A guide to migrating your IT estate from Windows XP to Windows 7

a whitepaper from Computer Weekly

Many companies are still using Windows XP and seem happy with it, but Windows XP – while being excellent for the job it was developed for – is no

longer fit for purpose. The operating system came to market in 2001, based on developments that had been going on since Windows NT 4.0 came to market in 1996, itself based on previous NT code from 1993. Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been and Windows XP should no longer be accepted as a suitable desktop for today’s business needs. Microsoft ends support for Windows XP in 2014, so those businesses that haven’t already done so need to start migration plans this year to leave enough time to test and roll out desktops.

Contents

How to upgrade to Windows 7 page 2

Cliff Saran discusses the steps an IT department should take to simplify the migration from Windows XP

Tools for migrating XP applications to Windows 7 page 4

Gartner has identified tools that can ease the transition to Windows 7. Cliff Saran reports

How Avis is bridging the application gap between IE6/XP and Windows 7 page 5

The car rental firm is using UniBrows to support IE6-based applications as it switches operating system. Cliff Saran reports

Virtual XP applications in Windows 7 page 6

Virtualisation allows Windows XP applications to run in Windows 7. David Johnson looks at virtualisation best practice

Why you must move to Windows 7 page 8

Clive Longbottom has heard why organisations don’t upgrade from Windows XP – and explains why they must

These articles were originally published in the Computer Weekly ezine.

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buyer’s guide

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buyer’s guide

M icrosoft ends support for Windows XP in 2014. Realistically, businesses will need to start migra-

tion plans in 2012, to leave enough time to test and roll-out desktops.

Hardware and software auditOrganisations should try to eliminate Windows XP by the end of 2012, says Gartner. According to Gartner’s Microsoft Windows 7 and Office Key Initiative Overview by Stephen Kley-nhans and Michael Silver, as the end of support for Windows XP looms,

A product like Centrix WorkSpace iQ can then be used to see how these ap-plications are being used, by measur-ing network activity.

With potentially thousands of ap-plications to check, organisations must starting migrating from Win-dows XP to Windows 7.

“You have to get cracking in 2012 to meet the 2014 deadline,” warns Paul Schnell, CTO at AppDNA, a company which specialises in appli-cation compatibility.

How to upgrade to Windows 7Cliff Saran discusses the steps an IT department should take to simplify the migration from Windows XP

Test application compatibilitySchnell says Windows 7 is no ordi-nary desktop upgrade. In fact, treat-ing it just like a Windows upgrade would be missing the point of Win-dows 7, he says. Windows 7 offers the chance for IT managers to rethink how they approach desktop IT. Busi-nesses have to think about their IE6 websites and applications, whether to take advantage of 64-bit computing available on Windows 7 or use a vir-tual desktop infrastructure.

enterprises must ensure they are positioned to complete a migration to Windows 7 in a timely and cost-effec-tive manner to avoid disruptions.

Kleynhans and Silver note that CIOs and IT leaders will be confront-ed by a host of challenges, as well as some degree of risk, as they work through the preparation and deploy-ment processes. “Issues such as soft-ware compatibility, licensing agree-ments and service-level agreements move to the fore.”

The place to start is with a hard-ware and software audit. This allows IT departments to discover what hardware will run Windows 7 and catalogue the applications users run. Depending on how much flexibility IT gives business users to deploy their own desktop software, IT can find it has thousands of applications.

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“We want to get to the point where we understand our users. Our top priority is service continuity”

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Cheshire East Borough Council is using Centrix WorkSpace iQ, a user computing analytics tool, to review its current IT estate as it prepares to migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7.

The borough was formed in 2009, following the restructuring of local government in the UK.

The council, which shares an ICT service with Cheshire West & Chester Council, has just completed phase one of its discovery and review process across its desktop estate, which supports over 4,000 users.

Centrix provides unified user computing analytics designed to give organisations an insight into application usage, tracked at a session level.

With WorkSpace iQ, the local authority has analysed its installed application and hardware assets and gathered detailed intelligence on how its users consume and use the council’s IT resources.

Cutting redundant applicationsThe user and asset insight it has across its computing environment is being used to support decision-making around application licensing, operating system migra-tions and the use of virtualisation across its estate.

Alan Myatt, ICT programme manager at Cheshire East

Borough Council, said: “We want to get to the point where we understand our users. Our top priority is service continuity. There is lots of IT to provision.”

