Let's start with a confession: Although I'm considered to be a huge MOSS fan, I've grown to hate anything that deals with capacity planning in the new version. It took some major implementations and several months – but I finally came to a conclusion that this is definitely one of the most annoying things in the MOSS. In the previous version, we had much more smooth sailing since the product's architecture was relatively strict and the planning was pretty straight forward. Now, with all of the new features in the version (CMS, Workflow, Excel Services, Enterprise Search and more) and their demanding requirement from the architecture – we don't really have much to be based upon from the official Microsoft.
I guess the good guys in MS understood it just as well as we did since they are currently working on an official MOSS Capacity planning tool that is right now code named as "Atlantis". The SharePoint capacity planning tool will be specified for WSS v3.0 and MOSS 2007 and will provide full information about capacity planning on both W2K3 and W2K8 Server platforms. A sneak preview was shown in the Tech Ready 5 conference and it really looks great. Regarding the time tables – we still have no official information on the subject, only ruff estimations: It looks like the first W2K3 Beta will be available end of Sept '07 (guys - that means next month!). The RTW release of WSS/MOSS W2K3 will probably be available end of Nov '07. The release of WSS/MOSS Longhorn Server is now scheduled to Feb '08 but just to be fair, I wouldn't count on it. Again, the timetable was yet to be announced publicly so this information is subjected to changes and has no official confirmation.
Great new? Only if you don't have to deliver the capacity planning document by the end of the week... So if you're in the group that can't wait until the first "Atlantis" beta will be out – here are some useful links:
Joel's posts are always a great start - it really gives a good idea on planning:
http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2006/07/19/sharepoint-deployment-capacity-performance-planning-2003-2007-what-you-need-to-know.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2006/08/01/how-large-for-a-single-sharepoint-content-database.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/01/31/tips-on-site-collection-sizing.aspx
The MOSS Worksheets can assist as well if you want to plan a definitive number:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101638321033.aspx
And remember a few things before you start your journey: First of all, none of what you'll see recommended is a hard limit. There are actually no hard-coded limits at all in MOSS (except for the number of SSP's in a Farm). Also, keep in mind that there are always other factors to consider: some technical, some not. For example: If the database server you're using is endowed with tons of RAM, more than a couple of procs, and super-fast 15k RPM spindles, performance will be better and a larger-than-you-might-expect database might be OK. Oh, and don't forget taking into account SLAs for disaster recovery and business continuity. Bigger databases mean longer backup/restore times. Last thing is about SQL Server limitations - SQL Server 2005 limits the database to 1,048,516 terabytes so it can hardly be a problem anywhere (not that it's anywhere near recommended to give it a try… J)
I think that's it for now. Hope it helped…
Bye,
Adir Ron.