A Strategic Approach to Windows 7 Migration

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About the authors

Barry Angell is CTO and co-founder of Juriba. He has a wealth of practical experience of enterprise Windows migrations, and is personally responsible for driving the roadmap and strategic vision for the Dashworks product suite.

Barry was previously a senior level manager at JPMorganChase, with a budget of $24million and global responsibility for desktop systems. Using his expertise in automation, he personally oversaw successful rollouts and infrastructure transformation internationally.

e: [email protected] t: +44 (0)207 873 2225

Follow me @JuribaUK

Alex Topitsch is the CEO of Futurestate IT. He is a proven leader and technologist with 15 years of experience leading a successful IT consulting company, with clients across the government, financial and manufacturing verticals among others.

He is an established thought leader in the IT infrastructure space, and a trusted advisor with respect to emerging technology and trends. He has a deep understanding of the strategic and architecture challenges IT departments face, and is a seasoned speaker at industry events.

e: [email protected]

t: 1 888 424 9068

Join us both in the LinkedIn Windows 7 Project Management group

INTRODUCTION

In this brief strategic guide we take a look at the real world challenges faced by organisations faced with Windows 7 migration projects, with a particular focus on preparation ahead of the project. We demonstrate how different organisations are approaching these issues, and how these can translate into ‘best practice’ approaches. We also demonstrate how Juriba’s Dashworks and FutureState IT’s AppRx could be used to automate, simplify and reduce the cost of similar projects.

Who should read this guide

This guide is intended for CIOs, CTOs and IT directors who want to understand the preparations needed to achieve successful, large-scale Windows 7 migrations at minimal cost and risk.

It also provides useful background information for CFOs and finance directors who would like to understand some of the economics associated with migration, and for programme and project managers responsible for desktop transformation.

Overview

Windows 7 is the fourth major corporate desktop migration in history (Windows 3.1, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows 7). Most organisations skipped Windows Vistai, although, as consolation for those that did go through the process, Gartner has pointed out that migration from Windows Vista to Windows 7 will probably be only around a quarter of the cost of migration directly from Windows XPii.

Each of these migrations has provided opportunities to rationalise asset usage (software and hardware), to refresh and transform infrastructure, and to automate repetitive processes. As with any major transformation, evangelists and early adopters were able to develop strong arguments as to why organisations should move to Windows 7, such as reductions in cost of ownership and improved management. At the launch of Windows 7, for example, Microsoft’s own research indicated common demands for tighter control of authorised applications and better remote access as key driversiii.

Now, with end-of-support for Windows XP scheduled for April 2014, the business case for transformation has developed into a ‘must-do’ activity, and with transformation projects estimated to take up to two years it is simply not practical to defer any longer. According to a Forrester survey in 2011, 93 per cent of enterprises plan to complete their migrations to Windows 7 by April 2014iv, so on the face of it things are more-or-less on target.

The problem is that desktop migration has always been a ‘cost’ to the business. Upgrade programs have historically been expensive and disruptive, and arguably few corporate migrations actually achieve the lower total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits originally envisaged. Fortunately, with Windows 7 having been in the field for over two years, there is now a well-established pool of expertise and real-life experience that can make the transition as smooth as possible, although finding those resources and working to what is now a very tight deadline will still be difficult for many enterprises.

A strategic approachto Windows 7 migration

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R Drawing upon third party best practice, as well as our own experience of managing large-scale desktop migrations, this document aims to highlight the key considerations enterprises need to take into account when planning Windows 7 projects. It has been written from an independent and pragmatic perspective. Yes, Juriba and FutureState IT have products to sell – Dashworks and AppRx – but they are merely tools that can be used to help with managing the process; they do not, in themselves, change any of the preparatory steps an organisation should take when preparing to migrate.

