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POINT OF VIEW

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indows 7 has already become popular with an extraordinary response from the consumer base worldwide. Why Windows 7 has become the most-awaited operating system today? Approximately 63 percent of all desktops / laptops / workstations worldwide use Windows XP, which has been live for the past eight years. W

Twenty three percent of PC users use Vista. And the remaining market share is fragmented across other Windows, Mac, Linux and OS’ mobile devices, according to Net Application. This is why the industry sees it as a strong case for huge migration to Windows 7 from the previous versions.

Given the performance and the features, which Windows 7 provides, and work around available today to address application compatibility, global enterprises are fast rushing toward this new version of Windows 7. However, the expected quick transition to Windows 7 might see some delays due to variation of Windows 7 release dates across selected countries and slightly longer channel inventory time frames.

Migrating to Windows 7 is a big deal today. When Windows Vista was launched two years ago, not many end users preferred to migrate from Windows XP, on their existing hardware because of the compatibility issues. In fact, Windows Vista users encounter many hardware issues as Vista supports a new driver model and enforces a new security model for device drivers. Therefore, many XP drivers don’t run under Vista and their devices become unusable.

How to Respond to the Disruptive ChangeAggressive migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 is inevitable. The trend demands for a proactive approach to the disruptive change

By Hemant Vijh, Deputy General Manager, End User Computing, HCL Infrastructure Services Division

Migration to

Point of View on Migration to Windows 7: How to Respond to the Disruptive Change, 2009 POINT OF VIEW

© 2009, HCL ISD. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by HCL, all rights reserved.

Benefits of Migrating to Windows 7The new version of OS that can be run on wider range of computing devices has streamlined user interface (UI) and improved taskbar, including improvements in ability to discover things, personal files and media. Performance and usability improvements make Windows 7 more compelling than its previous versions. Windows 7 is pitched at faster performance of the OS and reduced interruptions from OS notifications and multi touch support, which will go hand in hand with new Nettops/all-in-one PCs that will be launched by several PC vendors in 2009. Also it will allow improved device management and home networking system called HomeGroup and easier discoverability and connectivity to available networks. It also has support provisions for new content types and digital TV making watching TV, videos and other digital content easier.


Advantages of Windows 7

“Windows 7 introduces a number of manageability improvements that can reduce total cost of ownership by helping to increase automation, improve user productivity, and provide flexible administrative control to meet compliance requirements. This paper provides an overview of each of these improvements.”

Increased Automation Scripting is the most flexible and powerful automation tool for IT professionals, and Windows 7 includes an improved version of the Windows scripting environment: Windows PowerShell 2.0.

Keep Users Productive Windows 7 provides many new and improved tools that can help users and IT professionals get back to being productive while minding the bottom line. Users can solve many problems on their own without calling the help desk; when IT help is necessary, it allows IT professionals to rapidly diagnose and solve problems.

Flexible Administrative Control Whether defined by government regulations, customer service-level agreements, or internal security requirements, many organizations have compliance requirements and must centrally define and enforce configuration settings across the organization. Windows 7 includes improved features and new technologies to help IT professionals efficiently meet their compliance requirements.

Source: Microsoft

IDC predicts that more than 19 percent of global IT workforce will be working on Windows 7 by the end of next year. The research firm also forecasts that 117 million Windows 7 units will be shipped during the same time frame.

According to Gartner, for most corporate users, the critical factor is the end of life for Windows XP, which Microsoft will not support after April 2014. Equally important, the research firm anticipates waning third-party support for XP beginning in late 2011 and accelerating through 2012. Preparation work for migration will take at least 12 to 18 months for most organizations. Organizations should, therefore, begin migration planning immediately to maximize their options and enable a controlled and cost-effective migration to Windows 7.

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But migration to Windows is not going to be easy. Enterprises have to be proactive to plan for it. A third-party help will ensure business productivity by providing services that ensure ‘minimum migration issues’ during the migration, bring ‘higher visibility & reporting’ and ‘reduce deployment cost by 25 percent’.

The aggressive adoption trend and related benefits have already created an opportunity for the outsourcing vendor community. Many IT companies are already carrying out pilots with some of their clients. Others have created or are creating solutions that will help in faster deployment of Windows 7.

For example, one of the leading IT-infrastructure service providers, HCL has launched a suite of offerings for Windows 7 migrations XpressMigrate that enables enterprises to minimize risk, bring higher visibility and reduce Windows 7 deployment cost about 25 percent. HCL’s XpressMigrate suite consists of three offerings: Application Compatibility Factory Service (ACFS) for Windows 7 and Application Packaging Service (APS) for Windows 7, Desktop Deployment Factory for Windows 7.


