SharePoint 2010: efficient query for federation between site collections?

Question

In SharePoint 2010, I would like to create a list in one SiteCollection that retrieves data from several other SiteCollections that have common fields:

Is this possible, and if so, can it be done effectively?

Current proposed solutions include setting EventReceivers for each of the SiteCollections that we want to request, and updating the main list ( OverviewSiteCollection ) with new data each time one of the SiteCollections is updated or data is added.

Is there a better way to achieve what we want to achieve?

Answer 1

I will probably do it. Even if you were in one site collection, I cannot think of a way to aggregate and replicate items to another list. You can either click items through the event receiver, or pull items through a job definition.

The only thing I can think of is new taxonomy fields and terms. But it is intended for selection text boxes. I do not think this will work for elements with multiple columns, as shown in your example.

Answer 2

This is not possible out of the box, but you can buy the Lightning Conductor web part from lightning tools. It works similarly to the Content Query web part, but it works across site collections.

It is compatible with Sharepoint 2007 and 2010.

http://www.lightningtools.com/pages/lightning-conductor-web-part.aspx http://www.lightningtools.com/blog/archive/2010/04/29/sharepoint-2010-and-the-lightning -conductor-web-part.aspx

As for efficiency, I'm not sure, as I only used it for small data collections.

Answer 3

Whenever I think of collapsing content through collections of sites, I think of using (if possible) 1) Managed metadata services (taxonomy and general types of content)
2) Search (using the search field, etc.) 3) Some kind of web part for processing data on pages. And efficiency is one of your problems, search is your best choice! Nothing can exceed its performance!

I came across a good solution (expanding the content request web part to aggregate data on different sites and external sources), which can give you several directions: http://www.msteched.com/2009/NorthAmerica/OFC405

The search has its limitations, though (the accuracy of the results depends on when the last index operation was launched). If this bothers you, perhaps you may end up renaming the lists of your site collections, as suggested here: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointdevelopment/thread/d271da25-57f4-4f59 -a34d-fd06bc4c8ce6

The part of the zipper website suggested in another answer may be useful to you. I would suggest evaluating it (for example, how it does it internally, permissions, additional configuration, efficiency, caching, display control, etc.).