Key challenges of migrating to Windows 7

Interdependencies

On a computer-by-computer basis, the migration of a PC to Windows 7 is relatively simple to achieve. In enterprises, problems arise because of shared interdependencies: process and logistics, departments, locations and so on. Indeed, according to Lucian Lipinsky de Orlov, “...the term desktop migration is in fact a euphemism for the full re-engineering of desktops, laptops and all related management systems. Many IT organisations do not appreciate the interdependencies of the desktop environment, so they take the overall effort for granted.”v

As an example, say you are tasked with migrating a department of 1,000 users. 150 of those users share an application with a second department, which cannot itself upgrade because it relies on a separate application that won’t be supported on Windows 7 for another six months. 100 of these users work on an important time critical application which means they can’t migrate between Thursday and Sunday, and they share data with 200 more users in another department, which needs moving to a new storage infrastructure. Your network can only handle 50 concurrent desktop migrations, your hardware manufacturer cannot deliver new computers for 10 days, and an application you believed to be compatible with Windows 7 just failed business unit testing.

This may seem extreme, but it gives a flavour of the realities of desktop transformation. In very large organisations the problem will be amplified by thousands of users across many sites. The result is often a programme deployment timeline that looks like the one below:

The one-off nature of migration to Windows 7

For well over two years, IT analysts have been promoting desktop and application virtualisation as the end to the desktop migration challenge. By virtualising your desktops, you simply roll forwards and backwards to a new operating system. Application virtualisation further accelerates this process by abstracting the application from other applications, reducing integration testing.

What does this mean in practice? It means there will never be another project like Windows 7 migration. Annette Jump of Gartner states “Windows 7 is likely to be the last version of Microsoft OS that gets deployed to everybody through big corporatewide migration. In the future, many organizations will also use alternative client computing architectures for standard PCs with Windows OS, and move toward virtualisation and cloud computing in the next five years.”vi

According to companies like Dell, this boom and bust cycle also creates other issues because “...this is the first major OS transition in the last eight years...[organisations] are also faced with a variety of other migration challenges many have never faced before. Lack of governance over application libraries, application and browser compatibility issues... preparing for cloud computing, and application and desktop virtualisation are among IT managers’ biggest concerns.”vii

“Many IT organisations do not appreciate the interdependencies of the desktop environment”

“Windows 7 is likely to be the last version of Microsoft OS that gets deployed to everybody through big corporate-wide migration”

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RIndeed, it is the application estate that possibly represents the greatest opportunity for change. However, as a result of tighter IT budgets over the last decade, many organizations focused on delivering new functionality, instead of keeping existing applications well maintained and current. The result of this strategy has meant accumulating efforts required to bring all the applications up to date with this migration. Gartner refers to this deferred liability as “IT debt”. It further estimates that with the global IT debt of $500 billion back in 2010, the number will potentially rise to $1 trillion by 2015xxiii.

The unfortunate reality is that many organizations continue to borrow and increase their IT debt. Without a detailed application inventory, they are unaware of this growing liability. As organizations continue to add new applications, and application vendors continue to upgrade to keep in step with the newest operating systems, organizations are facing escalating systemic risks and possible mission critical application failures.

Virtualisation creates its own problems

The reality is that migrations to Windows XP were complex and costly, and migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 with virtualisation will be even worse. Not every end user is a candidate for virtualisation which means multi-mode operation. There are thousands of legacy PCs and applications running Windows XP that cannot support Windows 7. What’s more, not every application is a candidate for virtualisation for performance and incompatibility reasons.

According to Intelviii, there are seven different desktop virtualisation methods and no one size fits all for an organisation. Both desktop and application virtualisation require new management tool infrastructure, software purchase and operational skills. Virtualisation involves a greater level of complex testing than a forklift migration, and requires creation and maintenance of new supporting processes.

How far are you prepared to go with your project?

If Windows 7 migration is a project to be embraced with reluctance and out of necessity, can it be a real catalyst for root-and-branch change? Or will it result in organisations trying to ‘boil the ocean’ (in that overused phrase)? The answer depends on pragmatic analysis before the project is planned.

