Developing efficiencies: Rollout servers and PCs 10 time zones away without leaving your office

Client Profile
A NYSE-listed company operating on a worldwide scale with offices in half a dozen countries on several continents.

The Challenge
The Insource Managed IT Services group, which functions as the client’s own onsite IT department, is actively engaged in numerous projects around the globe. To take a team of IT specialists halfway across the globe for a two-week project means that other equally important projects slip.

The office consists of 3 Novell servers, GroupWise for email, a mixture of desktops and laptops totaling 25 machines with Windows 9x, Windows 2000, and Windows NT. “My Documents” are stored on the user’s individual workstation.

The Expectation

• Consolidate to one server running Windows 2003 Server
  
• Migrate from GroupWise to Exchange
  
• Migrate all workstations to Windows XP Professional and Office 2003 Professional.
  
• Complete the project over a weekend that consists of only one day, in reality 36 hours – without leaving Houston. This is to be immediately followed with full support.

• Build the server in Houston and ship it to the office half a world away
  
• Configure the router, switches and PIX firewall in Houston and ship them
  
• Find a volunteer in the office to be the IT group’s eyes and hands
  
• Plan thoroughly and test extensively
  
• Communicate to all the users that this rollout with take place in phases over 6 weeks with the big switchover on the final “go-live” weekend
  
• Begin moving “My Documents” from the workstations to the server
  
• Conduct “dry runs” to test the process and hardware

The Benefits
The rollout was a huge success. Users were excited about the performance improvement utilizing the new technology. The office business leaders were ecstatic about being brought into the technology fold with the rest of the organization. Travel savings exceeded $25,000. IT employees were able to complete other tasks which would not have been possible if they had been traveling for two weeks.

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