Getting good answers
The best way to work through these issues is to leverage the experience of people who have successfully deployed Domino systems for many different customers. Automatically, this rules out software resellers. They may be able to help you figure out what you need to buy, but they're usually out of their league when it comes to capacity planning, system architecture, and detailed system design.

There are several things you can ask an integrator to find out if they know what they're doing. One of the best things you can ask is how they determine the capacity and number of servers. If they don't say anything about where the servers will go in the network or about what network bandwidth costs, you're probably not talking to an integrator with the right experience.

I like to ask for a map of the network topology showing the available bandwidth as well as the current average and peak utilization if known. I also ask for the number of users per location and explore, with the customer, how these users break down into different groups and how they will use Notes and Domino. If you're working with an integrator that isn't asking these questions, you're probably not going to be happy with the results.

DominoPower Technical Editor Ron Herardian is CEO and Chief Technical Consultant at Global System Services (GSS). You can reach Ron via email at rherardi@gssnet.com, or via his web page at http://www.gssnet.com. GSS also sponsors Messaging Central (at http://www.messagingcentral.com/), a Web-based resource devoted to electronic messaging integration, Internet messaging standards, and migration.