IDC’s position is clear: “IDC believes that a Windows 7 migration provides an excellent (and increasingly rare) opportunity for enterprises to rethink their client-side deployment and configuration. This migration offers the mechanism to add new functionality and efficiencies to existing computing environments by using features new to Windows 7 and through a collection of modern third-party solutions that add value...”ix

Ryan McCune at Avanade agrees: “Smart CIOs will take this opportunity to use the Windows 7 refresh as an opportunity to reduce desktop TCO and transform desktop change from a high-cost and disruptive event to a smooth, business-as-usual activity.”x

So the advice is to transform and go as deep with your changes as your budget, skills and resources will allow. Your Windows 7 migration may well be a chance to fix all the things that are broken in your desktop environment and to rationalise systems and applications. Similarly, it is a chance to fix broken processes. For example, instead of a project-based approach to application management, enterprises should work towards keeping application versions current, and managing the application portfolio on an ongoing basis to make it easier next time.

The perfect desktop transformation

If companies facing desktop migration are, once again, faced with a long, expensive, disruptive project, we need to start changing the thinking to a more strategic approach. This involves setting an aspirational deployment timeline at the outset of the project.

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“Windows 7 migration provides an excellent (and increasingly rare) opportunity for enterprises to rethink their client-side deployment and configuration”

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Planning and managing enterprise Windows 7 migrations

Most analysts and vendors are consistent in their estimates of the timeframe needed to migrate an enterprise to Windows 7: “12 to 18 months” (Gartner)xi,12 to 18 months (Forrester/Dell)xii, “six to 18 months” (HP)xiii, “18 months to 2 years” (Citrix).xiv

Start with your most important questions.

• What is your scope?

• What budget do you need?

• How will your governance work?

• How will you approach the migration?

• What are the big programme rules?

• How will you communicate?

Architect

While there are many common elements to a Windows 7 migration project, in our opinion not enough attention is given to the architecture phase. As noted above, this is a critical exercise as de Orlov states, and you should be prepared to accept that “your programme’s plans, identified processes and desktop architecture will change as the project progresses. If you wait for absolutely final and complete solutions, then timelines will slip and costs will increase while progress all but halts.”xv

In our experience, however, it is exactly this failure to architect a final solution that causes many enterprise level migrations to fail. We’re not saying that you need to nail down every last process, but your goal should be that your target architecture and processes change only minimally from beginning to end. By accepting that major change will happen, you are almost encouraging your programme to continue to research and develop whilst it should be concentrating on readying and deploying. Organisations that get the architecture phase correct are placing themselves on an excellent footing to succeed with the remainder of their plans.

This is our checklist of all the major areas of disruption you should address during the architecture phase, in order to determine your high-level budget.

How much time will you allocate to each effort? What will it (roughly) cost for each item in procurement and resource? When do you want to start each activity?

“Your programme’s plans, identified processes and desktop architecture will change as the project progresses”

Engineering

• 64-bit Computing

• Build image

• Desktop/Application virtualisation

• Security model review

• Desktop management system impact

• Inventory collection

Applications Management

• Application discovery & usage

• Application currency & licensing

• Application rationalisation

• Application virtualisation

• Application compatibility testing

• Application redevelopment

• Internet Explorer / browser upgrade

• Business unit applications testing

Process

• Readiness management

• Task & process definition

Automation

• Intelligent end user platform decision

• Workflow system automation

• Deployment toolset automation

Business Engagement

• Communications plan

• End-user self-service

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Programme structure

Following the architecture phase, Intel’s programme structurexvi is a good place to start.

This model assumes the migration is a central ‘push’. In our experience, the most successful migrations involve location or business accountability or responsibility. In most large enterprises these elements are of significant importance. Intel’s model is a good start in getting you technically to Windows 7, but it may not get you politically to Windows 7. Push models can create a ‘them and us’ situation between the programme and the business, which in turn drives additional cost. We would suggest the project takes account of workstreams, typically covering the following high level functions:

• Project/Programme management

• Engineering

• Applications management

• Infrastructure

• Deployment

• Communications

• Command and control

• Operations

• Business engagement

Governance

Using the programme structure as a baseline, you can start to build your critical governance model. As IBM notes, this is achieved through “a combination of the right individuals, an effective structure for management and oversight, and a set of programme roles and responsibilities. Roles and responsibilities should be defined and structured, with the needed outcomes of the programme in mind, and to fit within the management philosophy and enterprise approach.”xvii

