REPORT

THE AUTOMATED
MIGRATION:
AN ANALYSIS
OF OPTIONS

1E.COM

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Contents
3
4

Background
Overview: Early Migrators and Their Approach

Major Components of Overall Migration Costs

and Where to Focus on Speed and Cost Reductions
User-centric IT Management and Windows Migration Maturity Model
Major Cost Categories for Windows Migrations
Application Testing and Certification
Hardware Testing and Refresh
Application Prep and Delivery for End Users

OS Migration Execution
Training and Support
9
10
11
13
15
17
18
20
23
24

Share this

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In Focus: Application Preparation and Delivery for End Users

Manual Mapping
Post-OS Migration Install
User Driven Self Service of Post-migration Application Delivery
Full User Application Mapping
In Focus: Migration Execution
Manual Brute Force
Systems Management/ Manual Hybrid
Zero Touch Full Systems Management Architecture
True Zero Touch: Software Based Distribution, PXE Services and User State Migration
Conclusions

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Background
Most organizations have been through the challenge of migration from XP to a
supported version of Windows (either Windows 7 or 8). For most this was a
significant investment in time and resources. 1E helped organizations to minimize
this cost and disruption with over 1m PCs migrated to date at a fraction of the
cost typical for a large scale migration.
Some organization have yet to migrate from XP and are paying the price having taken
on the enormously high costs of extending XP support for the near term, and some
have even evaluated the risks of moving forward for a period of time in an
unsupported state on XP.
These late movers find themselves far behind their peers in meeting a hard deadline, and it
can appear to them that all of their options are either fraught with extreme cost or
extreme risk. And while it may be fair to view them as having reaped the consequences
of a failure to act earlier, this trailing group may actually have a benefit they can
realize from their position.
They have the ability to look at what their peers have done and not done; evaluate
those organizations successes and challenges; and craft a tight plan that actually
puts them in a better cost position than the early movers, with a superior user
experience and satisfaction level to boot.
With Windows 10 due for release this Summer, organizations that chose to move to
Windows 7, as opposed to Windows 8.x, are seriously considering a move to Windows
10 in the short term. However, having just been through the migration from XP, many
are concerned about embarking on another costly Windows Migration so soon after
the previous one.
There is a solution to this...
An evaluation of the strategies that organizations used to migrate from Windows XP to
date and their associated costs, shows that the very best practice strategies have the
triple benefit of being a fastest route to a completed migration, the most user-friendly and
likely to delight end users, as well as the most cost effective .
Whether you are still to migrate from XP or want to move to Windows 10, 1E's Zero
Touch Windows Migration provides the cheapest, easiest migration path and can
make your next Windows migration Business-as-Usual.

1E.COM

*netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=174)
**Source: Forrester Research Inc. Forrsights Hardware Survey Q3 2013

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Overview: Early Migrators

and Their Approach
Most organizations that moved early
to migrate up from Windows XP had an
obvious point of reference in their last
major Windows migration almost
exclusively their migration to XP in the
first place. For the vast majority of these
organizations, the migration to XP was
viewed as a bear of a project, one that
took considerable time, manpower and
cost. Very, very few took a look at their
migration to XP and determined to follow
the same template. Rather, the common
reaction was to set out to conduct a
project that was better, cheaper and
more efficient by orders of magnitude.
One clear challenge to this goal that
organizations immediately faced when
looking for a marked improvement in
their migration experience was that
because of the relatively long active
life of Windows XP and resultant lack
of need to revisit or rethink migration
execution not much had actually
changed in the intervening decade
in terms of migration best practice
processes and methods.
While there were some advances in
general Operating System deployment
(OSD) toolsets and greater reliability and
reusability of PC hardware, the most
common upgrade methodologies on
offer for XP-to-7 migrations were largely
the same as for NT migrations.

Somewhat undaunted, many organizations

set out to get ahead of the end of life
deadline for Windows XP, and started
down the path of executing their migrations.
At 1E we have had the opportunity to work
very closely with a large number of
organizations of all sizes on their migrations,
including some of the very largest Windows
estates in the world. Some have worked
with us from the beginning of their
deliberations, while others came to
us after some of their initial plans failed
or got off to alarmingly slow starts.
In all cases, we had a unique position
to see the planning and cost estimates
for a variety of migration scenarios from
organizations worldwide, as well as many
more after the fact cost calculations after
a migration approach was executed for
a subset of their users.
In this paper, we will survey the landscape
of how migrations from Windows XP have
been conducted, what the costs were
of the various approaches, what methods
have provided satisfaction to the end-user
community, and draw some highlights
around what we have discovered to be
the most successful, best practice, highest
satisfaction and lowest cost methodologies.

