I just fired up the capacity planning tool that’s all the rage these days.

I found it easy to use and quickly modeled a client environment I worked on this past summer.

With some trepidation, I pressed the final OK button and it recommended something that is pretty similar to what we gave our client (we actually threw in a second application server for future excel use). I take that to be a good sign and increases my confidence in the tool.

It seems pretty powerful stuff a much better starting point than a blank page.

I like that lets you get into some good detail about the environment. How many users, how you project they will use the system (publishing, collaboration, və s.), branch office and connectivity / network capacity between them and the mama server. Good stuff.

It asks broad based questions and then lets you tweak the details for a pretty granular model of your environment.

I hesitated downloading it because I have so many other things to look at it, read and try to digest. I’m glad I did.

It’s an easy two-step process. Download system center capacity planner and then download the SharePoint models. It runs nicely on Windows XP.

Based on my quick impression, I don’t see how it might account for:

• Axtar: Total documents, maybe types of documents, languages.
• Excel server: how much, əgər?
• Forms server: how much, əgər?
• BDC: how much, əgər.

Those may be modeled and I just didn’t see them in the 10 minute review.

I will definitely use it at my next client.

If I were not a consultant and instead working for a real company :), I’d model my current environment and see how the tool’s recommended model matches up against reality. That would be pretty neat. It could lead to some good infrastructure discussion.

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