Mapping SharePoint Functionality to Business Needs

When deploying SharePoint, the primary concern for scalability is how many users will use the system. For departmental collaboration, the numbers may be small. For large, publicly accessible portals, on the other hand, the numbers could scale up quickly. Scaling a SharePoint implementation based on the number of users is simplistic but can be used as a starting point. In addition to total number of users, the following factors should be identified to more fully understand the load placed on a SharePoint server:

• Number of users

• Pages per user per work day

• Length of work day (hours)

• Type of work performed and level of office integration

• Size of document repositories

Collecting this information and understanding who will be accessing a SharePoint environment is the first step toward properly scaling the environment.