The council is at early stage of its desktop transforma-tion project from Windows XP SP3. He expects that over the next two to three years, Cheshire will migrate onto a thin-client architecture based on Windows 7.

“Out of 500 PCs, about 10% will need hardware upgrades. We also have to find a solution to support applications that won’t run on Windows 7,” says Myatt.

The council runs over 500 niche applications, some with only half a dozen users. Using Centrix WorkSpace iQ, Myatt says he can monitor any application that has not been accessed.

“We will shelve any application that has not been used by the network,” says Myatt.

Centrix is also helping the council manage its software assets, which has recently allowed it to renegotiate an improved enterprise agreement with Microsoft.

By looking at application usage Myatt says: “With the Microsoft agreement, we shaped and optimised it.”

For instance, he says: “We would like to reduce the number of applications by a third and some of the more expensive products can be managed.

Case study: Council prepares for XP migrationWindows XP application compati-bility could be a major issue - some XP applications will fail on Windows 7 - but tools such as AppDNA and AOK from Changebase allow organi-sations to check if applications will install on Windows 7. These are au-tomated tools so developers don’t have to test applications themselves.

According to AppDNA, it takes an-ywhere from eight to 40 hours to manually test an application for com-patibility with a new platform, de-pending on its complexity.

Such tools can reduce the manual migration process significantly. It is the 80/20 rule. Most applications should pass through with no compat-ibility issues, leaving fewer that need manual checking.

Post remediation, to fix the com-patibility issue, in Schnell’s experi-ence around 98% of applications should then be able to run on a Win-dows 7 desktop. That leaves 2%, which will need re-engineering.

The move to 64-bit computing will cause 16-bit to become inoperable. This is likely to affect legacy device drivers and older peripheral hard-ware. On modern PCs, users should update 32-bit device drivers to the latest 64-bit versions.

Internet Explorer 6 problemsInternet Explorer 6.0 is likely to cause major headaches, because there is no support for it in Windows 7. IE 6.0 compatibility was killed off in the Microsoft Trustworthy Com-puting initiative to make Microsoft code more secure. As a result, IE6 is not supported in later versions of the browser. Websites and web applica-tions written for IE6 will not work under IE8 or 9. The IE6-dependency issue is a significant problem for many organisations looking to mi-grate from XP and is a blocker to many Windows 7 migrations.

Microsoft says it’s one of the big-gest challenges for Windows 7 pro-jects. The UK public sector and many large businesses rely a lot on IE6 ap-plications. When most were in-stalled, browser compatibility was not as serious an issue as it is now. Some websites and applications are tied to IE6. Browsium is a software company tackling this aspect of Win-dows XP migrations by providing a browser plug-in for IE8 that provides an environment for running IE6 web-sites and plug-ins.

Windows 7 and VDIDesktop virtualisation is no way to lower desktop computing costs. It puts immense strain on the network and storage, but it does offer a strong

model for centralised security that fits well with the consumerisation of IT. Virtual desktop infrastructure is a major undertaking, technically chal-lenging and requires a cultural shift in how people view computing.

The Co-operative Group plans to virtualise up to 2,000 desktops by the end of 2011, reaching 3,500 desktops across its head office and funeral ser-vices branches during 2012.

Moving to Windows 7 also gives the IT department the ability to use App-V, the Microsoft virtualisation technology. But not all applications are suitable for virtualisation.

Application compatibility tools have a role to play here, again, by helping users to identify potential compatibility issues.

Implications of Windows 8Organisations may consider delaying the migration because Windows 8 is just around the corner.

In Gartner’s paper, Don’t Change Your Windows 7 Plans Because of Windows 8, analysts say Microsoft expects Windows 8 to be released to manufacture in April 2012, a date that would allow general availability by mid-year.

In the paper Gartner warns that in-dependent software vendors and en-terprises will likely need nine to 18 months to obtain and test supported applications and plan deployments.

According to Gartner, most organi-sations will not be able to start de-ploying Windows 8 before the end of 2013. “With support for Windows XP ending in April 2014, we believe it would be dangerous for organisations now running XP to attempt to skip Windows 7 and move directly to Windows 8.” ■

1. Software and hardware auditing should be used to determine the state of the desktop in terms of software and hardware configuration. Windows 7 has a minimum specification, in terms of hardware requirements. Generally, businesses are installing 4GB to 8GB of memory on 64-bit ready PC hardware to make the most of what the operating system offers.

