location.

-->Calculated Measures and Members (SP 2013, Office 365)

When you create PivotChart reports of PivotTable reports that use data that is stored in SQL Server Analysis Services, you can create calculated measure and calculated members for that report.

-->Decoupled PivotTables and PivotCharts (SP 2013, Office 365)

When you create a PivotChart report, a corresponding PivotTable report is automatically created. New in Excel 2013, you do not have to display a PivotTable report on the same worksheet as its corresponding PivotChart report. You can choose to display only the PivotChart report. This capability is called “decoupled PivotTables and PivotCharts”.

-->Field List and Field Support (SP 2013, Office 365)

Excel Services enables you to open the Field List and Field Well for PivotChart reports and PivotTable reports that are viewed in a browser windows. This capability makes it easy to temporarily change the information that is displayed in a PivotChart report or a PivotTable report without having to open Excel.

-->Filter Enhancements (SP 2013, Office 365)

Slicers are easier to create and connect to reports and scorecards. You can adjust the size and orientation of a slicer. You can also format slicers by applying built-in styles or defining your own style.

-->Filter Search (SP 2013, Office 365)

You can search on filter results, which makes it easy to jump to a particular item in a long list.

-->PerformancePoint Services (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. PerformancePoint Services enables SharePoint Server 2013 customers to create interactive dashboards that display key performance indicators (KPIs) and data virtualizations in the form of scorecards, reports, and filters. 

-->PerformancePoint Services (PPS) Dashboard Migration (SP 2013)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. With Dashboard Migration, SharePoint Server 2013 customers will be able to copy complete dashboards and dependencies. This includes the .aspx file, to other users, servers, or site collections. This feature also allows the ability to migrate single items to other environments and migrate content by using Windows PowerShell commands

-->Power View (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Power View is an add-in for Excel that enables organizations to visualize and interact with modelled data by using highly interactive visualizations, animations, and smart querying. Organizations can present insights with other through storyboard presentation capabilities. Power View is powered by BI Semantic Model and the VertiPaq engine.

-->PowerPivot (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)
          PowerPivot is an add-in that organizations can use to perform powerful data analysis and         create sophisticated data models. PowerPivot also enables organizations to mash up large volumes of  data from various sources, analyze data quickly, and share insights.

-->Quick Explore (SP 2013, Office 365)

Quick Explore enables organizations to select a value in a PivotChart report or a PivotTable report and see additional information about that value. For example, if you are viewing a sales report and you select a value that represents total sales amounts, you can use Quick Explore to view additional information such as sales amounts across different product categories or geographical areas.

-->Scorecards & Dashboards (SP 2013, SP 2010)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. A scorecard shows at a glance whether performance is on or off target for one or more key performance indicators (KPIs). A dashboard is a collection of views that can include scorecards and other reports. Scorecards and dashboard are designed to show current performance information and are typically rendered in a site such as a SharePoint Server 2013 site.

-->SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) Integrated Mode (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

When SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services is integrated with SharePoint, you can use powerful SharePoint collaboration and centralized document management features for SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services content. Reports are stored in SharePoint document libraries, alongside other reports such as Excel Services files. SharePoint permissions can be used to control access to Reporting Services content, and people are able to start Report Designer, Model Designer, and Report Builder within a document library.

-->Timeline Slicer (SP 2013, Office 365)

A timeline slicer is a control that can be added to a dashboard created by using Excel. A timeline control enables people to view information for a particular period of time.

-->Visio Services (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Visio Services is a service application that lets users share and view Microsoft Visio Drawing (*.vsdx) and Visio 2010 Web drawing (*.vdw) files.

SEARCH Features

-->Advanced Content Processing (SP 2013)

To improve SharePoint Server 2013 search relevance, the document parsing functionality in the content processing component analyzes both the structure and content of documents. Documents parsers extract useful metadata and remove redundant information. For example, parsers extract heading and subheadings from Word documents, and titles, dates, and authors from slides in PowerPoint presentations. For HTML content, redundant generic information such as menus, headers, and footers are removed from document summaries in the search results.

-->Continuous Crawl (SP 2013, Office 365)

Continuous crawls help keep search results fresh by frequently crawling content in SharePoint sites. Continuous crawls are enabled in SharePoint Online, with crawl frequencies managed by Microsoft. In SharePoint Server 2013, administrators can enable continuous crawls and manage continuous crawl frequencies.

-->Custom entity extraction (SP 2013)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 administrators can create and deploy custom entity extraction dictionaries to configure the search system to look for specific words or phrases (entities) in unstructured content. The extracted entities are stored in separate managed properties, and you can use them to improve your organization’s search experience, for example by creating refiners.

-->Deep links (SP 2013, Office 365)

The search system automatically creates links directly to sub-sections of a main page that is frequently visited. These links are called “deep links”.