?Environment Assessment: The first step is to establish a project committee and develop an overall project timeline. Companies must obtain a detailed inventory of the user environments, including hardware, software and processes.

?Testing and Mitigation: Some of the common criteria’s to be followed during application compatibility testing are as follows :

Mitigation methods like MS SHIMs can be used whereas some of the custom or ISV specific applications may require a remediation via change in the application code base itself. Organizations can also use this opportunity to consolidate some of the applications and retire some of the older applications in their environment.

?PC Hardware and peripherals: Along with basic configuration, age and model information, the inventory should also include more-detailed data (for example, BIOS levels, memory and disk space), as well as installed components (for example, adapter cards and chipsets). The Windows 7 Hardware Assessment tool can help identify potential issues. For the most part, systems purchased since early 2007 (machines that were released after the introduction of Windows Vista) should have no problems running Windows 7, unless they were poorly configured. Decide which machines to upgrade based primarily on their age and secondarily on their configurations.

?Application Inventory: This can be carried out using free tools like Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit ACT 5.5. The application categorization must be carried out segregating business critical applications from the user critical ones. All business-critical applications must be determined to work on Windows 7, while all user-critical applications must operate or have reasonable workarounds.

?Installation: Does the application install cleanly or are tweaks required??Basic functionality: Does it start up, and do major functions work??Advanced functionality: Do specialized or rarely used functions, such as macros, perform??Interoperation and interaction: Does the application coexist with others, do communication and data

interchange functions still work, and has the user interface changed??Performance: Does the application behave differently, and have hardware requirements changed?

Responding to the Disruptive Change

For the enterprises that are already using Microsoft Windows, we recommend a phased approach with following steps to plan for the Windows 7 adoption in your environment:


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About the Author: Hemant Vijh is working as the Deputy General Manager of End User Computing with HCL Infrastructure Services Division. He has a total industry experience of over 14 years. His special focus is in the areas of end-user computing. He has managed multiple Technology Transformation Projects and Transitions for large global customers (F500), He has also managed operations with focus on delivering services for Service desk, Desktop support, Messaging and other end user applications. Hemant has also been responsible for designing and implementing various processes for the ITSM practice using the ITIL framework for global customers.


?Infrastructure Readiness: Windows 7. Although Microsoft has provided general hardware recommendations, these must be interpreted with respect to corporate standards and procurement practices.

Organizations need to plan for overall Infrastructure readiness before deploying

?Rolling Out Windows 7: Organizations must plan to carry out pilot roll out for two to three months before going for large scale deployments. Critical to all testing and piloting is ensuring that a suitable feedback mechanism is in place. Once the piloting process has been completed, the preparation process is effectively completed organizations can then conduct staged rollouts of the OS to their user populations.

Determining the deployment techniques that will be used is also a critical decision for any organization. Even organizations bringing in Windows 7 on new equipment need to review image distribution, software deployment, and migration processes for data and settings. Organizations should also familiarize themselves with newer options, such as MDOP (Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, which includes MED-V, App-V ) which might be appropriate for some applications. Organizations also must identify the implications of leveraging new administrative capabilities in Windows 7 and plan to use some of them to their advantage.

We recommend that use migration to Windows 7 as an opportunity to transform the End User landscape by utilizing some of the new features available with Windows 7. Plan early and engage with experts to reduce costs of deployment and smoother adoption to Windows 7.

With additional inputs from: Vandit Dixit, Product Manager, End User Computing

Information sources: Gartner, IDC and Net Application

HCL


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About HCL:

About HCL ISD:

HCL is a $5.2 billion leading global IT-services company with operations in 26 countries, 56,000 employees. The company has 20 global delivery centers. HCL focuses on ‘transformational outsourcing’ and offers integrated portfolio of services including software-led IT solutions, remote infrastructure management, engineering and R&D services and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).

HCL Technologies Infrastructure Service Division (HCL ISD) is the fastest growing line of business of HCL Technologies. An end-to-end owner of IT infrastructure through differentiated value proposition ‘Industrialized IT Management’. The concept of Industrialization is truly utility-based with cloud computing as one of the platform of delivering that service. What the customer gets is optimized, flexible, centralized, standardized and business aligned IT. Its key service offerings include: end-user computing, data center and mainframe services, integrated operations management service, cross functional services, security and network services.

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