2. Reducing the number of applications, by simplifying the desktop PC environment, should be one of the IT department’s top priorities. Ultimately, IT departments should consider migrating towards a fully-fledged virtual desktop environment, but this may be just too big a first step from Windows XP. Tools that monitor application us-age can identify candidate applications to remove from the desktop.

3. Some internal websites and web applications may have been hard-coded to run only in Internet Explorer 6.0. They can be redeveloped, but it may be more cost-effective to user a browser emulation plug-in to run the IE6 environment in a modern Microsoft browser.

4. Automated application compatibility tools test which are good to go and which are incompatible with Windows 7. This can save significant time and money by knowing the answers up front, according to AppDNA.

5. Application testing tools can fix a lot of application compatibility problems automatically, leaving just a few applications that need to be manually re-engineered.

Source: AppDNA

Five pointers for your migration to Windows 7

“It would be dangerous for organisations now running XP to skip Windows 7 and move directly to Windows 8”

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The IT team at Holland train operator RET has been using ChangeBase’s Aok to support its Windows 7 migration, as part of an office move. RET’s IT team supports more than 1,300 PCs and laptops with in excess of 200 applications.

Martin Spijkers, technical system development co-ordinator, said the company currently uses Windows XP, but while it is not experiencing any problems with the operating system, a hardware refresh and operating system (OS) migration was necessary to get the most out of the move.

Twelve people worked on the Windows 7 migration, three of whom were dedicated to the repackaging and migration of the 200+ applications. “We had five months in which to complete the project. The driving reason to migrate was the outdated hardware; it is easier to place new hardware with the latest software OS in a new building than move with old ones,” he said.

Rather than run a proof of concept with Aok, RET ran diligence tests based on a selected number of applica-tions to see how Aok would behave. “We chose a small

number of applications which we knew would give us problems, specifically the applications that are unique to our business. This helped us understand how Aok would run the test, report and fix the application. The due diligence activity gave us the opportunity to do some training on using ChangeBase,” said Spijkers.

All of the company’s 200 applications need to be migrated to Windows 7. By using Aok, he said the team knows which ones are best suited to become virtualised.

By using Aok, making applications Windows 7-compliant will now take a lot less time, said Spijkers. “We can focus on the real compatibility problems that Aok tells us there are and more importantly, where they are. This is particularly important given RET only has two people working to make more than 200 applications Windows 7 compatible.”

“Aok will reduce our packaging time by a third on average. Historically, most of our time was spent on resolving conflicts and searching for compatibility issues. With the Fix-It button [in Aok], minor issues are solved for you – we don’t waste time any more,” he said.

Case study: RET uses Aok to migrate to Windows 7

analysts at Gartner have identified three tools that IT departments can use to help with the migration

from XP to Windows 7: Microsoft’s Application Compatibility Toolkit (Act), which is free; App-DNA, which is now owned by Citrix; and ChangeBase, which has been ac-quired by Quest Software.

Greg Lambert, chief technology of-ficer of ChangeBase, left University in Canada to travel in Europe, but fate led him on a trip to London and drinks in a bar with Credit Suisse. The following day, and 12 hours of interviews later, Lambert had an IT job on the Credit Suisse trading desk.

During his time at the investment bank, Lambert developed some soft-ware to automate building Windows 3.0 to support the bank’s 8,000 appli-cations. After Credit Suisse, he worked as a contractor and noticed other banks had similar application compatibility issues. In 2000, he joined Camwood as a director, help-ing the company build an application compatibility tool. Lambert left to launch his own company, Change-Base, in 2007 to develop a rival product, Aok, while Camwood split the tool from the services side of its business, forming App-DNA.

At the end of October 2011, Change-Base and App-DNA were acquired.

In Gartner’s Application Compati-bility Assessment Tools for Windows 7 Migrations report, analysts Mi-chael Silver and Stephens Kleyn-hans note that AppTitude and Aok examine installation files and appli-cation code, looking for the applica-tions’ requirements for Ring 0 usage (ie the highest level of system ac-cess) and problems with permis-sions or user account controls, that Microsoft introduced in Windows 7 to curb unauthorised applications.

According to Silver and Kleynhans, once an application or its metadata is imported into the product’s database, it can be assessed against other or fu-

Tools for migrating XP applications to Windows 7Gartner has identified tools that can ease the transition to Windows 7. Cliff Saran reports

ture platforms without having to find or reload the application or its meta-data. Application assessment can be done in batches, unattended by a technician. Applications are rated based on their likelihood of running on Windows 7 (or whatever platform is being tested).

