Domain Migrations - First Steps
Ok so your company is merging with another one and you have just been assigned the task of merging the computing infrastructures. So where do you start?
First clarify the scope of your "infrastructure merge" and get some dates. By "dates" I mean when are you expected to have these services migrated and how "operational" do they have to be?
Below is a list I threw together that should be used as a starting point for your migration. You may have many more items than I listed or less...
What are you merging?
- Desktops?
- Laptops?
- Servers?
- Switches?
- Applications - Which ones? (You can ask to delay this one until you've done some research on what apps you have running on the network.)
- MX records - Other DNS records?
- Phone systems (VOIP and other analog systems)
- Email systems?
- Mobile messaging (Blackberry, Good Link, Active Sync, etc)
- Wireless infrastructure
- Edge Security devices (SSL VPN's, Firewalls, Blue Socket or similar,etc)
- Databases?
- Remote employees?
- How many Computers (end user systems) do you have? Will they all be migrating? (Some companies use a migration as a way to phase out old systems and buy new ones. A technology refresh of sorts.)
- How many Servers will be moving to the new domain? (remember I said this series will have a Microsoft lean to it) As I said in the first paragraph this could be a way to refresh some of your systems and get rid of some that are not in use anymore.
- Switches, you may not have to do much here since these are'nt domain specific (for the most part) but you probably will have to set up some new subnets or deal with other routing issues to the other domain or realm.
- Printers
- Security Systems
- Determine the networked and desktop applications on your domain that are specific and important to the function of your company.
- Business intelligence - SAP, etc.
- Finance - Payroll, Purchasing, QAD, etc.
- Databases - Access, SQL, etc
- Office Applications
- Graphic Applications
- Note: In one company I performed a merger at we identified over 265 applications used by employees. 120 of them were deemed "business critical" and 75 of them were deemed "must have running" on the first day of the merger.
- How many employees are there locally?
- How many remote?
- What is the expectation for computing services for employees during and after the migration?
- Will everybody be staying or is there going to be a large staff reduction?
- How many have handheld devices? - smart phones, pda's, etc.
- Intranet - will it still be available to employees after they have moved? Will they need it during the move?
- Wireless Access - Will the "other" company employees be coming over during the migration and need access back to the home office? If you have a wireless perimeter security device like Blue Socket then you will need to set up access for them. As well, make sure your firewall is open for the VPN client "they" use.
- Helpdesk - which one do they use for requests?
- Order Entry Systems -
- Financial Tracking Systems -
So after you compile the list of hardware, systems and services that will need to be migrated you should work with the different "Migration Teams" to develop timelines around when these different pieces can be migrated. You may not be able to migrate various aspects of your infrastructure until other items are migrated. I know this seems elementary but I have seen the smallest planning mistakes bring and entire migration to a halt.
Once you have some definitive dates get it into a plan, an excel spreadsheet works well sometimes better than MS Project or other high end planning solutions (Everybody has excel so that means everyone can open your planning document).
One thing I didn"t put into the list above but is critical is your budget. Without it your just guessing at what you can complete and when. You may need outside consulting help to perform the migration (if it's your first it's a good idea) do you have the money for consultants?
You may need to purchase new equipment, money?
You see what I mean, money is the driver for every merger or acquisition so get your piece of the pie early in the planning phases so you don"t get caught short at a critical juncture in your migration.
Next I will discuss the technical aspects of a migration in "Migrations - The Technical stuff"
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