Creating and Running the SMS Pilot Project

A pilot project is a series of in-house performance tests of your client and server hardware with your standard production software installed. Running this test enables you to accomplish the following:

Calculate the load signature in your system

Load signature is the measurement of a computer’s hardware resource use throughout daily, weekly, and monthly business cycles. Load signatures are different for each computer and for each network. To create an accurate deployment picture, you must understand the load signature for each computer in the site hierarchy design you have established. Running a pilot project provides the information you need to measure and manipulate the load signature of your system before deployment.

Evaluate the impact of using various SMS features

The pilot project will help you determine how the SMS features you plan to enable in your site hierarchy — and the order in which you implement them — will impact site systems, SMS clients, and the network. Ensuring that your pilot project resembles the production environment as much as possible will result in more accurate results.