Indeed, Gartners estimated per-PC

migration costs for XP migrations
were virtually unchanged from their
equivalent set of numbers for NT
migrations (see Gartner publications
Windows 2000 TOC and Migration*
[estimate range $1250-$2050],
Prepare for Your Windows 7 Migration
Crunch** [estimate range $1274-$2069]).

1E.COM

*Source: Gartner Research Inc. Getting to Windows 2000 Professional: A Costly Migration by Kevin J. Knox,
Michael A. Silver, Michael Gartenberg 15 September 1999
**Source: Gartner Research Inc. Prepare for Your Windows 7 Migration Crunch by Charles Smulders & Stephen
Kleyhans 24 June 2010

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Major Components of Overall Migration

Costs and Where to Focus on Speed and
Cost Reductions
User-centric IT Management and
Windows Migration Maturity Model
When comparing the costs associated
with various potential approaches to
a major Windows migration, it is easy
to jump directly into the specific buckets
of IT costs that make up the whole of
a migration project.
While it is of course necessary to look
at costs at this level of granularity
and we do in great detail in this paper
it is extremely helpful to first consider
where these costs fit into the overall
service level and user satisfaction targets
that all IT organizations strive to maintain.
For while those in IT are rightly focused
on minimizing the cost of their migration
overall, this focus should not obscure
an emphasis on value of the migration
spend, and therefore the return on that
spend in terms of user satisfaction and
service levels achieved.
What do users want out of IT generally
and a Windows migration more specifically?
Surely they are not particularly interested
in the rationalization of applications,
rather they want the best possible
application for the job readily at hand
so they can dive right to work upon
the migration of their user account.

In general, users want three things from IT:

A
 gility: Users want to be able to achieve
maximum productivity without their
systems or IT organizations slowing
them down or acting as obstacles.
Responsiveness: Users want to know
that they are listened to and that their
needs remain top of mind for IT.
S
 elf-service: Users want the
independence to act and choose for
themselves. They understand that IT
must set parameters to manage the
security and stability of the organization
environment, but once those parameters
are set users want and expect to direct
their own access to tools and services
that help them do their job.
In addition to these, power users in the
organization take these concepts a step
further and typically want some level
of ownership of their system, including
things like backup and admin rights.
With all of this in mind, it is helpful to
think of conducting a migration within
a user-centric maturity model.
The good news represented in this model
is that as organizations make choices that
are the most cost- and time-efficient,
they are also making the choices that
meet the needs and expectations of their
end users and that ultimately drive high
satisfaction and advanced service levels.
Lets now examine how these choices
play out in terms of cost, and what kinds
of approaches we have seen organizations
take to their migration projects to date.