Gartner urges IT departments to look at the return on investment of these tools. “The biggest impedi-ment organisations have had in de-ciding to pay for a tool is the seem-ingly high price. Application compatibility assessment tools gen-erally sell for $100 to $200 per appli-cation, and most large organisations have hundreds or thousands of ap-plications (the rule of thumb is one application for every 10 users),” ac-cording to Silver and Kleynhans.

Act, on the other hand, is free and includes agents run on the client PCs to detect runtime application problems with Windows 7 user account control, GINA and several other common oper-ating system issues, according to Gartner. However, Silver and Kleyn-hans warn that most of the application testing needs to be done by technicians and users manually, and results must be entered into the console.

According to Gartner, once testing is completed and results are record-ed, Microsoft Compatibility Admin-istrator must be used to enable tech-nicians to select shims to apply to the application to improve its com-patibility with Windows 7. “This process is manual and time-consum-ing, and requires technical expertise to understand why the application is failing and select the proper shims to fix it,” Silver and Kleynhans state in the report. ■

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Gartner has identified three tools that IT departments can use to help with the migration from XP to Windows 7: Microsoft’s Application Compatibility Toolkit; App-DNA; and ChangeBase

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Browsium, the company that makes UniBrows software, started out because Microsoft did not want to have anything to do with maintaining IE6 compatibil-ity. Gary Schare, president of Browsium was an ex-Microsoft and Internet Explorer product manager. He was at Microsoft when Bill Gates laid down the law on software quality, with the Trustworthy Computing initiative.

One of the biggest casualties was IE6. So while IE8 contains the IE7 rendering engine and IE9 includes IE8,

Schare says that Microsoft wanted to quietly forget IE6. So since Microsoft would not be developing IE6 compatibility itself, Browsium saw a market opportunity.

The tool is configured centrally, and instructs the IE8/9 browser to load up the old IE6 engine for specific sites, using Group Policy in Active Directory to manage desktop policies.

Each URL is evaluated by UniBrows, which Schare says understands the runtime environment required by the web application: “We load the old IE6 engine, which gets invoked in the browsers when needed.”

He says UniBrows works on 64-bit windows systems, as 64-bit Windows contains a 32-bit system with a 32-bit browser engine. “We have not seen anywhere an ActiveX control won’t run on IE7. But there are many sites and web applications that won’t work with Data Execution Prevention (DEP) in IE8.”

Browsium builds IE6 compatibility

L ike many companies, car rental firm Avis Europe is facing the prospect of migrating from Windows

XP to Windows 7. Avis runs distributed IT operations, which means it has quite a broad range of applications, a number of which are browser-based.

Microsoft is stopping develop-ment of Internet Explorer 6. Support for Windows XP and IE6 will end on 14 April 2014, driving all enterpris-es to migrate to Windows 7.

Given the 2014 time bomb on XP support, David Beshaw, head of IT op-erations at Avis Europe, did not want to be stuck on an unsupported operat-ing system. But IE6 will not run di-rectly on Windows 7, so to upgrade the operating system (OS), he needed a way to support the legacy applica-tions and websites that Avis uses to operate its business.

“We encountered some applica-tions which do not work on later versions of IE,” he says. “We did not want to expend development effort

How Avis is bridging the application gap between IE6/XP and Windows 7The car rental firm is using UniBrows to support IE6-based applications as it switches operating system. Cliff Saran reports

to rework these applications. Chang-ing from one browser to another of-fers no perceived benefit from a business perspective.”

While IT benefits from improve-ment in security, the business only sees the cost of the upgrade, which is something he wanted to avoid. “There is a lot of focus to get maxi-mum value out of IT. We want to concentrate our efforts on changes in the business rather than keeping the lights on,” said Beshaw.

When users first started building web applications, no one imagined that the browser would be less com-patible than the operating system as HTML was supposed to make appli-cations compatible. “We did not foresee that browsers would change quicker than the operating system. It is hard to say how many applica-tions run in the browser, but around 10% of our applications are not compatible with IE7/8.”

Avis considered swapping brows-ers, to use either Firefox or Chrome, but IE6 still offers the controls cor-porates need, such as the ability to manage patches outside the suppli-er’s patch cycle.

