SharePoint Deployment Management

DocAve Deployment Manager Business Case

Best practices state that any change, customization, solution deployment, or design change that may affect user experience should be tested before entering production environments. However, the deployment process of transitioning customizations such as SharePoint Designer workflows, custom Master Pages, or other gallery artifacts and services from one SharePoint development environment throughout testing, staging, and production environments is often a complex, labor-intensive, and error prone process. Countless policies and manual tasks are typically required to ensure successful execution and propagation of these applications into a production SharePoint environment. When these policies are not followed, and customizations are performed directly on production environments, user experience could be negatively impacted.

Effective management and automation of release operations is vital to a successful SharePoint deployment. Without proper planning or control, errors or changes during the staging process could result in increased time-to-value, project delays, and poor application reliability, ultimately resulting in a greater total cost of ownership (TCO) for SharePoint.

To learn more about how DocAve can support the propagation of design elements and gallery artifacts throughout the staging process, please read our white paper, From Development to Production: Streamlining SharePoint Deployment with DocAve Deployment Manager.

Business Advantages for Microsoft SharePoint Deployment Management

• Reduce Operational Costs with Automated Change Management

  Improve IT efficiency by automating and simplifying repetitive, time-consuming SharePoint deployment customization processes, including solutions, design elements, and WFE customizations. Easily compare environments to identify elements for propagation, and implement changes via highly intuitive wizards and familiar ribbon-based controls, allowing skilled resources to focus on more strategic, higher-value activities.

• Increase Production Environment Stability

  Ensure that every SharePoint farm within the development and staging phases is an exact clone of the other so complex system changes can be systematically and accurately propagated from development through to staging and production, resulting in a consistent and reliable production system.

• Reduce Risk, Liability, and Human Error

  Automation results in faster deployment, and minimizes the number of possible errors. Mitigate the risks involved in deploying SharePoint solutions and customizations, and reduce any service disruption by eliminating the possibility of breakage caused by poorly executed upgrades or change propagation.

DocAve Deployment Manager Technical Overview

• Deploy and manage design elements; WFE configurations and customizations; features; and solutions within or across SharePoint farms for comprehensive application lifecycle management
• Plan-based deployment with customizable scheduling options allow for consistent deployment outside of production hours, minimizing business disruptions that can result from artifact and customization deployment
• Report on deployment tasks to track changes and notify stakeholders upon completion
• Compare site-level configurations in order to quickly identify elements for propagation and easily execute propagation tasks from one site to another, or to multiple sites
• Comprehensive support for deploying gallery artifacts, including site columns, content types, list/site templates, master pages, and web parts
• Replicate and deploy dependencies located on the WFE server file system, custom .NET assemblies required for SharePoint customizations, and IIS settings from one environment to multiple destinations
• Copy, deploy, retract, and delete SharePoint solutions across multiple farms from a single interface
• Copy or move Nintex Workflow 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010 workflow, and Windows Workflow definitions

DocAve Deployment Manager Resources

Product Brochures:

• DocAve 6 Deployment Manager Brochure

Not fully migrated to SharePoint 2013 or 2010 yet?

• DocAve Deployment Manager for SharePoint 2007 and 2010

Case Studies:

• SFR SharePoint Administrators Meet Compliance Objectives, Manage Company Deployment, and Quickly Recover Content with DocAve

  Find out how SFR SharePoint administrators utilized DocAve to manage, protect, and synchronize their company's SharePoint farms.

• Henderson Global Investors Bolsters Microsoft SharePoint Adoption with DocAve

  Learn how a leading global asset management firm optimized the protection, management, and compliance of its SharePoint deployment with DocAve.

• River East Transcona School Division Accesses File Share Content through SharePoint and Efficiently Manages 1,200 Sites with DocAve

  Find out how River East Transcona School Division accessed more than 600 GB of file share content from anywhere through SharePoint without migration.

Read more Customer Success Stories

Solution Briefs:

• Infrastructure Management
  This brief discusses the importance of maintaining a well-managed and protected SharePoint deployment in order to provide all global users with optimal SharePoint access, business continuity, and platform stability.
• Increasing SharePoint Adoption: Delivering Unfettered Scalability and Reliability
  Learn how the scalability and reliability of your SharePoint deployment work hand in hand with bolstered end-user confidence and, subsequently, SharePoint adoption.

Explore all of our available Solution Briefs

White Papers:

• From Development to Production: Streamlining SharePoint Deployment with DocAve Deployment Manager

  This paper – co-authored by AvePoint and Microsoft – reviews best practices for propagating SharePoint customizations, services, and solutions throughout a complex SharePoint environment, and introduces tools and strategies available to automate and streamline this process.

Peruse our collection of available White Papers

User Guides:

• Read the DocAve 6 Deployment Manager User Guide for SharePoint 2013 and 2010

Still on a prior release of SharePoint?

• Read the complete DocAve 5 User Guide for SharePoint 2007 and 2010 support