1. SharePoint 2016 vs. Sitecore 8.2
A Technical Comparison
By Kathryn Birstein, Senior Software Engineer, BlueMetal

2. Winner – Microsoft Worldwide IoT Partner of the Year Award, 2016
Proud Global 2016 Microsoft IoT Partner of the Year
Brief Introduction to BlueMetal HLS
Winner – Microsoft Worldwide IoT Partner of the Year Award, 2016
Finalist - Microsoft Intelligent Systems Partner of the Year Award, 2015
Finalist - Microsoft Collaboration and Content Partner of the Year Award, 2015
Microsoft Azure Cloud Partner of the Year for HLS

3. OVERVIEW

4. Sitecore Facts Founded in 2001 in Copenhagen, Denmark
Currently on version 8.2.1
Added MVC support in version 6.6, many installations still use Web Forms
Private company, majority stake purchased by Swedish private equity investor EQT in April 2016
Sitecore valued at $1 billion in 2016
Sitecore in AZURE Marketplace/PAAS and is a Rackspace Managed Service
Possible Microsoft takeover target?

5. Customer Experience Platform A step beyond CMS

6. Sitecore and Microsoft
Uses SQL Server for backend and ASP.NET
Current version is 8.2.1, added support for MVC in version 6.6 (many installations still use web forms)
Sitecore MVC is just a layer of APIs on top of ASP.NET MVC user interface
Recently added to AZURE Marketplace and PAAS
Integrates with Dynamics CRM, Dynamics AX and AZURE Search
SharePoint connector allows data to flow back and forth to Sitecore

8. High-level SharePoint/Sitecore Comparison
Area
SharePoint
Sitecore
Key Functionalitites
Content Management
Superior WCM
Collaboration
Superior User Analytics
Office integration
Complete UI control
Enterprise Search
/Commerce Servers
Network
Intranet
Internet
Content Editors
Lightly trained corporate users
Highly trained marketers
Customization
Multiple Client APIs
ASP.NET MVC

9. INFRASTRUCTURE

10. SharePoint 2016 Architecture

11. Sitecore Databases RELATIONAL: SQL Server
Master – Work in progress database, content editors work here
Web – Live data, users are connected to this database
Core – Site client configuration and ASP.NET membership schema
Sessions – Keeps track of all user sessions
Analytics – Analyzes data in Mongo DB and produces reports
NO SQL: MongoDB
MongoDB records all user clicks and activities for analysis

12. Basic Distributed Architecture
Content Delivery Servers analogous to Web Front Ends – published content
Content Management Servers – this is where content is edited
SQL Server backend serves the same role as in SharePoint
MongoDB database collects experience data – role does not exist in SharePoint but could think of it as roughly analogous to Enterprise Search

13. Global Publishing Architecture
Core database replicates to remote instances
Published content (Web database) replicates through proxies to remote Web database instances
Remote locations require Core database
Diagram does not show the analytic engine

14. PRODUCTION Scenario DEVELOPMENT UAT MANAGEMENT DELIVERY DEPLOYMENT
Internet
Author Workstation
Site Visitors
PRODUCTION
Scenario
3x xPlatform Production
3x Azure Enablement Installations (Prod)
2x xPlatform Non-Production
1x Azure Deployment Installation
Web
xDB
Database
Supports up to 1-5 million interactions/month
10-20 million page views/month
Supports high availability
DEVELOPMENT
UAT
Site Visitor Test Workstation
Content Manager Test
Workstation
MANAGEMENT
DELIVERY
DEPLOYMENT
Developer
Workstation
Azure Load Balancer
Azure Load Balancer
Content Manager Server e e e
Azure Enablement
MANAGEMENT
DELIVERY
2 Content Delivery
Server
Azure Load Balancer
Sitecore Azure
Deployment
installation
Content Manager Server
Content Delivery
Server
SQL Azure
SQL Server
xDB Cloud
SQL Azure
xDB Cloud

15. Sitecore on AZURE PAAS – See the blog article “The Brave New World of AZURE PAAS”

16. Sitecore Layouts Layouts tell Sitecore where to render the content
Placeholders similar to SharePoint web zones
Placeholders can be configured to allow only components that an admin chooses
Components (aka controls) are similar to SharePoint web parts
Placeholders with no components collapse just like empty web zones
Components tell Sitecore how to render the content
Components have a controller and a view that renders the content on the page

17. Content Editor
OOTB
Keep this in mind when we look at the content editor.
The content editor is sort of the development platform and site contents in one.

