The Light at the End of the Windows 7 Tunnel…
On 09.02.10, In IT Asset Management, IT Budgets, By Walker White
…May be the train heading straight for you. At least, that’s the message I got from a recent Gartner Research note, “Prepare for Your Windows 7 Migration Crunch.” I’m not writing to spread uncertainty and doubt, although a healthy fear seems called for in this case. Windows 7 is clearly a great operating system and enterprise-grade in every way. Migrating to it, however, is going to be a major operation for any enterprise IT program that contains significant slices of Windows machines. In short, about 99.9 percent of every public and private sector organization on earth.
But the gist of the study is clear. Windows 7 crunch time is drawing nigh, with 2011 shaping up to be the last, best opportunity to migrate before ISVs drop support for Windows XP applications in 2012 and Microsoft ends extended support for Windows XP in early 2014.
Issues faced by IT programs executing in Windows 7 migrations include:
- Sorting out which computers should be replaced, upgraded, or need no hardware upgrades to thrive in the Windows 7 era. IT organizations will also need to know which computers are not a factor in the Windows 7 migration—Unix, Linux, MacOS machines, or those in the “other” OS category. This latter data point might seem something to take for granted, but it can be surprising how entropy, reorganizations, end-users plugging in their own gear, and ideas that sounded good at the time can converge to make asset inventory reports exciting reading.
- Migration has its costs, and these will be a significant one-time stress point on IT budgets during the migration cycle. Some will be unavoidable—upgrade components, accelerated replacement of non-Win 7 capable computers—but there is a lot IT departments can do to reduce labor, help desk, planning and general friction costs through good planning based on accurate assessment of the current and desired future state of the infrastructure.
- Migration-readiness is more than a hardware issue. IT departments need to consider application compatibility issues when migrating. I admit that this alone triggered a short spell of dizziness and anxiety, harkening back to my days on the front lines of infrastructure management.
- Windows 7 technicians and migration experts are going to be in short supply during the Migration cycle. In short, hard to find and expensive when you do corral some of them.
- Finally, the Gartner study recommends investigating automated tools and methods moderate some of these costs while bringing clarity and dispatch to the Windows 7 migration process.
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