Given that not all applications were incompatible, Beshaw had a choice: “Either we fix the

applications, stay with XP or imple-ment a compatibility product.”

Reworking incompatible applica-tions was not an option. “In terms of cost analysis, we were talking about weeks of redevelopment time,” he says. “For even a simple application, you would lose man-weeks of devel-opment effort.”

Desktop virtualisation was an op-tion, but virtualising IE6 is not the most efficient use of virtualisation.

Beshaw says Avis is moving to-wards virtualisation, but it is a long-term project. He wants to move off IE6, rather than risk fragmenting the user base by attempting to keep IE6 running on some users’ XP ma-chines, while others migrate to IE7/8 and Windows 7.

Avis has had some experience of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). “We have already invested months of effort looking at the VDI market,” says Beshaw. “We had a lot of prob-lems a few years ago as an early adopter on a small project. We now have a fairly large virtualised server [farm], but not much VDI.”

Avis selected Browsium’s Uni-Brows compatibility product to keep its IE6 applications running in

Windows 7. “Browsium allows us to move to Windows 7 without going to a far bigger project to go into virtu-alisation,” says Beshaw.

The software runs on the PC client and determines whether an application requires the IE6 browser engine. From a user perspective, the application runs in an IE8/9 tab, but renders using the 32-bit IE6 engine rather than IE8/9. UniBrows loads relevant IE6 ActiveX controls, such as specific versions of Adobe Flash or the Java Runtime Engine.

Avis deploys IE8 and UniBrows. “The user sees an IE8 browser. We then configure centrally sites that are IE6-only, and UniBrows will rec-ognise it’s IE6 and will do the emu-lation,” Beshaw says.

Avis Europe runs more than 4,000 Windows XP PCs across Europe. “We are starting to put in Windows 7, regardless of our virtualisation project. UniBrows will help us along this route as an interim step.”

As an added benefit, Beshaw says UniBrows has a test mode, which developers at Avis can use to check that their code works on different versions of IE. ■

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“Virtualising the user state and splitting it out from the OS gives users greater flexibility in how they access IT”

Virtual XP applications in Windows 7Virtualisation allows Windows XP applications to run in Windows 7. David Johnson looks at virtualisation best practice

C lient virtualisation initia-tives require cross-team and cross-technology col-laboration. But Forrester

Research finds most virtual desktop projects are led in a siloed fashion by either the datacentre team or the desktop team. When datacentre teams lead client virtualisation initia-tives, they first seek to leverage exist-ing hypervisor technology skills and try to make the datacentre side of the environment as easy to manage and secure as possible, even if their deci-sions will reduce user accessibility or result in a less useful service. How well the client virtualisation solution

performs on the network, how users will request access to new environ-ments or how the client pieces will be rolled out and updated globally are considered someone else’s prob-lems to solve.

When desktop teams lead the cli-ent virtualisation project, they tend to think about user experience and ac-cess as well as how to manage the virtual desktops across widely dis-tributed geographies. However, they usually fail to consider critical data-centre items such as how server ca-pacity will be monitored and ex-panded, how network segments need to be routed for roaming users and data backup and recovery needs.

To make matters worse, often ei-ther no one consults critical infra-structure teams, such as networking and storage, or businesses do consult them but don’t act on their advice be-

cause of schedule or resource con-straints, making it more difficult to plan and deliver an optimised infra-structure to support the client virtual-isation initiative. Yet these are two of the largest sources of unexpected costs and risks to client virtualisation initiatives. IT leaders must realise that neither the datacentre team nor the desktop team alone has enough experience or visibility to make the decisions required in the planning and deployment process or the tools to manage the resulting hybrid

environment effectively. Isolated planning leads to inappropriate and impractical hardware, software and tool decisions. The results are always disappointing.

Reduced availabilityThis is the downstream effect of in-adequate planning and uninformed or uncoordinated decision-making. For example, an insurance company reported its storage plan didn’t con-sider virtual desktop usage patterns and it suffered a major outage with

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Law firm Kennedys is using RES Automation Manager to migrate users from Windows XP to Windows 7, writes Cliff Saran. The company has over 900 people across the UK and provides specialist legal services for insurance, healthcare, construction, employment, rail, maritime and international trade.

The company previously used the RES tool to migrate 400 staff from three London sites to a new central office. The tool is designed to help IT manage changes and tasks required on a daily basis. Common actions can be configured as predefined tasks, which are stored in a central data store and can be scheduled to run at predetermined times.

