[BoulderDash]

Hey there,
The firm I work for is having an external vendor create a web application for our business. Their spec's state that we can expect it working flawlessly for up to 25 concurrent users. Isn't that low?

Does anyone have any links to white papers, etc. of what the standard number of concurrent users should be targeted to?

Thanks,
BD

[Scotttheking]

Well, I think they should target and design it for 7 billion concurrent users, that way no matter what you are guaranteed to have no problems, at least for a few years.

Seriously, you are asking for something that isn't realistic. There is no white paper that will tell you how to do everything. Take your program, design it for what it needs to be used for, and make sure it is designed to scale to a level beyond what you expect is needed.
The specs were agreed upon between the vendor and your company (or else someone screwed up). That is a business decision.
I have a website that will choke at about 5 users, but it works fine for what it is needed. Design appropriately.

--Scott

[Millennium]

Don't target your initial code to any particular number of concurrent users, except possibly "more than one." Once you have the app working, if load testing shows that it can't actually handle as many as you need, then go back and optimize.

[BoulderDash]

Yes, but still... 25 users seems small.

And I'm not looking for a white paper to tell me everything, I just figured that there was an industry standard (benchmark) for applications.

Thanks,
BD