You IT guys can read that lingo. This summer has dunked me into several Windows 2003, Exchange 2003 and Office 2003 projects. Undertaking any IT project is fraught with risks and requires a combined understanding from both the technology as well as the business perspective. That’s where Value Management comes in.
One project combined all those technologies plus more. Although the work tasks are now in process, the planning started about 10 months ago. I first thought the greatest difficulty was going to be working around all the users. That’s right: NO downtime. But Microsoft had that figured out already with plenty of wizards to help anyone through an upgrade and migration. No the biggest issue we came up against was Linux.
You see all those old PCs and servers that could no longer run Windows, still have a lot of umph for Linux. And yes the latest round of software does work better together, but there’s plenty of potholes and dangerous curves ahead. My ugliest issue was booting Linux terminal machines using an IP address from Windows DHCP and pulling down a Linux kernel via Linux tftpboot. Sorry for all the lingo, but I’m putting together a whitepaper and am hoping to have it ready by the end of the project (some time in September.) That’s on the technical side.
Our greatest achievement though is on the business side. Boy did the client save money! The final figures aren’t in, but I estimate we achieved a 50% savings from a total Microsoft solution. The old hardware has at least another 3-4 years of life and everyone is getting their work done. Now there’s a reason for celebration.
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