James Elmer, European IT Manager at Kennedys, used RES for the migration to a single London office to improve how desktop PCs are managed. “In 2008 we took everything we had and checked what would work in a new build to ensure we create a clean deployment.”

Unlike larger organisations, Kennedys runs a relatively small set of core applications, comprising Microsoft Office, Silverlight-based Elite 3 practice management software, Interwoven for document management and the BigHand dictation system. The company also uses IE8.0 on Windows XP, which avoids issues of Windows 7 incompatibility with IE6.0.

“The overall goal was to create a new image for our desktop machines, which could then be used to support automated deployment of software and settings to users. It would also make it easier to deal with the legacy applications that were still required,” said Elmer.

The firm rolled out 400 machines using RES Automa-tion Manager. Thanks to the experience with the move to the new London office, Elmer is confident the migration from XP to Windows 7 will run smoothly. He said: “We have a small set of applications and have not experi-enced application compatibility issues.” The company will be using RES Workplace Manager to capture the end-user environment such as Favourites and desktop shortcuts on Windows.

Workspace Manager allows Kennedys to provide the user settings, configurations and personalisation from the desktop, so users can get the same experience and access to IT resources at whatever desktop they use.

RES has also developed a migration aid called Baseline Desktop Analyser. This is a free service built on Windows Azure, which generates a report, telling IT what a user is actually running. Elmer expects to use the new tool to help plan the migration.

A team from the business will be used to pilot the Windows 7 migration. The core business application will be migrated first, followed by secondary applications like Adobe Reader.

“By virtualising the user state and splitting this out from the operating system, we can provide users with greater flexibility around how they access IT resources. This is part of our wider plan to migrate over to Windows 7 later this year, and RES Workspace Manager will help us to keep the existing look and feel for our desktops in place with whatever PC hardware or operating system version is underneath,” explained Elmer.

Law firm uses RES tool to migrate to Windows 7data loss. Poor network performance is another common problem, usually because no one consulted the net-work team or gave it adequate time for analysis and planning. Organisa-tions try to manage virtual desktops with the same policies and settings they use for physical desktops. In one case, the desktop management team applied a software patch policy set to run at the same time every day on a large group of physical desktops as on the virtual desktops, bringing the server infrastructure to its knees.

Higher operational costsHigher operational costs most often stem from tool duplication and too many manual steps in managing and provisioning processes. Adding a second tool to patch virtual desktops is unlikely to be justified by the few extra features it offers, given the cost and complexity it adds.

The most common sources of oper-ational costs and, by extension, pro-ductivity-sapping delays, are in the request automation and image/pro-file management areas. In many or-ganisations, to get access to a virtual desktop, users or their bosses have to call the service desk and wait while a human twists the knobs and pushes the buttons to provision instances. Meanwhile, on the back end, dozens of virtual desktop images are labori-ously maintained and assembled one by one for each department or group.

Poor user satisfactionOf the 772 enquiries Forrester received in 2010 on desktop trans-formation, 78% sought advice on desktop virtualisation and improving user experience. Many were con-fused about what it means to support the needs of the business with client virtualisation. Many think the magic formula is cutting costs and mov-ing as fast as they can. While true in some projects, there are a signifi-cant number of client virtualisation deployments that fail to meet user needs and have to be redone, or else the costs have spun out of control.

In one example, a regional hospital chose its virtual desktop solution be-cause it was based on terminal ser-vices technology familiar to the data-centre operations team. However, the solution couldn’t support streaming video, which doctors needed for re-viewing patient CT scans while on call out of the office - a clear disad-vantage to the business user (in this case, very highly skilled and highly paid surgeons) and the customer.

Keys to successWhen we accept that the success of a hybrid environment is defined as how well it meets the true needs

of the business and its value for the money spent, and that deploying and managing a hybrid environment requires a broad range of skills, why would anyone short-change the plan-ning process or fail to gather the right combination of experience from the start? You need to get the right brains in the game from the beginning. Start by building a hybrid team with knowledge and experience represent-ing the technology domains involved (especially the needs of users), give them clear priorities, and give them incentives to work collaboratively. Challenge them with answering criti-cal questions before moving out of the planning phases, and push your vendors to deliver hybrid manage-ment capabilities.

