Bill Baer today shared and announced some significant changes coming up in SharePoint 2016.
To quote him:
“SharePoint 2016 is the most durable version shipped till date.” (tweet this)
These announcements are very welcoming, not only from a IT admin perspective but also for the end user (file size, list threshold etc.) This might be the best SharePoint version to date.
TOPICS
• Management
• Reliability, performance, scale
• Insights and data
• Cloud accelerated experiences
Management
Convergence
Code base – took a cloud snapshot of SPO. Brought a lot of SPO investments back to on-premises (the one which couldn’t be brought will be covered by cloud accelerators.) Cloud down codebase based on SPO. Backported capabilities for on-premises differentiators
Hardware Reqs
Single – 16-24 memory; x64 processor; 80 GB disk
Farm – 12-16 GB RAM
Pre Requisites
OS
Windows Server 2012 R2, WS 2010
Services
.NET Framework 4.5.2
Windows Server App Fabric
Provides in memory distributed caching
MS Information Protection and Control Client
WCF Data Services – enables creation and consumption of services
Database– 64 bit of SQL 2014
Deployment – unchanged from SP 2013
NOTE: Standalone installations will no longer be supported (Single Server Farm does not include SQL Server Express)
Upgrade – Attach SP 2013 DB to SP 2016. (For SP 2010 scenarios -Upgrade 14.5 mode (SP 2010 mode) site collections to 15 mode)
Migration – Migrate content to SP 2016
NOTE: The services that don’t exist in SPO will be backported to SP 2016 like PerformancePoint
Identity
SAML authentication becomes a first class citizen (default). Normalizes on OAuth and JWT/SAML with WSFED
(Apps will trust Azure AD) (Moving away from windows identity and moving towards cloud based)
SMTP Connection Encryption
Supports sending mail to SMTP servers using STARTTLS connection encryption
No fallback support for unencrypted connections
SMTP can use non-default ports (no more relying on port 25 for mails)
Performance and Reliability
MinRole (Roles and services)
Four discrete roles –
• User services – Any requests coming from the end user will be handled here like sync client; onenote; user profile; page rendering; excel services; sandbox. code; project; subscription settings. These are optimized for low latency
• Robot Services (Application Services) – not end user initiated like provisioning; timer jobs; search. Optimized for high throughput
• Specialized Load – reserved for services that needed to be isolated from other services like 3rd party
• Caching Services – supports for distributed cache (load balances request from end user)
New Role Screen -Specify Server Role (in config wizard) like special load role (third party solutions); web front load role; search; application; distributed cache
NOTE: For automated deployments – use -IsLocalServerRole <RoleName> from PSConfig commandlets to assign role to a server
NOTE: Chose specialty load role for assigning multiple roles to a server
Role Enforcement and Health
Health rule will scan each server in the farm daily (except special load)
Central Administration
New columns in the “servers in farm”- Role; In Compliance (yes or no) with fix button (in cases where one server is assigned multiple roles
PATCHING
Zero downtime patching – 2 MSI’s per service and 1 MSI’s per language pack. Smaller update footprint.
You can install patches middle of day online w/o stopping services.
Boundaries (HUGE HUGE)
Content DB – probably sizing into TB’s
Site Collection per Content DB – 100,000 site collections per content DB
List threshold – well beyond 5000
File Size -10 GB and removed character restrictions
Indexed items – 2x increase in search scale to 500 million items
Performance
Download – byte range HTTP Gets
Upload – BITS specific block-based upload protocol
*Moving away from file sync
Fast site creation – simply copies site collections with SPSite. Copy from already created templated site collections. Mitigation of feature activation.
User profile service
Removed built in FIM service and supports external FIM service.
Durable Links (BIG)
Renaming or moving files in earlier versions broke the link. With SP 2016 links will use Resource ID based URL’s. URL remains intact with rename and move. Enables discrete Url on visibility. Moving between site collections or sites will not change the URL
Insights and Data
Real time telemetry – real user monitoring for Services, Actions, Usage, Engagement, Diagnostics
Compliance
Classification ID – complex query based on complex predicate. 51 classification ID’s OOB provided for SSN, license #, etc.
You can now use Azure RMS and eDiscovery for on-premises SharePoint.
Search Service Application
New application will provide support for Office Graph/Delve. Unifies on-premises and cloud indexes.
Extranet
Site publishing – leverages Office 365 Identity federation services
Team Sites
Hybrid scenarios – Be inclusive of both online and on-premises. e.g. when you follow documents online you should be able to see the same on-premises too.
I am sure you are as excited as I am to get your hands on this new, improved and well-designed version.
HUGE Improvements Announced for SharePoint 2016 – Ignite 2015
by Vaibhav Mathur on May 6th, 2015 | ~ minute read