18. Architecture Similarities: Roughly
SharePoint
Sitecore
SQL Server backend
ASP.NET application
Web Front End
Content Delivery server
Application/Development Server
Content Management server
Central Admin
Launchpad
Powershell custom module
ASP.NET, AD, AD FS, ACS
ASP.NET, AD, Social connector, custom provider
Role-based content security trimming
All site contents
Content Editor
In-browser page editing
Experience Editor
Page Layouts
Layouts
Web parts
Components
Web zones
Placeholders
Templates
Content Types
OOTB Field Types
OOTB Field types – many more than SP
Keep these things in mind when we go into the demo

19. Let’s take a look at Sitecore!
DEMO
Let’s take a look at Sitecore!

20. (similar to SharePoint)
SITECORE SERVICES
(similar to SharePoint)

21. Authentication Options
Sitecore User Management/ User Profiles — Use Sitecore to manage your users. Each user setup in the user manager can be given a password. You’ll want to set up different “domains” for your customers and your employees to help ensure you don’t get your wires crossed.
CRM users — Sitecore’s crm integration modules support two-way contact synchronization. These CRM contacts can also be given a password that Sitecore manages, thus allowing their authentication.
Identity Federation, such as Sitecore Social Connected — Federating with Facebook or Twitter, for example, is supported through Sitecore’s Social Connected module. Additionally, since Sitecore is just another ASP.NET site at its core, you can easily set up Sitecore to authenticate with SAML providers (like ADFS or Siteminder) for single-sign or for identity federation with partners.
Active Directory (AD) , Active Directory 1.3 for AD integration — If you use Active Directory to authenticate your employees, you’ll likely want to configure Sitecore to accept AD credentials so you don’t have to maintain two users for your employees.
Custom providers — You can always write a custom ASP.NET membership provider should the previous options not meet your requirements.

22. Sitecore Security

23. Assign Rights in the Content Treeview

24. View Rights in the Asset Manager
How great is this? Wouldn’t it be great to have this in SharePoint?

25. Publishing Content
Versioning in Sitecore is similar to SharePoint publishing versions but has other dimensions
Versions can be used for A/B testing, localization or time-based events like sales and promotions
Note how you can add a second publishing data range for a different version

26. Publishing Workflow in Sitecore
Not a BPM, workflow just for publishing content
Based on three building blocks:
States – Like Draft, Awaiting Approval, Published
Commands – i.e. Approve, Reject
Actions – Like “Send an ”, only a few OOTB

27. Workflow Creation Create workflows in System node in Content Editor
Assign security to workflows
Assign workflows to templates
User prompted to add comments at each leg

28. Workflow Comments
Can be seen in the “History” dropdown on the “Review” tab

29. User Workbox
Workflow tasks can be seen and executed in the user’s “Workbox”

30. Localization - Available Languages
You just add the language in the System/ Languages node, then you can create a version of a content item for that language

31. Translation Dual View
Workflow tasks can be seen and executed in the user’s “Workbox”

32. Publishing is Aware of Language Versions

33. Clay Tablet Sitecore Translation Connector

34. Search Options Search in Sitecore is used for searching in:
content databases
operational databases
Search engine can be different for each database
Comes with filed-based Lucene index OOTB
For scaled-out architecture you need more robust engine – see “Using Solr or Lucene”
SOLR vs. Coveo -
Azure Sitecore PAAS uses Azure Search

35. Utilities and Frameworks
Sitecore PowerShell Extension (SPE)
Locked items
Site Rocks for Visual Studio
Sitecore Instance Manager (SIM 1.4)
SPEAK - “SPEAK is a framework for developing Sitecore applications with a consistent interface quickly and easily. SPEAK gives you a predefined set of page layouts an components, and a predefined set of user experience guidelines.”

36. UNIQUE SITECORE SERVICES

37. Email Create and manage email campaigns.
Use A/B testing to find the best content and design.
Send campaigns with multi-language support.
Create and manage recipient lists.
View detailed analytics reports for your sent campaigns.
Manage your suppression list and your list of domains.

38. Commerce Connect
Consists of two components: Connect Core Framework contains the abstract service layers and performs engagement activities, while Connect Connectors hook into pipelines and integrate with external commerce systems
Enables you to develop connectors for specific commerce or ERP platforms
Defines actions for engagement on the commerce platform, such as product viewed, items added to cart, or order placed
Lets you define “placeholders” for commerce action handlers that determine where the commerce vendor logic goes, such as pricing, promotions, availability, shipping options, related products, etc.

39. Content Personalization
Two types: rules-based and behavioral
Rules-based are simply if/then rules, you can assign multiple rules to a single component and the rules that matches first wins
In behavioral personalization engagement value points are accrued as the user completes goals or events
Personas are a way to characterize a set of behaviors that different types of customers may share
Personas help you prioritize features and the design of your site based on which personas get the highest priority
Persona-based predictive personalization works by tagging content with profile cards

40. The Rules Editor makes it easy to create conditions for when items should appear or not

41. Experience Profile Detail Report

42. Analytics Dashboard

43. Multivariate Scenario Testing

44. Federated Experience Manager

45. Potential Game Changer! SITECORE EXPERIENCE ACCELERATOR (SxA)
Now in Version 1.1

55. SITECORE DEVELOPMENT

56. Why it’s Great to Start with Sitecore 8!

57. Standard Razor MVC Syntax

58. Recommended Sitecore Books

59. Sitecore Links Documentation- https://doc.sitecore.net
Developer portal -
Marketplace -
Instance Manager
Powershell - x?sc_lang=en
Custom Fields - list-of-custom-fields-for-sitecore/
Sitecore Rocks Visual Studio Utility - rocks/build/artifacts

60. Simple MVC model

61. Recommended Sitecore Modular Model
Example of Sitecore modular architecture:

62. Thanks for attending!