Key roles and responsibilities are, of course, executive sponsor(s), steering committee, administration and project management. In our experience, it is vital to have the right people, with genuine commitment to the project if it is not to stall. We’d also suggest that targets and incentives could be put in place to help drive behaviour. The high level establishment and agreement on big programme rules is also key to efficient governance. Here are some examples from recent transformation projects:

• All administrator level users get the applications they are entitled to, not what is installed on their machine

• User desktops will be virtualised providing they meet criteria X and Y (e.g. SysTrack virtual candidate = Yes and all applications are compatible with AppV)

• Desktops > 4 years old will be replaced

• Applications required by less than 5 users will not be packaged

• All applications will be virtualised on technology X. If not compatible, deliver via fat client MSI. If not compatible, host on Citrix XP farm.

• Users can only be scheduled for migration a minimum of 14 days in advance

• Users rescheduled within seven days of migration receive a penalty fee of $x

“Roles and responsibilities should be defined and structured, with the needed outcomes of the programme in mind”

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Technology strategy

Some workers require simplicity and standardisation, while others require high performance and personalisation. It’s crucial to understand these workloads, as any ROI gains on virtualisation could be wiped by increased management costs (such as multiple tools doing the same job for fat/thin client). The more you change the more it will cost initially.

Frankly, there are almost too many technology options, and things can come unstuck without a centralised approach. Many technology companies offer strategic and point solutions that address desktop migration, and some integrate better than others. Considerations for your technology strategy include:

Strategic platform solutions

• Desktop management (deployment, provisioning and inventory)

• Desktop virtualisation

• Application virtualisation

Migration driven solutions (you could argue that these may become strategic in time)

• Data warehousing & business intelligence

• User profile and data migration

• Application discovery and usage tracking

• Application currency and compatibility

• Application readiness workflow

• Project and change management

Service solutions

• Programme/project management

• Application packaging

• Physical deployment

This is not an exhaustive list. What is does indicate is that there are plenty of options to be considered and that they should be evaluated against your priorities. Juriba is an independent business and works with companies providing a huge variety of different solutions. From our perspective no single organisation has all the answers, but we would always recommend that you research thoroughly your technology and migration strategy.

Resourcing

How you balance outsourced or in-house resource will have a significant effect on the cost of a project. This decision boils down to three main questions:

• Do you have the technology and project/programme management skills and available resourcing levels in-house?

• Does your resource have the time to take on this migration successfully?

• Is your migration strategy a project or business-as-usual based approach?

As Dell says, “Let’s face it; most organisations don’t have extra IT resources to turn to for inventorying, testing, and remediating their applications for Windows 7 or next year’s Windows 8. In fact, most firms that are largely standardised on Windows XP, haven’t been through a similar effort in five years or more and may lack the key personnel who led these projects previously.”xviii Ask any of the major service integrators and they will tell you that you do not have the skills to do this on your own; but then they would, wouldn’t they? Only you know what skills and resources you can apply to the programme.

Camwood, an applications specialist, says that one of the most common mistakes in Windows 7 migration is “...asking outsourcers to do what they are not built to do,” suggesting in the application space that “packaging and sequencing apps have become commoditised services, often performed in bulk by outsourcers. That’s a good thing. But bulk outsourcers aren’t set up to do the up-front discovery, planning and validation work that’s essential for a successful migration. In other words: even the best outsource packagers in the world are only as good as the information you give them.”xix

“Most firms...may lack the key personnel who led these projects previously”

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The answer is to identify the gaps within your in-house capability, covering:

• Project/programme management

• Solution engineering

• Application rationalisation, currency and compatibility, remediation, packaging and testing

• Readiness logistics

• Deployment

One consideration at this point is that outsourcers may negotiate on a fixed fee per application or per desktop deployment. If your migration looks like it will be hugely complex, you may wish to back off some of the variable cost risk to an outsourcer for specific functions.

Process

A good end-to-end process will enable accountability and responsibility definition; an understanding of dependencies, a clear timeline definition and targeted task automation.

Many service integrators and analysts focus on the technical process of moving a user to Windows 7. The trap is that technology is rarely the reason behind large scale migration failure. Success is a collaboration between people, process and technology and your programme approach should reflect that.

