THE CHALLENGE:
Migrating users to new Windows operating systems is a complex, multi-step process. You need to analyze the environment and select targets, then plan the rollout, prepare images, capture user data and settings, deploy the images, finish configuration, reload applications, restore user and application settings and validate successful deployment. It’s time-consuming, expensive and intrusive — and it’s both a business and IT necessity. |
Balancing costs against gains Deploying and supporting operating systems is probably the most complex, pervasive task that IT departments face. As a result, many IT departments put off migration to Microsoft’s latest operating systems and lose out on the benefits and cost reductions that the latest technology facilitates. It’s a balancing act between seemingly constant maintenance and intrusion on the user environment, or standardization on an older but more stable platform. Do the costs of deployment, support, and maintenance outweigh the benefits that the latest technology provides? Often the costs seem too high — too much time, too much money, and too much effort to balance the performance gains. Some IT departments wait until new technology forces an OS upgrade — then migrate only as few machines as possible to avoid massive disruption. IT standardization To increase benefits and reduce costs many IT organizations standardize on a single operating system. That consolidates support costs and training, and reduces the total costs of ownership. It simplifies application purchases and IT decision making. Which is perfect until a new OS is released and new applications begin to require the unique features of that new OS to run properly. Worse, support for older operating systems is phased out and they become increasingly expensive to maintain. To ensure standards, IT needs to migrate the entire company at once. So they wait as long as possible and migrate as seldom as possible. In other words, decisions are often made on the basis of pain or price tag rather than stability or performance improvement. Tools versus solutions Imaging tools make it easier to create standard OS images. Software distribution tools can deploy images to existing computers, and inventory tools can ease target selection. Profile migration tools can save user and machine settings, preferences, and data then restore them after the current disk is blown away and replaced with the standard image. PXE tools can deploy operating systems to “bare-metal” systems with a disk but no software. But tools have their own dependencies and don’t always work well together. Often, version numbers count and IT is forced to use an older tool to maintain compatibility even though better tools have become available. The tools begin to limit each other, and you. A single-vendor toolkit can eliminate that problem. Each module is known to work well with the others, creating greater efficiency and quickly bringing costs under control. But many toolkits use proprietary formats that require you to start over again and install new infrastructure, build new images, and develop new plans. IT control It all comes down to control. IT needs to control costs and processes, tools and data. More importantly, IT needs to control the technology, not be driven by it. If you’ve already built a series of standardized OS images, you should be able to use them. If you’ve invested time, training, and money in a profile migration tool you should be able to leverage it. Gaining the benefits of an integrated, automated solution shouldn’t require you to give up the work you’ve already done. Fortunately, you don’t have to. Return to top of page >> | 
