Deploying SharePoint? Factor in the ‘Hidden Cost’

When you’re deploying SharePoint, there are 4 “absolute must-haves” you need to budget for from the beginning, rather than add on halfway through or afterward. Spencer Harbar’s recent blog post "The 'Hidden Cost' of SharePoint in the Enterprise" details the What and the Why. Spoiler alert: one of them is SharePoint-specific antivirus and another is backup and recovery.

As Harbar says, “None of these things are really a ‘hidden cost’. …The problem is that these things are generally not budgeted for as part of the project to deploy SharePoint. … What usually ends up happening is that the people who call the shots, afraid to ask for more money to do the job properly, will make statements like, “we’ll review that 6 months post deployment” or “we’ll do that later”. This is extremely dangerous as each of the items below are just as critical to your capacity, performance and security planning as are the SharePoint server roles themselves.”

Even if you’ve already deployed SharePoint, I know some of you will check out Harbar’s post anyway, just to compare. (Yes, you will—I know you will, especially if I tell you it’s just a click away and he’s very readable. And you still don’t know what the other 2 must-haves are.) Food for thought.