According to Microsoft, over 200,000 organisations, and 190 million people use SharePoint as the home for their organisational and collaborative content!
In 2021, 86% of SharePoint users were utilising SharePoint Online rather than SharePoint on-premises. With SharePoint Online increasing in popularity by 19% since 2018, it is clear that SharePoint Online is the way to go for many organisations.
SharePoint 2019 is the current on-premises version of SharePoint. It brought about a big change to SharePoint on-premises, allowing the development of more modern applications and providing a way of moving between on-premises operations and the cloud-hosted SharePoint Online. The problem, however, is that there is a huge difference between the cloud platform and your organisation’s data centre! As Microsoft updates its cloud services regularly, your on-premises systems begin to lag!
Even without looking at the stats regarding SharePoint Online, it is clear there is still a requirement by many organisations for on-premises SharePoint. Due to legal implications and data restrictions, many regulated businesses can’t store information in the public cloud, while others see risks that they’d prefer to control themselves. Microsoft may very well prefer a cloud-only SharePoint, but with a market screaming out for more on-premise solutions and with SharePoint 2019 starting to show its age, what does this mean for SharePoint, and how can it keep up with the cloud?
Welcome… Microsoft SharePoint Server vNext, better now known as SharePoint Server Subscription Edition (SPSE)!
SharePoint Server has been available in various editions since its release in 2001. These various editions of SharePoint Server have been tailored to suit different companies’ needs and budgets. However, there has always been one exception: until now!
What is the SharePoint Server Subscription Edition?
The Subscription Edition of SharePoint Server is a new type of licensing model for SharePoint Server. With the Subscription Edition, customers pay a monthly or annual fee for the software, much like the SharePoint Online licensing model. This is great for companies that want to use the latest version of SharePoint but can’t afford to pay the large up-front cost of a perpetual license. As with other Microsoft subscriptions, the Subscription Edition of SharePoint Server is paid for by the user or department. You can choose the billing period (monthly or annually) and then select one of the subscription plans. This allows you to pay only for the features that are useful to your organization.
What is new with SharePoint Server Subscription Edition?
Latest updates and features… Always!
Organisations require collaboration, communication, and productivity solutions to be both cost-effective and flexible. The Subscription Edition of SharePoint Server is ideal for companies that value the latest and greatest. Like SharePoint Online, SharePoint Subscription Edition will always up-to-date, and therefore ideal for those who want to stay on top of technology and benefit from new features as soon as they come out. That means no more ‘future version’ to wait for. SharePoint Server Subscription Edition will always be the latest version, and more importantly, always in support!
Easier to upgrade
Are you using SharePoint Server 2016? Are you using SharePoint Server 2019? It doesn’t matter! No more sequential upgrades. SharePoint Server Subscription Edition supports both N-1 and N-2 version-to-version upgrades! Just ensure your existing databases are running an appropriate version, back them up on your existing SharePoint farm, copy them to the new server and then restore them. Simple!
Modern infrastructure support
SharePoint Server Subscription Edition provides scalability, reliability, and security while allowing you to take advantage of the latest hardware innovations and computing technologies—making it capable of handling enormous amounts of data faster, more efficiently, and at a lower cost. Additionally, organisations still have the option of deploying it in a hybrid configuration, where regulated material is held on-premises and the rest of the service runs in SharePoint Online. This approach lets you use it with Power Apps and Power Automate, giving you the tools to build low code applications around your SharePoint workflow.
Secure communication
With the support for Windows Server 2022, you not only benefit from the latest in security but also native support for features, such as TLS 1.3.
TLS 1.3 is the latest version of the internet’s most deployed security protocol, which encrypts data to provide a secure communication channel between two endpoints. TLS 1.3 eliminates obsolete cryptographic algorithms, enhances security over older versions, and aims to encrypt as much of the handshake as possible.
OpenID Connect
SharePoint Server Subscription Edition adds support for the OpenID Connect (OIDC) 1.0 authentication protocol. OIDC is a modern authentication protocol that makes it easy to integrate applications and devices with your organisation’s identity and authentication management solutions to better meet your evolving security and compliance needs. For example, you can enforce authentication policies such as multifactor authentication (MFA), conditional access policies based on device compliance, and more.
Enhanced People Picker for modern authentication
The People Picker has been enhanced to allow resolving users and groups from modern authentication (trusted identity providers), such as SAML 1.1 and OIDC 1.0. This allows the People Picker to only resolve valid users and groups without requiring a custom claims provider.
Conclusion
SharePoint Server on-premises is here to stay, and the benefits are growing! Hybridisation is also becoming more exciting! As Bill Baer explained ‘This is the best way to think about on-premises SharePoint. Microsoft’s objective has shifted from bringing cloud innovation to on-premises to delivering discrete features to address on-premises needs.’
This is just the beginning of what you can expect for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition.
To learn more about all of the improvements in SharePoint Server Subscription Edition see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2168262.
References
https://www.statista.com/statistics/986351/worldwide-microsoft-sharepoint-deployment-type/