As an example technical process, here is desktop migration as defined by HPxx:

1. Discover your users, hardware, and software applications

2. Associate the user to workstations and applications to produce useful client segmentation

3. Designing the architecture to determine the right solutions for each user segment

4. Conduct application compatibility testing

5. Design remediation strategies

6. Communicate with users, migration teams, and your key business stakeholders

7. Approve software and hardware changes

8. Implement deployment, user training, and user support

As processes go, this is quite a good technical one, outlining the critical steps for one computer (or a group of identical users) to be migrated to a new operating system. For a large organisation, the challenge is that technical process alone does not scale. We would argue that you must define process by understanding all of your goals, drivers and big rules, and that processes are interdependent and must be fully agreed and documented.

We’d recommend building process around outcomes. As de Orlov – someone with years of desktop migration expertise – puts it, you should: “...define an unambiguous migration process. All the extended team members, including the application developers, the packaging team and the testing team, must understand what they’re expected to do and when they need to do it. The verifiable outcomes for each phase must be defined so that the end of one step and the beginning of another can be clearly tracked and measured. Accountability will help the programme achieve major milestones.”xxi

Business engagement

Outside of the odd training plan, end users are often seen as a distraction rather than an integral part of the programme. This is a critical mistake. In large organisations, the perception of the entire project can be hugely influenced by a small number of vociferous individuals.

What goes wrong?

• Businesses are not engaged early enough in the process

• Top level programme sponsorship is not clear

• Deployment schedules are often driven by IT

• Businesses are not accountable for deployment success

In the best projects, there is a shared responsibility for success between IT and the business. Both areas experience the pain and success of the desktop transformation, and much of the political ‘noise’ is kept below the levels where programme perception can become a problem.

“The trap is that basing migration on a one-to-one level can fail in a complex migration with thousands of moving parts”

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Business engagement can also be enhanced through the use of self service. By encouraging your business contacts, and possibly your end users to participate in the migration readiness and scheduling process, the likelihood of success is increased significantly. This can be as simple as great communication, or as complex as application validation, scheduling and even self-service migration, but whatever you decide, the business and end users will appreciate the involvement. After all, it is their personal computer environment that you are changing.

Application discovery and inventory

Successful Windows 7 migration is often about how you manage the applications. Knowing what you have and whether it is current is the critical first step. In the past 10 years, the majority of large companies have invested in desktop management tools such as like Microsoft SCCM and Symantec Altiris to inventory their workstation estate, . Your organisation probably already has a good level of inventory data, but it is sadly true that a many organisations either do not trust this data, or want to explore to a lower level of granular detail than is available.

One area that can help speed up the decision as to which applications to take forward to Windows 7 is to discover application usage within your organisation. As Centrix put it: “Combined with hardware and software inventory, application usage information enables organisations to plan their desktop transformation projects with a high degree of confidence.”xxii

If most companies feel that they have a good handle on workstation inventory, it is the application inventory that concerns most project managers, and the inability to get a concise application list that they can manage. This has led to an explosion in the discovery tools and application usage market.

Pros and Cons of application discovery tools

Application discovery can be a road to enlightenment, but beware of putting all your eggs in this particular basket. If you already have good entitlement, install and currency data through your current tools, you may already have enough baseline data to get your project started. Full application discovery can take significant time, not just in collecting data, but often in analysing and making sense of it afterwards. But there are also great benefits in undertaking this work.

Pros

• With application usage data driving your end user application migration lists, you can rationalise the application estate, recover licenses, and subsequently reduce the application readiness effort

• You can analyse suitability for virtualisation based on performance metrics

• You can capacity plan the transformed environment, especially if using a server based computing model (some discovery tools have this functionality)

• They can build a more complete database than inventory tools, as they often capture internet applications, and will inventory everything launched on each PC

• Many include a titling engine that can help to identify legacy application versions in the environment which can be compared to an application currency analysis

Cons

• Most tools track executable launches – this means you can end up with a forest of data that it’s difficult to analyse effectively without a lot of manual classification work

• Many organisations manage and migrate application ‘packages’ (MSIs), and it can be extremely difficult to match executables to application packages (particularly where the executable lives in more than one package). Hit rates of just 20-40% can be common.

