The App Model moves SharePoint development in the right direction

By Brian Prigge

August 27, 2013 — (Page 1 of 2)
In what is arguably the largest paradigm shift in the history of SharePoint development, Microsoft has made a strong push toward the App Model in SharePoint 2013. Unlike traditional farm solutions in prior versions of SharePoint, the App Model brings a level of code isolation not yet seen in the SharePoint world.

Simply, the App Model allows “bolt-on” functionality; this is opposed to previous generations that have a very “bolt-in” functionality. This model can be used for many of the same situations in which the farm-solutions model would have been employed. These solutions may include complex integrations with external systems, the need to perform complex business logic, and any other custom development needed for SharePoint.

Apps are broken down into three basic categories: SharePoint-hosted, auto-hosted and provider-hosted. In all of the models, you have the ability to deploy SharePoint artifacts such as Lists and Libraries, but there are significant differences among them.

SharePoint-hosted apps are run exclusively in SharePoint. They do not require any outside hosting for any portion of the app, but they are considerably limited. Given that the goal for the App Model was code isolation, there is no way to run server-side code in a SharePoint-hosted app. You are limited to HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Auto-hosted and provider-hosted both allow server-side code, but in a different web application that is outside of SharePoint entirely. This is where things become a bit trickier. Auto-hosted apps will automatically provision a hosting environment for your server-side portion (known as the remote web), but they are only available in Office 365. It will also provision a new site for each instance of the app.

Provider-hosted apps are supported in both the Server version of SharePoint as well as in Office 365. The detriment here is that the hosting environment for the remote web is not automatically provisioned. You must actively provision the hosting environment and associate it with your app. The good news is that you can use a single remote web for multiple app instances. This ability eases the burden of sending updates to multiple instances by allowing you to update a single remote web across many instances.

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The App Model moves SharePoint development in the right direction

By Brian Prigge

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