MIGRATION
Upgrades, bug fixes, and even replacement products are inevitable. One
would hope they could stay up-to-date, but that is not always feasible, practical,
or even productive. In fact we encourage our clients to wait up to six
months after an initial software offering to let others work out the initial
problems. For example, Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 was released in
Oct 2000 and now that Microsoft has released the first upgrade, we are recommending
clients migrate to it if they can benefit from the next evolution of collaboration
tools.
With an increased dependency on computer environments with ever-increasing
complexity and interdependency, migration is also getting more and more complex.
Despite the hard work software vendors have put into automated migration software
and wizards, one must still perform careful planning to include:
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Learn how to use and administer the new software
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Determine the features and configurations beneficial to your company
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Prototype the new software offline using your company's data
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Plan the migration path and schedule
- Determine contingency plans if the move forward is unsuccessful
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Provide sufficient backups
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Estimate and schedule any training and downtime
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Perform the upgrade
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Test the upgrade and determine success or failure
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Monitor the performance and operation of the new software
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Develop new or modify existing procedures
For mission-critical company systems, it is important have contingency plans
to allow you to rollback if the upgrade fails. Most upgrades only go forward
and cannot be rolled back, thus you must be sure that your backups are fully
functional and complete.
We've been surprised how many computer environments do not perform backups,
are unaware that the backup procedures are incomplete, and/or the backup process
is not routinely tested via actual restore tests. Before any major upgrade,
it is important to verify that the backup media is readable and that the backup/restore
procedure is sufficient to fully restore the system.
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