• Most discovery tools require an agent rollout and all that entails.

• Most tools require at least 30 days of data collection to build a lifelike activity database

Before embarking on a discovery programme, you must consider how you intend to utilise this data. Imagine you had a full list of all the applications in your estate, who used them and on what machine. Now think about how this links to your managed infrastructure – how are you going to combine what your users are using with what they are entitled to?

A common mistake is that organisations think that by simply collecting data, their project will kick start. The reality is that you’ve just collected a lot of data, and now you have a huge database. As with all tools, the trick is how you are going to turn this data into useful project information.

“Combined with hardware and software inventory, application usage information enables organisations to plan their desktop transformation projects”

A strategic approach to Windows 7 migration | Juriba.com | FutureStateIT.com

Application analysis

Since applications management has such an essential part to play in successful desktop transformation, we asked the professionals in the field to corroborate our own analysis.

In results obtained through the Windows 7 project management LinkedIn group 36% of those surveyed believe application discovery and rationalization can best accelerate desktop transformation. Furthermore, 55% of respondents believe that application readiness is the main blocker to successful migration projects.”xxv

The question being asked is ‘How do you assess your application portfolio so that you can get from the current state to Windows 7, and beyond?’ For most organisations it is an issue. For large organisations, managing tens of thousands of applications, it is a huge area of concern that needs a proper plan of action. Manually testing and identifying a course of action for each application is a time consuming and costly process that is simply not viable for many project teams.

Whilst by no means exhaustive, here is a short list of critical activities that can accelerate application assessment:

1. Rationalise the number of applications

In large enterprises, it is typical that multiple versions of applications and multiple applications performing the same function exist. When applications are rationalized down to only the essential ones and only for users that need to use them, it means less applications to migrate and maintain going forward. Equally, many organisations have hundreds of applications that are used by fewer than five people. It may be worth putting a programme in place to ask the pertinent question as to whether these applications are needed.

2. Analyse the currency of the applications that remain to find out which versions are vendor supported

Identifying if an application is certified for Windows 7 as-is, or if an upgrade is available, means a clear migration path can be mapped and tasks scheduled accordingly.

3. Perform Windows 7 compatibility testing

Performing a deep dive testing of applications that require further investigation means you will be able to answer questions such as: can the application be repackaged or virtualised, does the application need redevelopment or should it be replaced/retired completely?

Once these critical steps are completed, you will be able to create a forward path application roadmap that you can follow prior to your migration and user acceptance testing phase. As a result, you will be reducing risk, timeline, cost, and driving your migration project towards success.

Yet more analysis

Unfortunately, Windows 7 and virtual migration is rarely just about the applications. When analysing compatibility, it is a combination of applications and hardware that will give you your answer on who to target first. Ideally, having the facility to be able to perform this analysis on demand, and in sync with your live environment changes will bring significant value towards identifying your initial deployment forecast. Not only this, but aligning your analysis to your departments and locations is also a critical component in moving forward with your migration.

But remember, analysis is there for just one thing - to help you plan the most efficient migration path. Without the understanding of what to do with the data, and how to map your most efficient route to deployment, great analysis is just a bunch of data.

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“55% of respondents identified application readiness as the main blocker to desktop migration”

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Summary

The advent of virtualisation suggests there will never be another migration like Windows 7. The complexity of this particular migration is determined by the sheer scale and shared interdependencies common to most enterprises.

Windows 7 migration is therefore an opportunity for root-and-branch change, fixing everything that’s wrong, while reducing cost. Rationalising systems and applications in this way makes it essential to carry out a high-level architecture phase before the project itself commences. It also means that setting a stable course for your project and a properly agreed strategic approach will lay the foundations for migration success.

With most projects lasting 18-24 months, involve the business, don’t just push out from the centre. Good governance will involve the right people, sensible targets and practical incentives. Remember that no single technology developer or vendor has the magic bullet that will cover everything you need - nobody knows your organisation better than you.

