The previous chapter outlined general decisions and concerns that need to be addressed when formalizing your SharePoint deployment roadmap. One of these decisions involves choosing a residence for your SharePoint environment(s): on-premise, hosted, in the cloud, and so on. As discussed earlier, each option clearly has its own set of benefits and disadvantages. However, to reiterate the general theme of these two chapters, there is no one-size-fits-all implementation. The deployment types are not mutually exclusive. Each set of requirements will be unique and, more than likely, you will find your organization creating a hybrid solution to exploit the benefits offered by the different deployment models.

To that end, the cloud can be your biggest catalyst and enabler. Whether you like it or not, the cloud has arrived, and it is something your organization should evaluate and consider. Cloud-based computing is transforming the information technology space and...