SharePoint Capacity Planner tool

Microsoft had released the SharePoint Capacity Planner tool early in Feb, but up till now never had a chance to play with it. Finally took it for a spin.

First impressions:

• Microsoft has done a good job of providing a much needed planner for MOSS, the only publicly available tool available for MOSS planning in the past was the one provided by HP(which would provide recommendation of HP hardware based on MOSS specification) -
• The tool presents a wizard like interface that allows the end user to specify various parameters to the MOSS topology and allows granular control to how MOSS is consumed at branch levels (in case of intranet site) or for internet sites
• The tool provides topology support for MOSS and WSS
• Based on the topology the tool can run simulations and provide rich reports that can be used to further drill/modify the deployment architecture

The tool does not provide the capability for MOSS logical architecture (sites/Site collection etc) nor for Information Architecture however it serves as a good starting point in identifying and refining a topology for MOSS deployment.