While applications lie at the heart of a Windows 7 migration project, you can’t just carry out discovery without knowing how you’re going to use the data. Yes, your migration process will begin with discovery and end with business-as-usual, but it must be focused on solid outcomes. Use outsourcers to fill gaps in in-house capability and to perform routine, commoditised services, but don’t necessarily ask them to take on discovery, validation and planning without internal resource supporting them.

Ensure you have a centralised, auditable view of progress as the project rolls out, and that you’re not reliant on disparate notes, spreadsheets and information locked in the heads of key individuals. Most of all, find a way to centralise your business intelligence. Common objectives are most successfully driven by a common platform and resource, and that can only be achieved through highly efficient project and programme management.

Project rollout and beyond

This document is focused on preparation for Windows 7 migration, and we will go into detail about managing the project itself and the return to business-as-usual in future white papers. But in the interest of keeping everything in context, here is a brief checklist for most projects. You’ll find much more information in our ‘Further Reading’ list.

• Change management and process refinement: a Windows 7 migration is like any other project, and there’s always room for continuous improvement

• Internal communications: users are precious about their desktop machines and what they can and can’t do with them, so keep them informed and encourage active participation and a clear support structure throughout the transition period

• When moving into business-as-usual, there are always remediation issues so it’s vital to have a clear view of where problems have occurred, where things have gone smoothly, and the scale of any issues. With such a long project cycle it’s impossible to rely on such information being in the heads of the project team, which is why a centralised and auditable view of progress is essential.

How Dashworks helps Windows 7 migrations

As will be clear from this document, at Juriba, we believe thorough preparation is the key to successful, pain-free Windows 7 migrations. Our flagship product, Dashworks, is the result of years of accumulated knowledge and experience in actively managing large-scale desktop migrations.

Dashworks firstly assists with aggregating, sorting and making sense of your applications, hardware inventory and staffing. It integrates directly with all the leading discovery and analysis software products to create a unique ‘single view’ snapshot to help guide your project planning.

During the project management phase, Dashworks is an easy-to-use tool to schedule, track and assess progress on every application, on every machine, for every user. From a single console, you have an auditable guide to your progress, indicating where things might need to be rolled back or where they can be pushed out according to your available resources. Its simple ‘traffic light’ interface means that, with the addition of the Dashworks agent, user migration can effectively become self-service.

“The customer estimated that it had saved 15 per cent in both project time and overall cost”

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With nearly one million end user migrations already delivered in some of the most complex global companies – like RBS, JPMorganChase and Fujitsu – Dashworks has been proven as an ideal baseline project data warehouse and migration readiness management tool.

Gartner estimates the cost of migration at between $1,000 and $1,900 per device, but we’ve seen examples where the cost is nearer $2,200 – excluding hardware spend. With such large numbers at stake, we were delighted when one of our customers benchmarked Dashworks against traditional spreadsheet-based methods of managing their transformation. The customer estimated that it had saved 15 per cent in both project time and overall cost, and northwards of 50% project management time was recovered.

You can find out much more at www.juriba.com

How AppRx helps simplify ongoing applications managementApplication portfolio assessment is an important step in the Windows 7 migration project as well as ongoing application management. Gartner has found that customers using paid tools for their Windows 7 migration initiative have reduced application testing time by more than 40%xxiv.

AppRx helps an organization create a complete picture of the application portfolio currently under management. It is used to guide what approach to take for each application, whether it be rationalization, version upgrade, repackage, virtualisation, redevelop, or retire.

The solution is SaaS-based and highly adaptable. The collaborative testing platform allows you to speed up the migration, and get greater insight into potential compatibility issues. AppRx is a powerful application management tool that automates and simplifies your application management process. It is a great tool for the Windows 7 migration project, and an even more compelling ongoing solution for managing your application portfolio and keeping on top of the constantly evolving application life cycle.

You can find out much more at www.futurestateit.com

Further reading

There are plenty of resources in the public domain that can help with Windows 7 migration project planning. Here are a few of our favourites.

