The first thing that companies planning a Windows 10 migration need to consider, according to Riverbed EMEA Technical Director, Advanced Technology Group, Office of the CTO, Paul Griffiths, is the end-user experience.
He explains: "A successful Windows 10 migration project shouldn't be measured by how many people you have in your organisation running the new operating system. It should be measured in terms of improvements achieved in both user and application performance."
Griffiths says: "If companies haven't already started a Windows 10 migration, they're planning to during the course of the year. There are a number of compelling reasons for organisations to embark on this journey, primarily around Microsoft no longer supporting operating systems that are older than Windows 7. Also, security is another key issue for some of the earlier versions of Windows."
It's clear that companies have a really strong business need to migrate to Windows 10. According to Griffiths, a successful project implementation is all about the planning. "Experience has shown that the Windows 10 migration process can take longer than is initially allowed for. If you have thousands of users to on-board, it could take somewhere between 12 and 18 months. So most businesses are currently somewhere on the journey, either in the planning phase or a couple of months in."
The key thing, says Griffiths, is for organisations to realise these migrations take time, while still moving through the migration process as swiftly as possible, in order to realise the benefits of running a Windows 10 operating system in their environment.
Over and above the obvious security benefits, customers can use newer applications based on Windows 10 that'll result in operational improvements for the organisation. However, in order to do this and get through the migration process as swiftly as possible, businesses have to plan, and the first step is understanding exactly what the key areas are that the migration is going to touch on.
Griffiths recommends that businesses embarking on a Windows 10 migration project consider the following five points:
1. Conduct a complete audit of your end-user environment, including all laptops, desktops and other devices within the business. Note which operating systems are being used where. Most businesses have a mix of Windows operating systems ranging from XP to 7 or 8; it's important to understand which devices are running which software.
2. Bring your own device (BYOD) also needs addressing; you need to know which users are using their own devices, or a combination or their own and company-owned devices. This could impact on some of the tools and software programs they access. It also allows you to only install applications that users actually use. If users are using personal devices for business applications, then those devices also need to be included in the upgrade project plan.
3. Consider where your users are located geographically within the organisation, as pushing out software updates to people situated in remote locations could be difficult, depending on network access. This could have a massive impact on the success of your migration project.
4. Assess the performance of your business-critical applications prior to the upgrade so that you can measure performance afterwards and compare the two - and hopefully see an improvement.
5. In a similar vein, measure end-user experience before and after the change in order to assess the success of the migration project.
The bottom line when it comes to proving the success of any Windows 10 migration, says Griffiths, is being able to prove back to the business that any security issues have been dramatically reduced compared to previous versions of the operating system, and demonstrating that employee productivity is at worst no different to before, but hopefully improved. Auditing and baselining performance before, during and post-migration are key to being able to measure success.
Click here to read a full Windows 10 migration guide.
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