| In the preceding pages, we focused on a number of SharePoint deployments at SmallTime, and how the various business goals drove completely different implementations . We drilled down into using Team Services to support a temporary project team, looked closely at search and document sharing scenarios, and spent quite a bit of time implementing document management and collaboration solutions in two organizations. Throughout this time, our focus has been strictly on creating single business unit SharePoint solutions. An interesting phenomena occurs in these single business unit or department-wide SharePoint deployments ”once the initial SharePoint Portal Server production system begins providing value, it quickly becomes apparent that other organizations would benefit from the same type of solution. This is how many SBU Portal environments tend to "grow up" into enterprise-wide implementations. More end users and more business units are added, dashboards are linked together, and an enterprise solution is born. Another common SharePoint Portal Server growth driver includes adding incremental or new functionality. For example, as you realize the benefits of simply sharing data, the advantages of document management and even group collaboration become apparent. New group dashboard sites facilitating these functions are developed, and the SBU Portal continues to grow ever more valuable . As you discover new uses for your SharePoint Portal implementation, and bring on new business units, it becomes quite important to begin coordinating your efforts and the efforts of your sister groups throughout the company. That is, economies of scale, common interests and standards, and investments in back-end supporting infrastructure and resources should be leveraged for the benefit of the company. Maintaining your own deployment over time ensures its effectiveness over time, and aids in integrating it into other SharePoint implementations, while reducing future integration headaches . Eventually, it should be expected that even the smallest of Portal deployments will one day become enterprise vehicles for sharing data. We saw in this chapter that SmallTime was well on their way in this regard. In any case, both the framework and approaches to managing your SBU Portal can pay off in big ways down the road, as the portal grows in value to its user community. In the next chapter, we cover in detail the special challenges inherent to these larger and usually more complex enterprise-wide SharePoint Portal Server implementations.  |
