You don’t need a crystal ball to understand the importance of scalability

by. Glenn Gibson

When purchasing enterprise software – like enterprise content management (ECM) – there is one word that people often overlook: ­scalability. The problem is that the word scalability is all about the future.

Enterprise software  purchases are often complex and involve many stakeholders, so it can be difficult enough to wrap your arms around your immediate needs. But trying to comprehend what will be important in the future of the solution can feel downright overwhelming. Don’t go looking for a crystal ball quite yet though, because there are a couple of straight-forward scalability concepts which are very easy to grasp.

1. Don’t ask IF, ask HOW

Instead of trying to comprehend IF you may want to expand the solution to other departments and an unforeseen number of users, assume you will and instead ask HOW. This is extremely liberating because now you can focus on the key points you need to know.

Some questions are: How easy will it be to do this? Can we expand upon the initial implementation without re-architecting the solution? What are the upper thresholds of usage and connected users?

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