White Paper

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Tel Sales: 0800 195 2373 " Fax: 0800 195 2385 " NumaraSoftware.co.uk

Whether or not a Windows 7 upgrade is inevitable for your

organization, it s almost a guarantee at some point you ll have to

manage a major OS migration. Whenever you re faced with that

battle, there are some key things you need do to ensure success.

Equipping Yourself for Migration Success

One thing on which everyone agrees is that you need to get the

lay of your land before planning an OS migration. If you don t have

a comprehensive view of your current IT environment at the start,

it s impossible to accurately estimate the time and effort required

to get to the end. Before embarking on a Windows 7 migration, it s

imperative to have the right tools in place to plan, deploy, track,

and report on the journey.

In order to take command and manage a successful Windows 7

migration campaign, you need to:

1. Conduct Reconnaissance: Take stock of your IT hardware and

create a comprehensive map of your IT environment.

2. Create a Plan of Attack: Determine what hardware and

software you need to upgrade, replace, retire, re-lease, and so

on so they re compatible with Windows 7. Also design a rollout

plan and timeline that will cause the least disruption to users.

3. Brief those in Charge: Create and present reports clearly

outlining required updates before migration; time and budget

required for updating and upgrading; and how users will be

impacted and when. You ll also need to produce regular progress

reports and updates for stakeholders along the way.

4. Bolster the Troops: No matter how smooth the migration, you

will inevitably get calls from users who need help using the new

features or can no longer access a non-compliant application.

You need to make sure the right service and support tools and

staff are in place to handle the increase of incoming inquiries.

5. Deploy: Use tried and true deployment automation tools to

rollout Windows 7, with minimal time required by IT staff, and

little disruption to end-users.

1.   Conduct Reconnaissance:

Not surprisingly, a main consideration in any upgrade decision is

cost. In order to get an accurate picture of the time and budget

required to migrate to Windows 7, you must factor in the need for

pre-migration updates or purchasing new hardware.

To support Windows 7 a PC must have:

"   1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64)

processor

"   1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

"   16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

"   DirectX

 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Manually checking every single desktop against these requirements

can be nearly impossible, especially if your organization has

numerous desktops spanning multiple locations. An automated

asset discovery solution will significantly reduce the time and

resources required to identify non-compliant PCs. A good discovery

tool will allow you to quickly search for all computers falling into

specific parameters: less than 1 GB of RAM and/or less than

16 GB of available disk space, for example. This enables you to

immediately produce a report

detailing    how    many    PCs

will need to be upgraded or

replaced,   and   estimate   the

number of resources required

to do so.

This   is   also   the   time   to

take stock of your software

licenses and determine what

can   be   upgraded,   reused

or    terminated.    It    doesn t

make   any   sense   to   spend

time   migrating   obsolete   or

outdated applications, so take

this opportunity to rid your

environment of these items.

Use this discovery phase to

look beyond your Microsoft

licenses

to

recapture

money   wasted   on   duplicate

or underused licenses, and identify potentially costly software

license non-compliance issues. By assessing who s using which

applications and how often, you can not only optimize software

usage, but also identify applications that may no longer be

available or work once Windows 7 is deployed. Then you can warn

users that they will no longer have access to their non-compliant

software or may need to request access to certain applications

after the migration.

Windows 7 Information

Resources

Gartner s Special Report on

Windows 7

     CIO.com s Windows 7 Bible

     Gizmodo s Windows 7: The

Complete Guide

     Microsoft TechNet s Win-

dows Client TechCenter

     CNET Windows 7 Center

     PCWorld Windows 7 Center

     Windows Springboard

Series Blog: Migrating from

Windows XP to Windows 7

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  Five issues that enterprises should examine before they move to Windows 7, by

Gartner Research (October 2009)