-->Event-based relevancy (SP 2013, Office 365)

The search system determines the relevance of search results in part by how content is connected, how often an item appears in search results, and which search results people click. The analytics component tracks and analyzes this information and uses it to continuously improve relevance.

-->Expertise Search (ALL Versions)

In SharePoint, it is easier to find people with specific skills or expertise in the People Search vertical. The search results are based on information such as the metadata users have entered about themselves on their personal sites, and information from the content that they have created.

  

-->Extensible content processing (SP 2013)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. Developers can call out to an external content enrichment web service to change the managed properties of crawled items before they are indexed. The ability to change managed properties for items during content processing is helpful for tasks such as data cleansing, entity extraction, classification, and tagging.

-->Graphical refiners (SP 2013, Office 365)

                The new graphical refiners provide a more visual way of filtering search results.

-->Hybrid search (SP 2013, Office 365)

In a hybrid deployment of SharePoint, search result content can come from both SharePoint Online and SharePoint Server 2013 on-premises sites.

-->Phonetic name matching (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Improved phonetic name matching finds search results for similar sounding names (is it John or Jon?).

-->Query Rules—Add Promoted Results (SP 2013, Office 365)

In a query rule, specify conditions and correlated actions. When a query meets the conditions in a query rule, the search system performs the actions specified in the rule. The “Add promoted results” action lets you promote individual results so that they appear at the top of search results.

-->Query rules—advanced actions (SP 2013, Office 365)

In this query rule, specify conditions and correlated actions. When a query meets the conditions in a query rule, the search system performs the actions specified in the rule.

-->Query spelling correction (SP 2013, Office 365)

Edit exclusions and inclusions lists to decide which queries the search results page should display alternative query spellings for. This features is often called “Did you mean?”

-->Query suggestions (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Query suggestions are suggested phrases that users have already searched for. The suggestions appear in a list below the Search Box as a user types a query. Query suggestions are generated automatically, and phrases can be added to the system as “always” or “never” suggest.

-->Query throttling (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

If query resources become limited, you can decide how queries should be prioritized based on the client type the queries are coming from.

-->Quick preview (SP 2013, Office 365)

Users can rest the pointer over a search result to preview and interact with the document or site content in the hover panel to the right of the result. The preview shows rich metadata and has deep links to the main sections of the document or site.

-->Recommendations (SP 2013, Office 365)

The search system looks for patterns in how users interact with content items, sites and people, and can use the information to display recommendations on a site, for example, “People who viewed this also viewed”.

-->Refiners (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Refiners categorize the top documents in SharePoint Server search results into groups that let users filter the search results.

-->RESTful Query API/Query OM (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Developers can create .NET code to access the public search object model. This includes search administration operations in addition to submitting search queries. To interact with the service side object model, the .NET code must run on a web server in the farm. A sub-set of the object mode can be accessed from a remote computer by using the Client Side Object Model (CSOM). Features of the Client Side Object model (CSOM) can be accessed by using a REST-based web service or oData. This allows developers to submit queries to the SharePoint Server 2013 farm using popular web development tools.

-->Result sources (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Create and use a result source to specify a location from which to obtain search results and to specify the protocol for getting those results. Result sources replace scopes and federated locations.

-->Search connector framework (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. SharePoint Server 2013 provides default connectors (protocol handlers) for the most popular protocols, which can be used to crawl and index content. To crawl content that requires a non-default connector, your organization can purchase and install third-party connectors or build your own custom connectors.

-->Search results sorting (SP 2013, Office 365)

Users can choose to sort search results by different criteria, for example relevance, freshness, and social distance (people names).

-->Search vertical: “Conversations” (SP 2013, Office 365)

A targeted search experience that displays results that are custom filtered and formatted for conversations content.

-->Search vertical: “People” (ALL Versions)

-->Search vertical: “Video” (SP 2013, Office 365)

A targeted search experience that displays results that are custom filtered and formatted for video content.

-->Tunable Relevancy (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Not available to SharePoint Online customers. The search system has strong built-in relevant that will automatically improve over time. In addition, many tools can be used to manually tune the relevancy to match content and to create specific search experiences for an organization.

SITES Features

-->Cross Browser Support (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

SharePoint Online supports several commonly used web browsers, including the latest three versions of Internet Explorer, and the latest versions of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari.

-->Custom Managed Paths (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

By defining managed paths, you can specify which paths in the URL namespace of a Web application are used for site collections. You can specify that one or more site collections exists at a specified path. This can be a convenient method of consolidating multiple site access to users in various departments.

-->Large List Scalability and Management (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

By planning and using key list and library features, you can ensure that you and other users quickly find information without adversely affecting the performance of the rest of your site.

