Saturday 15 April 2017

Whats new in SharePoint 2016 vs SharePoint older versions

Hi All,

Today I will defined whats new or depreciated in SharePoint 2016 in comparison to older versions. Basically there is no big change in SharePoint 2016 in comparison with SharePoint 2016. Most of Powershell commands, most of the features are same. Just there are some improvements in SharePoint 2016. Below is the list of the changes.
Whats New in SharePoint 2016 -

  1. Durable links - Now when ever you will change the name of documents, Move them inside SharePoint than resource based urls will retain the links. that means old URL will continue to work.
  2. Support for special characters in file names - SharePoint has historically blocked file names that included the &, ~, {, and } characters, file names that contained a GUID, file names with leading dots, and file names longer than 128 characters. These restrictions are removed in SharePoint Server 2016 and are now available to use.
  3. Central Administration is no longer provisioned on all servers by default  - SharePoint Server 2016 Central Administration is now provisioned on the first server in a farm by default when using the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard. Central Administration is not provisioned on additional servers in a farm by default.
  4. Large file support - Previous versions of SharePoint did not support uploading or downloading files larger than 2,047 MB. SharePoint Server 2016 now allows you to upload or download larger files of up to 10 GB. You can configure the desired maximum file-size limit on a per-web application basis in your SharePoint farm.
  5. MinRole farm topology - Now user does not need to worry about the services running on a server. It will be taken care by SharePoint it self. Only required services will be started at a time on the server as per the selected role. The role of a server is specified when you create a new farm or join a server to an existing farm. SharePoint automatically configures the services on each server based on the server role, optimizing the performance of the farm based on that topology. There are total 8 roles defined for SharePoint servers - 
    1. Front-end - Service Application, Services and components that serve user requests will run on this server.
    2. Application - All Service Application, Services and components that serve back-end requests such as jobs will run on this server.
    3. Distributed Cache - All Service Application, Services and components that serve distributed cache will run on this server.
    4. Search - All Service Application, Services and components that serve Search Services will run on this server.
    5. Custom - In this role Farm admin will has full control over which service instances can run on servers. Min Role will not control any service in this installation.
    6. Single-Server Farm - All Service Application, Services and components that required for Single server farm will be executed on this server. A Single-Server Farm is meant for development, testing, and very limited production use. A SharePoint farm with the Single-Server Farm role cannot have more than one SharePoint server in the farm.
    7. Front-end with Distributed Cache - Shared role that combines the Front-end and Distributed Cache roles on the same server.
    8. Application with Search - Shared role that combines the Application and Search roles on the same server.

Resources - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt346121(v=office.16).aspx#file

Whats Depreciated/removed in SharePoint 2016 -

  1. SharePoint Foundation - Now SharePoint Foundation version has been depreciated from SharePoint 2016. That means is that there is no free version of SharePoint.
  2. Standalone Mode - Now Standalone installation mode has been depreciated in SharePoint 2016. Now user have to install SQL server manually and then configure SharePoint in Single server mode using "MinRole Feature" of SharePoint 2016 to install SharePoint as a single server installation. also no SQL version even sql express will be installed with SharePoint. Users will need to install SQL manually.
  3. ForeFront Identity Manager (FIM) - Now FIM client will not be used for synchronization between Active Directory and SharePoint 2016. Now Active Directory import process will be used and a tool such as Microsoft Identity Manager or any third party tool will be used to import Active Directory to SharePoint.
  4. SharePoint BI capabilities - If you want to use Microsoft SQL Server Power Pivot for SharePoint or Microsoft Power View for SharePoint for BI solutions with SharePoint Server 2016 you must install the Power Pivot or Power View add-ins for SQL Server 2016 RTM. The SQL Server 2014 (SP1) Power Pivot for SharePoint and Power View for SharePoint add-ins cannot be deployed or used withSharePoint Server 2016.
  5. Excel Services - Unlike in previous versions, Excel Services will not be a part of SharePoint Server in new version. Now Microsoft have introduced Office Online Servers (new version of Office Web Apps Server) and Excel Services will be a part of this new Office Online Servers. 
  6. Tags and Notes - This feature is deprecated in SharePoint 2016. This means is that users can use this feature in this version but Microsoft does not recommend using this feature because it will be removed in next release.
  7. Work Management Service - Work Management service application has been depreciated in SharePoint 2016. That means now we will not be able to view and track or to do task. It was a part of each users my site/Newsfeed Experience.
  8. Stsadm.exe - It is also deprecated in SharePoint 2016. That means as per Microsoft we should only use Windows Power Shell commands to perform any task in SharePoint instead of using Stsadm command.