1E.COM

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

OS Migration Approaches Maturity Model

Maximum Efficiency
IT STAFF
REQUIRED

Army of
contractors

Cohort of
contractors

Dedicated systems
administrators
needed

Business as
usual systems
administrators

TECHNOLOGY

Men and vans carry

image on USB devices

SCCM without
OSD functionality

Some degree of
automation using SCCM
with OSD functionality

Full automation using

SCCM with 1E Solutions

SYSTEM
MANAGEMENT
OVERHEAD

None to minimal

Monitoring and
troubleshooting of SCCM
infrastructure

Monitoring and
troubles-hooting of SCCM
infrastructure and
SCCM OSD

None

SPEED OF
MIGRATION

3-5 PCs migrated

per technician per day

3-5 PCs migrated

per technician per day

7-11 PCs migrated

per technician per day

50-300 PCs migrated

per technician per day

FINANCIAL
IMPACT

$100 to $275
per migrated PC

$75 to $206
per migrated PC

On average,
$85 per migrated PC

On average,
$8.5 per migrated PC

Manual brute force

Systems management /
Manual hybrid

Zero-Touch

True Zero-Touch

USER
SATISFACTION

Migration Approaches

1E.COM

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Major Cost Categories

for Windows Migrations
Major enterprise OS migrations are very
large and complex projects that can
incorporate a variety of cost line items,
beyond direct migration activities,
in budget documents depending on
how an organization allocates costs
across different areas of their business
on major technology projects. Once those
more extraneous items are eliminated
however, project costs typically fall into
these five major buckets:
1. Application Testing and Certification
2. Hardware Testing and Refresh
3. Application Prep and Delivery
for End Users
4. OS Migration Execution
5. Training and Support
To briefly define each of these areas:
1. Application Testing and Certification
The tasks and activities relating to
identifying all applications in use
throughout the organization and
determining their compatibility for the
new OS. This includes, but is not limited
to, the selection of applications to bring
to new OS and applications to be
eliminated from the environment,
version rationalization, testing of
each intended application and version,
and certification process to ensure that
applications and OS images do not break
on the other side of the migration.
2. Hardware Testing and Refresh
The identification, acquisition and testing
of all PCs meant to receive the new OS
ensures the actual machines are in place
for the execution of the migration.

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3. Application Prep and Delivery

for End Users
Once rationalized and tested, applications
then need to be distributed to the new OS
images along with the migration or after
the OS migration is completed. This category
captures all of the tasks associated with
identifying applications for each user or
group of users, getting applications ready
for distribution and finally distributing
the applications themselves. Tasks and
processes in this bucket varies widely.
4. OS Migration Execution
The actual imaging of each machine,
including updating user data, if applicable.
5. Training and Support
Captures all end-user communication
and preparation and execution of training
materials and sessions, as well as standing
up and executing a support apparatus for
end-user problems and/ or questions.

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Of these, most organizations today

even if they have not yet finalized their
plans for how to ultimately execute their
migrations have taken significant steps
to accomplish the items in the first two
buckets, as they represent foundational
prerequisite work that must be squared
away and undertaken regardless of how
the organization ultimately decides to
effectuate the placement of an upgraded
OS and applications on end machines.
In particular, the second bucket around
Hardware Testing and Refresh is just
simply not a major differentiator among
migration methodologies in all cases,
regardless of how the migration gets
accomplished, the proper hardware has
to be in place and the ways and means
of evaluating the estate and bringing
machines up to standard is fairly uniform.
Similarly, in the last bucket (Training and
Support), there is very little differentiation
based on migration methodology. These
requirements tend to remain static even
as organizations evaluate multiple methods
for the on the ground work of migrating
machines and applications.
The overwhelming majority of organizations
who have parallel plans for migration
have the exact same tasks, responsibilities,
goals and ultimately costs for this area.
Therefore, we will not consider this bucket
in our migration methodology comparisons.

1E.COM

Used
Rarely used
Unused

13,476

(63%)

896

(4%)

6,880

(33%)

In the first bucket (Application Testing

and Certification), in the cases where
organizations have not even begun this
preparatory work, very real savings can
be achieved by conducting optimized
rationalization or taking usage inventory
up front. Using a tool to determine levels
of usage can strip out unnecessary testing
and certification activities on applications
that while they may be widely installed
are generally not in use, and where any
instances where the application is being
used, these applications can be removed
and replaced by other applications that
offer similar functionality and are more
widely used in the organization.
Besides this specific scenario where even
the most basic prep work on the application
side has not been tackled, really the
comparison between different migration
plans and methodologies comes down
to the third and fourth buckets on our list:
Application Prep and Delivery for End
Users and OS Migration execution. These
are the two areas we will focus on in detail
for our comparisons of time and cost.

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

In Focus: Application Preparation

and Delivery for End Users
Even with a perfect migration of a machine
and user from old OS to new, it almost goes
without saying that a user will only be as
productive as the completeness of the
migration of his or her applications.
Most organizations that have completed
migrations from XP have put considerable
thought and effort into rationalizing
the myriad versions of applications and
conducting comprehensive compatibility
testing across those versions.
Yet over and over again one of the major
sources of unexpected effort and cost
during a migration project has been
the assigning of proper applications
and versions to the appropriate users,
and ensuring those identified applications
and versions are actually delivered to those
users and machines.

1E.COM

Organizations have tried to handle this

challenge in a number of ways, ranging
from the purely manual, to leaving it up
to the user to fill in gaps, all the way to
a fully automated mapping solution.
The costs across these different methods
vary widely, such that choosing the best
and most cost effective approach in this
area has become one of the very best
ways to cost-optimize an XP migration
project for just about every organization.