Build a dedicated core teamSmall teams work faster and expe-rienced people work smarter when they’re not distracted by other priori-ties. Nevertheless, we recognise few organisations have the resources to dedicate specialists to every project, even a project with the importance and business impact of client vir-tualisation. For these reasons, plus the need to keep a laser focus on the needs of the business and users, For-rester recommends building a small, dedicated core team augmented with the skills and knowledge of a half-

time specialist team representing the technology domains involved. Build a core team to drive the project. Your core team should: ensure focus on the agreed goals; define the priorities; define the use cases and architecture; keep the project moving; drive col-laboration; make key platform, tool, and process decisions; and commu-nicate with stakeholders and execu-tive leadership.

This team should comprise a prod-uct or service manager or owner, an architect and a programme manager. If you’re planning custom develop-ment work, you should seriously consider an execution owner. Hold the core team members accountable for the quality of their work in each phase of the project, alignment with executive and key stakeholder objec-tives, and meeting project milestones and commitments.

Assemble an extend-ed team to provide guid-ance and execute in their technology do-main. Your extended team should have deep and relevant experience in each of the technolo-gy domains that the hy-brid environment will rely on. Members of this team should collaborate directly with the core

team and each other and use their knowledge to help guide the team’s ef-forts while respecting the project pri-orities and goals.

The extended team should be held accountable for delivering excellent, collaborative input to the planning process on time and coordinating with the other stakeholders in its do-main to prepare for execution. In the execution phases, the extended team members should have the authority to make decisions and marshal re-sources in their area. Hold them ac-countable for executing the plan to a high degree of quality. ■

This is an extract from Forrester’s report, Client Virtualization Will Fail Without A Hybrid Approach (september 2011) by Forrester senior analyst David k. Johnson. David contributes to the Forrester blog for IT infrastructure & operations professionals.

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buyer’s guide

Many companies of all sizes are still using Windows XP and seem happy with it. Accord-

ing to online education resource W3Schools, over 38% of desktops are still running Windows XP. While undeniably an impressive show of loyalty for Microsoft, it is causing the software supplier a headache in mov-ing users to Windows 7. Those still on Windows XP should have that de-

out, more excuses were found not to move – some valid, some less so.

At the more valid end of the scale was the need to review expenditure based on the recent (and possibly re-current) recession. There was also the received wisdom with Microsoft re-leases that it is better to wait for the first service pack to deal with any is-sues that may arise with the initial re-

While XP retains a large market share, it will remain a target for the blackhats who know every wrinkle and back door

Why you must move to Windows 7Clive Longbottom has heard why organisations don't upgrade from Windows XP – and explains why they must

lease of Windows 7.At the less valid end was the feel-

ing that, as Windows XP had sup-ported the business for so long, change was unnecessary. Users were familiar with the interface, develop-ers were used to the platform and the help desk knew all the problems. In short, a case of, “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”

cision under review, as the rationale for businesses staying with Windows XP – as it faces the end of support, at the expense of a Window 7 upgrade – is now considerably flawed.

Many organisations have made an active decision not to move away from Windows XP, as it is seen as ad-equate for their needs. Others looked at migrating to Windows Vista, but were appalled at the issues that they found around upgrading hardware, the lack of support for many existing applications and the need to train users on the new interface. Many de-cided to leap-frog Vista altogether and wait for the next incarnation, which shaped up as Windows 7. However, when Windows 7 came

CW Buyer’s guideWindoWs xp upgrades

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buyer’s guide

One of the main objections analyst Quocirca keeps hearing against migrating away from Windows XP is the perception that hardware requirements are too demand-ing and as much as 50% of existing desktops will need to be replaced.

It’s true that, with Windows Vista, the hardware requirements were drastically increased against what was required for XP. But Microsoft learnt its lesson the hard way, and Windows 7 should be capable of being run on most hardware being used for XP.

Additionally, migrating to Windows 7 also affords the opportunity to review how desktops are provisioned – it may be that virtual desktop infrastructure would provide a better service to the business, providing access to devices from existing desktops through new slates and tablets to smartphones.

Attempting to manage these devices – often brought in by users themselves as part of the trend towards the consumerisation of IT - as part of an ageing and creaking Windows XP environment just doesn’t make sense.

The other area of objection to migrating away to Windows 7 from Windows XP is application compatibil-ity. When Windows Vista was introduced, over 20% of existing applications did not work natively on the platform. Although Microsoft provided some basic tools to identify where problems may arise, little was offered in the way of tools to rectify them.