Best Practices for Migrating a Large Enterprise to Microsoft Windows 7. Rajavelu, Eylon and Duncan – Intel, Oct 2010

Windows 7 Deployment. Gillen and O’Donnell – IDC, Dec 2009

Windows 7 Migration Tips and Tricks: Special Report – Network World, June 2011

Windows 7 Migration: Inevitable and Necessary – Security Innovation and TechTarget, 2011

Windows 7 Migration Guide (Supplement to Dell Power Solutions 1/2010) – Dell, 2010

Windows 7 migration challenges and best practices for large enterprise and public sector – Dell, 2011

Windows 7 Commercial Adoption Outlook. Gray and Kane – Forrester, Nov 2010

Application Migration Intelligence – Camwood

Avoiding the 8 common mistakes of Windows 7 migration – Dell, 2011

Cost Model: Migration to Windows Vista and Windows 7. Silver – Gartner 2009

Windows 7 Migration: Formulating a Smart Application Compatibility Testing and Remediation Strategy – Flexera Software, 2011

Ten essentials for migrating enterprise desktops to Windows 7 – TechTarget, 2011

Eleven Mistakes in Windows 7 Migration – Camwood

Windows 7 Done Right: From Migration to Implementation. Healey, Cushing and Anderson – IDC, July 2010

Preparing for your Windows 7 Migration – Centrix Software

The Economics of Desktop Transformation – Centrix Software

Windows 7 Migrations: An Industry View of Enterprise Application Compatibility – ChangeBASE, July 2011

A strategic approach to Windows 7 migration | Juriba.com | FutureStateIT.com

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Windows 7 migration challenges and best practices for large enterprise and public sector – (Forrester survey) Dell, 2011

An enterprise view of migrating to Windows 7: A CIO’s guide to stepping off the rollercoaster – McCune, November 2009

Referencesi “In various Gartner polls and surveys, 80 per cent of respondents report skipping Windows Vista.” – Michael Silver, Analyst,

Gartner, June 2010

ii Cost Model: Migration to Windows Vista and Windows 7. Silver – Gartner 2009

iii Windows 7 made easier with Citrix XenDesktop – Citrix, 2009

iv Windows 7 migration challenges and best practices for large enterprise and public sector – (Forrester survey) Dell, 2011

v http://searchenterprisedesktop.techtarget.com/feature/The-basics-of-planning-an-enterprise-desktop-migration-to-Windows-7

vi http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1378413

vii https://marketing.dell.com/Global/FileLib/Win7/win-7-migration.pdf

viii Understanding Desktop Virtualization – Intel, 2010

ix Windows 7 Done Right: From Migration to Implementation. Healey, Cushing and Anderson – IDC, July 2010

x An enterprise view of migrating to Windows 7: A CIO’s guide to stepping off the rollercoaster. McCune – Avenade, July 2009

xi http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=1279113&ref=g_noreg

xii Windows 7 migration challenges and best practices for large enterprise and public sector – (Forrester survey) Dell, 2011

xiii HP Client Migration Services – HP, November 2010

xiv Windows 7 made easier with Citrix XenDesktop – Citrix, 2009

xv http://searchenterprisedesktop.techtarget.com/feature/The-basics-of-planning-an-enterprise-desktop-migration-to-Windows-7

xvi Best Practices for Migrating a Large Enterprise to Microsoft Windows 7. Rajavelu, Eylon and Duncan – Intel, Oct 2010

xvii http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/apr05/hanford/#N100A7

xviii Windows 7 migration challenges and best practices for large enterprise and public sector – Dell, 2011

xix Eleven Mistakes in Windows 7 Migration – Camwood

xx HP Client Migration Services – HP, November 2010

xxi http://searchenterprisedesktop.techtarget.com/feature/The-basics-of-planning-an-enterprise-desktop-migration-to-Windows-7 – Lucian Lipinsky de Orlov

xxii The Economics of Desktop Transformation – Centrix Software

xxiii Gartner Newsroom, ID1439513, September 2010

xxiv Applications Compatibility Assessment Tools for Windows 7 Migrations - Gartner, December 2010

xxv http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Windows-7-Project-Management-3978963?gid=3978963&trk=hb_side_g

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Juriba is a Microsoft partner, developing software to help enterprise organisations migrate between Microsoft desktop platforms. Our unique approach to Windows 7 project management has delivered readiness analysis for over 750,000 users across the globe. Our Dashworks software continues to accelerate desktop transformation work in every industry sector.

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