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Lets have a closer look now at the most

prevalent methods for application
preparation and delivery for end users,
some of their pros and cons, as well as
expected cost per user:
Manual Mapping
In this approach, a technical resource
on the project team conducts an exercise
for each user and/ or machine to determine
what applications are on the Windows
image and therefore what applications
should be part of the users new OS image.
This may be accomplished by the
technical resource alone, but more
common is a resource sitting down with
each user individually to go over their
choices to include the users input.
Taking this step with the user him- or
herself is actually a more efficient manual
method, as it tends to significantly mitigate
the need to take corrective action after
the migration if and when a technical
resource makes incorrect assumptions
and/ or application choices on that users
behalf. Across organizations that have

conducted this approach, the average

effort per user is right around 30 minutes
per user.
In terms of project cost, using a standard
fully-loaded hourly rate of $50 for IT
personnel, this translates to a cost of $25
per user or machine migrated. This base
cost grows larger when the time spent by
the end user is figured into the calculation.
Assuming the same rate of $50 per hour,
the total cost per user or machine balloons
to $50. For a 20,000 PC organization,
that translates as a $1 million effort just
to accomplish this single step.
In addition to the high cost per user,
this method is extremely time consuming
and can have a significant impact on project and
migration timelines.

Technical Effort

Time: Communication with End User (min)

20

Time: Updating Mapping Document (min)

Time: Administration and Scheduling (min)

End User Effort

Time: Communication with Technical Resource (min)

Time: Average for Follow Up Questions (min)

Time: Administration and Scheduling (min)

Total Effort Time (hours)

Fully Loaded Hourly Rate ($)
Number of Users
Total Cost ($)

1E.COM

20

Time: Preparation for Mapping Discussion (min)

10

1
50
20,000
1,000,000

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Post-OS Migration Install

With this approach, the migration project
focuses first on completing the migration
of each user or machine from XP to the
new OS, then handles the delivery and
installation of the applications.
One of the benefits to this approach
is that it can dramatically simplify the OS
migration step of the project indeed,
depending on how this general approach
is executed it can eliminate the need
for tactics like multiple images based
on geography, business unit, etc.,
and provide one single gold standard
image for the entire organization.
However, although arriving at the new
OS can be made more straightforward
this way, in terms of effort and cost
the net effect is to merely kick the work
and associated costs down the road.
There are typically two execution tactics
in carrying out the Post-OS Migration
Install approach. The first is to simply
not bother with including any applications
at all in the standard image. This tactic
generally leads to the ability to have just
one OS image for the entire organization,
but increases the post migration effort.
The second identifies a core set of
standard applications to include in an
image, with post-migration activities
limited to filling in the gaps with less
widely distributed or more specialized
apps following the migration.
In either case, organizations who have
attempted this approach report that users
experience extremely poor user satisfaction.
Between not hitting the ground running
on their work immediately after migration,
as well as downtime associated with the
installation of the applications, users are
much more likely to view their migration
experience as a major inconvenience
using these methods.

1E.COM

11

A seeming major benefit to this approach

that the time to complete the OS migration
part of the project can be accelerated
to meet XP end of support deadlines
actually is illusory.
Organizations cannot simultaneously move
mass numbers of users and machines to
the new OS while accommodating users
needs on the application side. In addition,
there would be significant productivity hits
to the organization by moving large numbers
of machines all at once without all of the
business critical applications installed
on end user machines. The complete
breakdown of mission critical business
processes would be all but assured in
this scenario.
In terms of cost impact of this approach,
those organizations who have conducted
it have typically found that with the
no application in image method,
there is a technical resource effort
of about 20 minutes per PC to get all
applications back out to users, plus end
user downtime of anywhere from 30
to 90 minutes in the weeks and months
following the migration all told.
Splitting the difference on this range
and using our standard hourly rate of $50,
this results in a cost of $66.67 per machine
migrated, or a hit of $1,333,333 to our
20,000 PC example organization.
For the standard applications in image
method, costs are a little lower. The technical
resource effort is shaved by five minutes
(the lions share of the effort is not around
delivery of standard apps, rather the more
specialized apps take the most time to
track down, identify and deliver), and
the user downtime drops to a 40 minute
average. So the hit in this case totals out
to $916,667, or $45.83 per PC migrated.