Although the original statement with Windows 7 was along the lines of, “Windows 7 will run all applications that run on Windows Vista”, it did nothing to address the issues that had been found with Windows XP applica-tions that didn’t run on Windows Vista.

Microsoft did make available a virtualised, native Windows XP environment that could be enabled within Windows 7 so non-compliant applications can be run. Even better, vendors such as ChangeBase and AppDNA offer software and services that interrogated application installation routines and clean them up so that the vast majority of applications will run – natively – on Windows 7.

Audit hardware and software for Windows 7 upgradeSecurity and business costsHowever, one major consideration must be the age of the underlying platform itself. Windows XP came to market in 2001, based on develop-ments that had been going on since Windows NT 4.0 came to market in 1996, itself based on previous NT code from 1993.

This in turn was based on work be-tween Microsoft and IBM around using OS/2 as an enterprise desktop operating system. Windows XP is old and, in most cases, unfit for purpose. No matter how many onion skins of security are layered on top, Windows XP will still be a security nightmare. While it retains a large market share, it will remain a target for the black-hats who by now know every wrinkle and back door there could be.

It was often said that updating to Windows Vista required heavy re-ed-ucation of the user base, as the inter-face was so different to what they were used to. The problem is now re-versed – most users will already be using Windows Vista or Windows 7 and new recruits to an organisation will be looking at an interface that is completely alien to them. Even those who have been with the organisation for some time will now be a little jaded with XP and are ready to move forward. They might well be using Windows 7 at home or something sexier from Apple or Google.

However, there are a few major areas that anyone wedded to Win-dows XP must consider against the needs of the business and the em-ployees themselves. Firstly, Micro-soft has wanted to remove full sup-port for Windows XP for some time. True, Microsoft has back-tracked on ending support for Windows XP on various dates, due to objections from customers, but it has to be accepted that Windows XP is now at the end of its life when it comes to full support. Microsoft will still push out basic se-curity patches, but nothing more geared to improving functionality or applying new capabilities to Win-dows XP will happen now.

Limited browser optionsAnyone on Windows XP has to ac-cept that what they now have as web browsing capability is all they will ever have. There will be no Internet Explorer 9 (Windows XP does not support anything beyond Internet Explorer 8), although other, more modern third-party browsers such as Firefox and Chrome can be deployed. If the business wants to access the latest websites, running technology such as HTML5, the choice is to go to the expense of installing a third-party browser on the existing platform – or upgrade the operating system itself.

But at the other end of the spec-trum are the many organisations which depend on Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) to access older web-enabled ap-plications – particularly in the slow-moving world of the public sector. With no capability to run IE6 on Win-dows 7, this presents major issues to the organisation concerned – but the reasons for the death of IE6 have to be looked at as well.

Microsoft decided the basic archi-tecture was fatally flawed and

dropped IE6 to move to a better secu-rity architecture – is it right for an IT department to be purposefully run-ning an insecure, 10-year-old plat-form as a component crucial to the business’ daily operations? However, many of the applications specific to IE6 could be updated either to run under later versions of IE, or such that the interface will run on an alter-native web browser. If neither of these is possible, it is likely the appli-cation will become – or already is – a constraint on the business, which, as such, should be reviewed.

Windows XP limits businessSo what is the point of staying with Windows XP? It is essentially unsup-ported by the vendor; it has a security model over a decade old; it does not support modern websites; it performs poorly; and the interface has been left behind not just by more modern Win-dows systems, but by the rest of the technology tools many are using in their day-to-day lives. The question should not be, “Should we migrate away from Windows XP?” but now

has to be, “Why have we weighed down the business with a system that is stopping it from competing effec-tively in today’s markets?”

Windows XP – while being excel-lent for the job it was developed for – is no longer fit for purpose. Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been and Windows XP should no longer be accepted as a suitable desk-top for today’s business needs. It is not worthwhile waiting for Windows 8, either. This would just be procras-tination of the worst kind – and will just enable the same old arguments to be brought to the fore as the interface changes, enterprises feel the need to wait for SP1, hardware requirements change and so on.

Quocirca’s advice is unequivocal – those on Windows XP have to mi-grate soon. Whether this is to a direct, desktop-to-desktop replacement, or to a virtualised desktop environment, the business and IT need to work to-gether to make the right decision. ■

clive Longbottom is a director of analyst firm Quocirca

Windows XP does not support Internet Explorer web browsers beyond IE8