• Network availability: A platform that is able to provide access within networks that have potential for disconnection.

You're only as strong as your weakest link, and in distributed organizations that means even your most needs proper access to data and information. Without a minimum level of quality and reliability, companies can expect to face delays or even process failures when it comes to getting work done.

For context, many organizations typically support distributed teams by linking islands of data together over a wide area network (WAN) to ensure corporate information is consistent. Portal technologies such as help the process of aggregating information, however, these technologies only bring information together at local or regional hubs.

True corporate-wide consistency and collaboration can only be achieved when you take this process a step further and aggregate information across the enterprise. What's more, organizations should take into account that geographically distributed locations and mobile personnel may also suffer from occasional disconnection, variable bandwidth, prohibitive costs for technical investments or high-latency issues.

Geo-replication, as well as Offline SharePoint, address both of these issues and allow knowledge workers to have 24/7 access to information that will automatically sync when they re-connect to the server.