<<Project Name>>

Capacity Plan

 

Customer Name

 

 

Directions for using template:

Read the Guidance (Arial blue font in brackets) to understand the information that should be placed in each section of this template. Then delete the Guidance and replace the placeholder within <<Begin text here>> with your response. There may be additional Guidance in the Appendix of some documents, which should also be deleted once it has been used.

 

Some templates have four levels of headings.  They are not indented, but can be differentiated by font type and size:

You may elect to indent sections for readability.

 

 

 

 

Author

 

Author Position

 

Date

 

 

 

 

 

Version: 1.0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ó 2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.

This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS DOCUMENT.

Microsoft and Visual Basic are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft in the United States and/or other countries.

 

 


 

Revision & Sign-off Sheet

Change Record

Date

Author

Version

Change Reference

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviewers

Name

Version Approved

Position

Date

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Distribution

Name

Position

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Document Properties

Item

Details

Document Title

Capacity Plan

Author

 

Creation Date

 

Last Updated

 

 


 


Table of Contents

Summary

Objectives

User Profile

Usage Scenarios

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Task – Load Matrix

Expected Growth

System Reserves

Component Capacity

Bottlenecks

Growth and Intervention Strategy

Monitoring and Metrics

Total Solution

Component 1

Component 2

Thresholds for Intervention

Intervention Plan


 

 

 


 

[Introduction to the Template

 

Description: The Capacity Plan outlines the strategy for 1) assessing overall solution and component performance and 2) using this information to develop the plan for component acquisition, configuration, and upgrade. 

 

Justification: Planning for capacity ensures that the business requirements are efficiently and effectively met by the infrastructure and application elements of the solution. It provides management with (1) a clear statement of the capacities of all the resources and services required to operate the solution, (2) an assessment of current capacities, (3) a list of resources and services to be upgraded and to be acquired, and (4) a projection of resource and services capacities required by the solution in the future.

 

{Team Role Primary: Program Management is responsible for ensuring that the plan is completed and has acceptable quality, as well as incorporating it into the Master Project Plan and Operations Plan; Development provides content to the plan in its responsibility for ensuring that the solution will scale to meet capacity requirements.

 

Team Role Secondary: All other roles are responsible for reviewing the plan’s content to ensure it satisfies the requirements for their functional area.}]

 

 


 

Summary

[Description: Provide an overall summary of the contents of this document.

 

Justification: Some project participants may need to know only the highlights of the plan, and summarizing creates that user view. It also enables the full reader to know the essence of the document before they examine the details.]

<<Begin text here>>

 

Objectives

[Description: The Objectives section describes the key objectives of the capacity management process. This information may be derived from information about the current operational environment as well as business requirements and functional specifications.

 

Justification: Identifying the objectives signals to the customer that Microsoft has carefully considered the present operational situation, the business requirements, and the solution and created an appropriate capacity management approach.]

<<Begin text here>>

 

User Profile

[Description: User profiles describe users of a proposed solution and certain important user characteristics such as frequency of solution use and competence in using a solution. Users can be identified in groups (or classes), usually stated in terms of their functional areas. Information technology users include help desk, database administration, etc. Business users include accounting, warehousing, procurement, etc.

 

Justification: Describing the users and their important characteristics assists in forming the scenarios that are relevant to capacity.]

<<Begin text here>>

 

Usage Scenarios

[Description: Usage scenarios (also called use cases) define the sequences of tasks users perform and their interactions with solution functions to help them to perform the tasks. This section should define the scenarios performed by the users in each functional area.

 

Justification: Identifying and describing uage scenarios provides details that enable the estimation of capacity loads and other factors.]

<<Begin text here>>

Scenario 1

[Description: The Scenario 1 section describes a scenario and its characteristics that provide input to estimating loads, growth, and impacts.]

<<Begin text here>>

 

Scenario 2

[Description: The Scenario 2 section describes a scenario and its characteristics that provide input to estimating loads, growth, and impacts.]

<<Begin text here>>

 

Task – Load Matrix

[Description: The Task – Load Matrix illustrates the different kinds of loads that each usage scenario places on the system. Measure for both server and client configurations as appropriate to the capacity-planning scenario.]

 

Scenario

Load

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Scenario 3

Scenario 4

Scenario 5

Hard Drive

 

 

 

 

 

RAM

 

 

 

 

 

Transactions

 

 

 

 

 

Bandwidth

 

 

 

 

 

CPU

 

 

 

 

 

Printers (by type)

 

 

 

 

 

Scanners

 

 

 

 

 

Interfacing systems

 

 

 

 

 

Software

 

 

 

 

 

Other

 

 

 

 

 

 

<<Begin text here>>

 

Expected Growth

[Description: The Expected Growth section describes the growth pattern for the scenarios as a function of time.]

<<Begin text here>>

 

Network Traffic Impact

[Description: The Network Traffic Impact section estimates the impact of the solution on network traffic including volume, type, and pattern (time of day, seasonal, etc).]

<<Begin text here>>

System Reserves

[Description: The System Reserves section defines the reserve capacity of all system components required by the solution including networking, servers, clients, and applications.]

<<Begin text here>>

 

Component Capacity

[Description: The Component Capacity section identifies the solution’s components (human, equipment, software, facilities, etc.) and defines the components’ current capacities. You may record this information in a table that establishes the breakdown of the solution’s various functional components and records relevant measurement parameters for the system’s known capacity limits.]

 

Function Areas

Components

Configuration

Measurement

Capacity

Comments

Data transmission links

 

 

 

 

 

LAN

 

 

 

 

 

WAN

 

 

 

 

 

Protocols and transport

 

 

 

 

 

Operating systems

 

 

 

 

 

Hardware

 

 

 

 

 

Application software

 

 

 

 

 

Domain/Site models

 

 

 

 

 

 

<<Begin text here>>

 

Bottlenecks

[Description: The Bottlenecks section identifies and describes any areas of the solution that may represent functional bottlenecks.]

<<Begin text here>>

 

Growth and Intervention Strategy

[Description: The growth and Intervention Strategy section describes the manner in which the solution is envisioned to add additional capacity such as:

 

 

<<Begin text here>>

 

Monitoring and Metrics

[Description: The Monitoring and Metrics section describes the monitoring methods, techniques, and tools that will be used to evaluate solution and component performance and provides metrics for planning intervention. This information should be provided for each major component at the solution level.]

 

Total Solution

<<Begin text here>>

Component 1

<<Begin text here>>

Component 2

<<Begin text here>>

 

Thresholds for Intervention

[Description: The Thresholds for Intervention section identifies, describes, and quantifies thresholds for triggering intervention by changing component configuration.]

<<Begin text here>>

 

Intervention Plan

[Description: The Intervention Plan section describes specific plans to follow in order to preserve performance. This may include details such as network traffic impact, volume, type, pattern (time of day, seasonal, etc), impact on users, system reserves, networking, servers, clients, applications, monitoring, projection of use, thresholds, improvement strategy (e.g. incremental vs. replacement), and prioritization.]

<<Begin text here>>