sharepoint protocol and others

[ew6014]

hi guys

im fairly new to alfresco community.

we have a userbase of 100+ users that are located around asia. now they are currently using citrix which is slow and cumbersome. they want to switch to something else so im recommending alfresco. they are heavily using microsoft office.

now my questions are:-

1) using sharepoint protocol via microsoft office how can we configure alfresco to save ONLY the changes thats done?  currently it seems to be uploading the entire microsoft office document everytime user hits the save button.

[mrogers]

You can't.

However whats the problem you are trying to solve

[ew6014]

hi

thanks for the reply.

well the problem is that some of the files are pretty huge. eg : microsoft powerpoint / word / excel file. they can be anywhere from 1mb-10mb or more.

now , if alfresco keeps uploading the entire file everytime user hits the SAVE button in microsoft office, it will be a huge problem. their internet connections are very laggy and sometimes internet is down for various time lengths. 

i was under the impression that sharepoint protocol would be uploading only the changes thats done everytime user hits the saves button

which begs me to this question

1) how is sharepoint protocol any better than normal CIFS?
2) how to configure alfresco in such a way to try and avoid the situation mention above?
3) should i be configuring alfrecsco to use CIFS or sharepoint?

[mrogers]

Each protocol has its strengths and weaknesses.  And it also depends upon your client application, in how they use the features available.

Cifs (not just alfresco's implementation) is not suitable for any wan with high latency. However it does have the ability to handle small increments of data. But on the other hand does office for example use it?  I suspect not.
And the share point protocol is heavily tied into the ms office application.

With a poor network you are probably better off using a cache or replica.

[ew6014]

oh i see .. .well i guess sharepoint will be their only option as their branches are in different WAN.

how about establishing a VPN connection back to the server?  each branch has a fortigate firewall which can establish VPN connection.

will this be a good idea then? i do understand that if internet is laggy/problematic there is nothing that can be done other than telling the ISP. but however, would 

VPN + SHAREPOINT PROTOCOL
or
VPN + CIFS

be a much better solution?  VPN + CIFS just to share some files eg : outlook pst

[throwback]

Don't use CIFS for end-users- theres a nasty bug with microsoft office where basically any file they open and then close will be stuck read only until next server restart (at least on alf 4.0a,b,c,d community).

Also it discourage users from using the web interface and encourages lazy behaviour. I disabled it to drive everyone back to web interface/sharepoint protocol.

Use vpn and Kerberos auth (if everyones on a directory) to speed up webdav access, this also circumvents the basic auth problem with windows 7 clients.