Product Review: DeliverPoint by Barracuda

I wrote the blog The Challenging Task of Managing SharePoint Permissions about one of the weaknesses in SharePoint that has to do with managing secure access and permissions. I decided to look for some third-party answers and found several products that offer the type of solutions that enterprises running SharePoint really need. Although there are sevearl vendors that offer SharePoint administration and security tools, there are some that seem to stand out: AvePoint, Barracuda, and Quest to name a few. I will obtain a copy of these products to find out how they’ve addressed the gap created by the lack of better management of permissions in MOSS 2007.

My first article in this series of reviews is about a product from Barracuda called DeliverPoint.

DeliverPoint

When I went to the DeliverPoint Web site I noticed that the product is referred to as DeliverPoint: Permissions. When I installed the product it added a console that says DeliverPoint. On the Site Actions menu it is referred to as DeliverPoint 2007. I will refer to it as DeliverPoint in this article.

Before you consider installing the product, you should check out the hardware and software requirements. I would also advise you to read the DeliverPoint Reference Guidein the installation folder because it mentions several DOs andDON’Ts that are worth reading.

Notice that Windows Server 2008 is not listed as a supported operating system. However, I was able to install and operate it on my Windows Server 2008 just fine.

Product Highlights

With DeliverPoint, Barracuda addresses several of the permission management issues that SharePoint did not address out-of-the-box. According to Barracuda, here are some of the highlights of their product.

– Built for administrators of all levels: central administrators, site collection administrators, and end-user administrators
– Central Administrators maintain control
– Discover, copy, transfer, and delete account and object permissions quickly and easily
– Keep the farm clean when employees leave the company or transfer divisions
– Empower non-IT administrators to manage permissions within their respective site collections, sites and workspaces
– Seamless integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Server 3.0.

Installation

DeliverPoint is offered only as a 32-bit product. Officially it is supported on Windows Server 2003 and not on Windows Server 2008. However, I installed it on my Windows Server 2008 server running MOSS 2007. The installation is simple. At the end of the installation you are prompted to run the Configuration Wizard.

Make sure you check for any critical updates for .NET Framework after you have finished installing the product. To run the Configuration Wizard you must have administrative privileges to the local computer. When I installed the product, I was logged on as a domain account that was a member of the local administrative group. I went to Start, All Programs, DeliverPoint, DeliverPoint Configuration Wizard but it crashed with the following error on my Windows Server 2008.

Now here’s the confusing part. Once you’ve installed the product the Configuration Wizard cannot be possibly run again. What’s confusing is that in the Start menu the wizard is available even though it has absolutely no use. It would be nice if the wizard would tell you that you have already installed and configured the product and that there is no need to run this wizard again. Instead, it gives you the impression that it crashed (well, it does crash) and you may be wasting time trying to troubleshoot a problem that is not really a problem.

I contact Barracuda’s tech support. I was able to get to them right away and the person who assisted me was very helpful. He suggested that on my Windows Server 2008 server I start the wizard from a command prompt (make sure you use Run As Administrator to open the command prompt). I went to the folder where DeliverPoint was installed and issued the following command to start the wizard.

C:\Apps (x86)\DeliverPoint>barracuda.deliverpoint.configuration.exe “c:\Apps (x86)\DeliverPoint”

Remember to use the quotes if you have spaces in the path.

Using the Product

Once the product is installed successfully you manage it from SharePoint. There is no console in Windows to use the program. Everything is managed from within SharePoint. You will notice two menu items on Site Actions menu in SharePoint: DeliverPoint 2007 and Discover Site Permissions.

DeliverPoint 2007 is the primary areato manage permissions. Using the View Menu allows you to search for account permissions (Account Centric View) and view your SharePoint site hierarchy (Farm Centric View). The Farm Centric View is the default view. You will appreciate the intuitiveness of the Account Centric View. You can copy, move, delete permissions or you can view the unique permissions for an individual. Here’s what a screen looks like when you view unique permissions for a user.

The Treeview Legend uses clean icons that clearly identify the sites that inherit permissions, sites that have unique permissions or sites that have no access. These little things make DeliverPoint design very intuitive.

DeliverPoint also adds another item on the context menu for individual items. For example, you can right-click a document in a Document Library and select Discover item Permissions using DeliverPoint to view all the permissions for that item. This capability is sorely missing in SharePoint.

In addition to the Site Actions and context menu items, DeliverPoint also appears as a third tab in the Central Administration site next to the Operations and Application Management tab. Here you will find two sections: DeliverPoint Configuration and Module Management, as shown below.

A lot of businesses have a top-level site collection that is controlled by IT. All the departments have their own sites under the top-level site. The Site Owners are responsible for managing their own sites. They need a better solution to manage security and permissions than what’s available out-of-the-box. DeliverPoint is great for these Site Owners. They can easily discover which users have access to a specific site, list, folder, or list item.

One of my favorite features in DeliverPoint is the ability to copy permissions. You can copy an account’s permissions to one or more accounts so when you hire a new employee you can copy the permissions from another employee in the department who performs similar tasks. If that’s not enough, you can even “cut & paste” to move or transfer permissions from one account to one or more accounts.

This product is even designed to conform to Microsoft’s licensing requirements. Of course, every level in DeliverPoint is security trimmed, which means you can only view, copy, delete, transfer or manage permissions where you have authorized access in SharePoint.

Conclusion

If you work with SharePoint, you desperately need a third-party product to get a better grip on your security. SharePoint administrators, network administrators, and especially the Site Owners will appreciate the simplicity, flexibility and intuitiveness of DeliverPoint. DeliverPoint is not a comprehensive solution to administer SharePoint. It’s purpose is to only manage permissions. My Internet Explorer crashed a few times while I was using the Discover Site Permissions feature but I am not ready to blame DeliverPoint for the crashes at this time because I have used this product for a very short time. If you are interested in trying out this product, you can download a free 15-day trial version.

Next time I will review another SharePoint product that offers similar solutions to administer SharePoint permissions so stay tuned.

Copyright ©2009 Zubair Alexander. All rights reserved.