Introduction

You have business needs and we have solutions. But what exactly is your solution going to be and what are some things to consider when architecting a solution. We want to educate you and help you make the right decision when you prior to hosting. Depending on what solution you're looking for, different decisions need to be made with regards to hosting options, number of servers, shared VS dedicated, licensing and costs.

Here we are outlining some common factors that will affect the hosting architecture and hosting options.

Shared VS Dedicated

Is a shared site sufficient or are you looking for richer customizations and options with a dedicated SharePoint server?

MOSS VS WSS

Do you know the difference between MOSS and WSS? MOSS can be much more expensive than WSS, However MOSS much more rich functionality.

MOSS Standard VS MOSS Enterprise

Which will be the right solution for you? MOSS Standard or Enterprise. Enterprise costs more but the features are richer.

Solutions

Intranet

Intranets are a very popular use of SharePoint. You can use it for internal document collaboration, workflows and information repository.

Extranet

Extranets are used with users outside of your organization. Here, the special consideration is:

1. How do you provision access to those users?
2. How do you secure your internal content from those users?

 

Internet Site

SharePoint can be your public web site and accessible anonymously by everybody. This to consider here are:

1. This option is much more expensive than intranets and will cost you in licensing around $800/month
2. How much traffic do you anticipate daily on your site? This will identify how many front end servers you need.
   

 

Architectural Decisions

Security

Are there any special requirements with security? Maybe for compliance purposes. Two factor authentication requirements?

Redundancy

How many front end servers will you need?
How mission critical is your application?
Can you afford downtime?

Number of Users

This gives you an idea of how much traffic you're getting.
Do those users need training?
Is there a possibility that those uses will be overloading the server?

Search and Indexing of Content

What are you expecting out of search. There are significant changes between MOSS and WSS search.

3rd party Tools

There are many 3rd party tools and software that extend your SharePoint functionality. If you're looking to have those included, you definitely need to go with a dedicated server.

Branding

Does your site need to be branded and to what degree. If you have a marketing site, then your options with MOSS are much better as it gives you the Master Page option.

Client Tools

What kind of applications will be connected or interact SharePoint. This could be your office applications, or even a custom program that reads data from SharePoint.

Development

Do you need to do development on your SharePoint solution? if so, you will need a dedicated server.