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

No Applications in Image Method

Technical Effort

Time: Time to Review User Needs (min; per user)

Time: Average Time to Distribute Application (min; per app)

10
.5

Average Number of Apps (per PC)

20

Time: Total to Distribute Applications (min; per user)

20

End User Time Lost

Time: Average Downtime (min; per user)

Total Time Spent (hours)

Fully Loaded Hourly Rate ($)
Number of Users
Total Cost ($)

60

1.33
50
20,000
1,333,333.33

Standard Applications in Image Method

Technical Effort

Time: Time to Review User Needs (min; per user)

Time: Average Time to Distribute Application (min; per app)

10
.5

Average Number of Apps (per PC)

20

Number of Standard Apps Pre-Installed

10

Time: Total to Distribute Applications (min; per user)

15

End User Time Lost

Time: Average Downtime (min; per user)

40

Total Time Spent (hours)

.92

Fully Loaded Hourly Rate ($)

Number of Users
Total Cost ($)

1E.COM

12

50
20,000
916,666.67

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

User Driven Self Service of PostMigration Application Delivery

This approach is an offshoot of the
Post-OS Migration Install method and
can provide some significant benefits,
though there may be productivity hits
both up front immediately following
the OS migration as users struggle to
get up and running, as well as down the
line when application needs pop up that
were not present right at migration time.
Here, instead of technical resources doing
the work to deliver applications to end
users, the users are directed to a selfservice portal where they select and
kickoff the installation of their needed
applications. This approach brings down
the technical effort significantly, and would
also reduce the user downtime for either
application/ image scenario by about 50%.
Ultimately for the no applications in image
scenario, the total cost per PC migrated
calculates to $25.40, while for the
standard application in image scenario,
the per PC cost drops to $17.07.

1E.COM

13

For a 20,000 PC organization,

this represents a savings on this single
step of $500,000 to $700,000 over the
standard Manual Mapping approach.
These costs are exclusive of the acquisition
or development of a Self-Service tool,
but do include time spent by the project
team deploying and configuring the
Self-Service tool.

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Self-Service: No Applications in Image Method

Technical Effort

Time: Total to Deploy and Configure Self-Service Tool (hours)

160

End User Time Lost

Time: Average Downtime (min; per user)

30

Total Time Spent (hours)

.51

Fully Loaded Hourly Rate ($)

50

Number of Users

20,000

Total Cost ($)

508,000

Self-Service: Standard Applications in Image Method

Technical Effort

Time: Total to Deploy and Configure Self-Service Tool (hours)

160

End User Time Lost

Time: Average Downtime (min; per user)

20

Total Time Spent (hours)

.34

Fully Loaded Hourly Rate ($)

Number of Users
Total Cost ($)

1E.COM

14

50
20,000
341,333.33

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Full User Application Mapping

In this approach, a fully automated
solution is deployed that reads and
identifies the applications and versions
installed on the Windows image and maps
each of those to a selected application
and version on the new OS, based on
rulesets created by the organization. For
example, an organization could see a
version of an application in XP that is not
compatible with the new OS, and based
on the users or machines business unit,
map it to the new version of that
application, or to a freeware alternative,
or to no application install, depending on
the business need.
Using the Application Mapping
capability available in the integration
of the 1E Shopping and AppClarity

So if User A heavily used a non-Windows

7 compatible version of Adobe Acrobat,
but User B hardly used that same version
at all, User A would automatically map to
a new compatible version, while User B
would get a freeware alternative.
This approach really addresses the three
key goals: cost reduction, positive user
experience and migration project speed.
It barely requires any intervention at all
from the end user, so that the end user
feels like they have had to invest very little
of their own time. All migrations are
completed with all needed applications
fully installed, eliminating extra steps,
costly effort and user downtime.

solutions, organizations could further

create rule sets based on the usage
profile of the application on the users
Windows machine.

LEGACY
OS BUILD

1E ANALYTICS

Adobe
Photoshop
CS5
AppClarity
& Shopping

1E.COM

15

NEW WIN 10 BUILD

Used

Adobe Photoshop
CS6 ($500)

Rarely
used

Paint.NET
(Free)

Unused

Do not
install

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

From a cost perspective, the per PC cost

drops to $1.20 per PC, and represents
a savings of $976,000 over the Manual
Mapping method, again exclusive of
costs to develop or acquire the toolset,
but including all project team time to
deploy and configure the toolset for
automated application mapping.