-->Multi-Lingual User Interface (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Use the Multi-lingual User Interface (MUI) feature to create sites in languages that are different from the default language of your SharePoint installation.

-->My Tasks (Aggregate) (SP 2013, Office 365)

The My Tasks page on your personal site enables you to see all of the tasks that you are working on in one central location. Tasks are pulled from your personal site, project and team sites, Microsoft Outlook, and Project Web App.

-->Project site template (SP 2013, Office 365)

Use the project site template to create a site where you can capture tasks and assign them to people in your organization, store and manage project-related documentation, and track project team events on a common calendar.

-->Project Summary web part (SP 2013, Office 365)

The Project Summary web part provides a visual timeline for a task list, and information about late and upcoming tasks and events. By default, it is included on the Home page for a project site, and it can be added to any other site that includes a task list.

-->Project workspace (SP 2013, Office 365)

Existing project workspace sites are upgraded in this version to look similar to newly-created project and team sites that include the project functionality. Upgraded project workspace sites can be used to capture tasks and assign them to people in your organization, store and mange project-related documentation, and track project team events on a common calendar.

-->Public Website (SPO) (Office 365)

Your Office 365 account includes a public website that you can use to create a professional online presence for your organization.

-->Team Site: Drag & Drop (SP 2013, Office 365)

You can upload documents, pictures, and other types of files to your site by dragging them from your computer to a library on your site, such as Documents or your SkyDrive Pro library.

-->Team Site: Notebook (SP 2013, Office 365)

When you create a team site, a OneNote 2013 shared notebook is automatically created as part of the site. You can use this notebook to capture, compile, and share information. (This feature is available only if you have signed up with an Office 365 suite that includes Microsoft Office Web Apps support.)

-->Team Site: Simplified Access (SP 2013, Office 365)

When you share a site, you invite other people to have access to the site. You can share any site in which you have the required permissions. As you set up sharing, you may be able to set permissions for the people you’re inviting to the site, depending on your own permissions.

-->Work Management Service (SP 2013, Office 365)

The Work Aggregation Service finds and pulls together tasks from all of your projects, across SharePoint, Outlook, and Project Web App.

-->Usage Analytics (SP 2013, SP 2010, SP 2007)

Web Analytics reports are pre-built reports in SharePoint that use usage data to analyze various aspects of sites and site collections.

SOCIAL Features

-->Ask Me About

-->Blogs

-->Communities Reputation, Badging, and Moderation (SP 2013, Office 365)

When you participate in community discussions, you build your reputation as an expert and earn points and badges that reward your contributions. If you’re really into it, you can become a moderator and work behind the scenes to makes sure the community thrives.

-->Community (SP 2013, Office 365)

An online community is a virtual place where ideas are discussed and shared. It promotes open communication by fostering discussions among users who both share their expertise and learn from others.

-->Company Feed (SP 2013, Office 365)

The company feed is an organization’s public newsfeed. All posts appear to the company, including those created by people that users might not be following.

-->Follow (SP 2013, Office 365)

Users can follow people, documents, sites, and tags to see newsfeed postings associated with people, documents, sites, and tags that interest them.

-->Microblogging (SP 2013, Office 365)

Microblogging lets users post items of interest in a newsfeed and participate in conversations.

-->Newsfeed (SP 2013, Office 365)

A newsfeed is a place to post information and reply to other posts, and to get updates about people and content you’re following. You can post to the public newsfeed or to newsfeeds on team sites on which you’re a member.

-->One Click Sharing (SP 2013, Office 365)

You can easily share documents and sites with others in your organization, from your SkyDrive Pro and Sites pages, helping promote team collaboration.

-->People, Sites, Document Recommendations (SP 2013, Office 365)

Your SkyDrive Pro and Sites pages give you suggestions for documents and sites to follow, based on your profile information and newsfeed activity.

-->Personal Site (ALL Versions)

Each SharePoint Online users has a personal site where data is personalized for them. Personal site includes a Newsfeed, SkyDrive document library, and Sites pages.

-->Ratings (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Users can add ratings to their SkyDrive Pro libraries that allow sites visitors to ‘Like’ a library document or to use a ‘star’ tool to rate it.

-->SiteFeed (SP 2013, Office 365)

A site feed, similar to a newsfeed, is a place on a team site to post information, and reply to other posts.

-->SkydrivePro (SP 2013, Office 365)

SkyDrive Pro is a service available with SharePoint Online that lets users sync documents to the cloud, and also to their computers.

-->Tag profiles (SP 2013, SP 2010, Office 365)

Tag profiles display information about tags that appear in a newsfeed. Information includes conversations that reference the tag and a list of related tags.

-->Tasks integrated with Outlook (ALL Versions)

-->Trending Tags (SP 2013, Office 365)

                Currently popular #tags references appear in public newsfeed posts.