Migrations

What we can do for you;

If your on the move, getting the latest and greatest, or moving from Windows NT to Windows 2000, setting up active directory, upgrading Windows 98, or NT clients to Windows XP, or 2000, changing architectures from VAX to Alpha we can help  

Perhaps your migrating from Lotus notes to Exchange, Access to SQL, RDB to Oracle, from a Workgroup to a Domain, from multiple configurations to an SOE (Standard Operating Environment), from an old custom application to a non-bespoke application, or across platforms from VAX to Alpha, or to a cluster.

Possibly you have some proprietary application or hardware which is costing you a fortune to maintain and you feel your being held to ransom by the vendor.  

Perhaps you have bought another company as one of the few growing organisations and need to migrate their data and applications to your existing systems, or integrate a mixture.

Conceivably you still have ISDN WAN services ( which are end of life) and you need to migrate to Frame, or an On-Ramp service, or considering using the Internet.

IT4U can help with any of the above plus a host of others possible options, but if your looking for someone to re-write your existing application on another platform, then keep looking.

Why do you need this service:

If you have read some of the other pages the theme is the same. With any of these tasks the diverse lateral thinking combined with experience which has been gained either directly or indirectly is where we can help, and save you from issues at a latter date.

There is no shortage of technical people in most cases for a specific task, in today's market  its highly likely that your favourite technocrat will be made redundant shortly and often the manufacture will have a high level of technical knowledge, but that's as far as it goes.

The actual migration of data, specific configuration issues, customization, business rules, and how to get the best out of it are rarely propagated. Your supplier has provided a price and service, and wants to do as least as possible, or just enough to get paid. Unless you have a clear documented set of requirements, you will be left with issues, or adding dollars.

So now  consider for a moment a simplistic example. You are migrating from Windows 98 (or Windows 2000) to Windows XP on your home PC, which has all your favourite digital pictures, including the ones you don't show everyone else, your shortcuts, favourites, email, documents MP3's, etc At home you have a couple of PC, in your office you have 150 plus. You have just upgraded your home PC, because Bill likes to consume your memory with his logo and copy right messages, and send reports of the bugs automatically back to the developers to get right  just before they release the next version in a week. But you did not have Bills cheque book so you didn't buy a P4 2ghz machine with 40GB hard drive and 500MB of memory. The sales partner sells you that yes you can simply upgrade your 150 or so PC's at work subject to a few if and buts, and running some application compatibility tests. He or she is not wrong, but they haven't told you everything, nor did they look at the impact to your business, the real cost, the extra traffic as people down load there remote profiles and the licensing implications, etc

So now you have just upgraded your home machine(s) and the office is doing the same thing. You are taking the opportunity to do your home machine while the Microsoft partner is doing your office. Suddenly you find out that all your pictures now take up a third more disk space, but why a jpg is jpg, well no its not, and your word documents with pictures inserted just got bigger, and I didn't have TCP at home, and what about active directory, then you start thinking about your office. You slowly sink into your chair why didn't someone tell me these things. You arrive at work on Monday and because you have a  10MB flat network with 20MB mail boxes and 150 users who are trying to down load , their profile you have 150 x 20Mb worth of data trying to traverse your network as they login all at about 9:30 your network has stopped, and your servers are running out of disk because your users also have their jpg stored on them, along with there MP3. Oh and your internet email connections is saturated by licensing, automated bug reports, easier access to the web, remote control, chat, net meeting etc.

While here I have targeted Microsoft, this is only because most people can relate in some fashion and understand the concept. At the end of the day, they are probably no different to your favourite vendor, with the exception to there credit if you ask or look hard enough you can find this information, its not hidden.

Having completed a number of migrations you get to know the traps, the things to look for and the question to ask beyond the specific migration task, which in all probability the supplier has got down pat. These wider issues  are what will save  or break your day.

So what is it worth to you to find out before hand what some of the items to be considerd are, and review the implications. Perhaps just provide some assistance  in regard to integration issues between migrating products or platforms. The cost of your call will save you either time or money in the longer term.

Call now and put the concept to a test.

Remember our policy "No fix No charge" if we cant offer or contribute constructively we wont.

13/05/2002 04:42 PM