One of the biggest issues, and ongoing concerns, I have with some of the farms I deploy is the lack of governance employed with security, change control, or even content development after the customer takes ownership of the environment. Understanding best practice in this regards is one thing, but actually going about it as the phrase implies, practicing what’s best, appears a greater challenge all together.
Of course there’s no absolution to this idea as most points fall along some range in the spectrum of reality, but I am curious about the community’s take on the topic, your perspective based on your exposure to this application and the businesses you work for.
How productive or how much of a detriment have you found governance to be when it is or is not properly established?
If you are in a venue where you deploy farms that are sometimes handed off to another IT dept. for a customer, what measures do to you take to promote the value of sound governance and the benefits sustained across all aspects of the farm and its long term health?
Thanks!
Disclaimer, I am an IT-Pro ;).
Governance is a very abstract word, however if you don’t have some kind of governance, your farm might get out of control easily. What I always recommend to our clients is :
Dev Machine Farm
Integration Farm
——————————————
QA Farm
Production farm.
What is the line? The line is where only the SharePoint Admin has the access, and no developers can deploy solutions on. It means, after the developer successfully tests on Integration, they submit their solution and documentation to the admin who will deploy on QA.. and if everything is ok. on production using the same solution. The biggest problems in SharePoint production farms is when developers get access to it :).
As for the power users, what I recently learned while making the guide, I have a new governance required. You want to have full control on a site collection? Prove me you can pass the MOS SharePoint 2013 Certification!