Full Application Mapping

Technical Effort

Time: Total to Deploy and Configure Self-Service Tool (hours)

160

Time: Total to Deploy and Configure App Inventory Tool (hours)

100

Time: Total to Configure App Mapping Integration (hours)

220

End User Time Lost

Time: Average Downtime (min; per user)

Total Time Spent (hours)

Fully Loaded Hourly Rate ($)

1E.COM

.02
50

Number of Users

20,000

Total Cost ($)

24,000

16

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

In Focus: Migration Execution

After all of the preparatory steps and
the work done in support of a migration
project, the actual process of
physically migrating a user or machine
to a new Windows OS is quite obviously
the heart of any migration effort.
At the end of the day, organizations must
schedule and then execute every user and
machine targeted for migration. Often,
organizations have processes in place for
general Operating System Deployment
(OSD) that they look to leverage in a
migration project. A very large number
of these organizations come to learn that
processes meant to accomplish day-today OSD in support of new machine issue
or break-fix scenarios dont measure up
to the rigors and demands presented by
a mass-scale enterprise OS migration.
Compelled back to the drawing board,
organizations have come up with a
stunningly wide array of methodologies,
some of which reflect a desire to optimize
the process, while yet others seek to avoid
complexity and the introduction of risk.

1E.COM

17

In almost all cases, internal business

review of these projects result in severe
sticker shock, whether at the dollars
involved, the number of required boots
on the ground, the planned duration
of the project, or some combination
of these three considerations.
Organizations with whom weve
reviewed their migration plans have
submitted literally dozens of potential
approaches and plans, but by far the
most prevalent approaches across all
industries are:
1. Manual Brute Force
2. Systems Management/ Manual Hybrid
3. Zero Touch Full Systems
Management Architecture
4. True Zero Touch: Software Based
Distribution, PXE Services and USM
Lets look at each approach in some detail.

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Manual Brute Force

This is probably the most straightforward
approach in terms of description. Indeed,
this approach is what is typically proposed
by many services firms, largely because
it is something that they provided for the
customer during a previous migration,
and even if costly and long did at the
end of the day get their estate migrated.

The costs here tend to depend

on two major factors:
1. The ability of the geographic distribution
of hired contractors to be made very
close to the geographic distribution
of the PCs to be migrated and;
2. The rate of machines each contractor

This approach means connecting

a technical resource with a machine,
either by deploying the resource to the
machine site or shipping the machine
to the technical resource, and having
the resource reimage the machine using
media usually a USB device. In order
to do this in 12 months or less, most large
organizations have to hire an army of
contractors to carry out this plan.
Organizations who have planned or
executed a migration method like this have
forecasted or recorded costs ranging from
$100 to $275 per migrated PC. Using our
20,000 PC organization as an example,
the range here is $2 million to $5.5 million.

can migrate per working day.

For the former, if it is not feasible to match
the geographic distribution, travel and/
or shipping costs become a major cost
driver. For the latter, we tend to see
somewhere on the order of three to five
machines migrated per technician per
day. Costs on the high end of that scale
are therefore significantly smaller than
on the low end.
Referencing back to our Maturity Model
above, this really represents a nearly
primitive migration method. Conducting
a brute force migration essentially means
a deskside visit or shipping of a large portion
of machines, or both, and all of these
scenarios are incredibly costly.
In addition, this method almost always
ensures a very long project duration.
So why do organizations go down this
route, even fully aware of these limitations?
In looking to minimize risk, they simply
pick the safest option, not realizing that
the reliability of newer, faster, more mature
methods are actually more reliable.

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18

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Please note: Costs are typically

25% lower than shown for Systems
Management/ Manual Hybrid method,
depending on number of PCs subject
to each side of the hybrid approach.

Top End

Technical Effort

Time: Hardware Prep and Connectivity Check (hours)

.25

.5

Time: User State Data Backup (hours)

.5

Time: Imaging (hours)

.5

Time: State Data Restore (hours)

.5

.25

.5

Time: Post Imaging Check (hours)

Total Time (hours)
Fully Loaded Hourly Rate ($)
Time Cost ($; per PC)
Additional Spend: Shipping ($)

50

50

100

200

75

Total Cost ($; per PC)

100

275

Total Number of PCs

20,000

20,000

2,000,000

5,500,000

Total Cost ($)

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Low End

19

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Systems Management/ Manual Hybrid

Here, organizations seek to augment
their systems management and everyday
OSD capabilities with a smaller contractor
army to make up the gap. Typically,
these organizations target a certain
subset of the environment (usually the
main company HQ) to migrate via the
existing systems management OSD
tools, while using manual brute force
to effectuate the migrations of the rest
(usually the farther flung branches and
mobile employees).
This approach tends to fail to mitigate
full manual brute force method costs
for three main reasons.
First, the existing OSD processes and
architecture inevitably have to be
enhanced in some way in order to see
any advantage in level of effort to
migrate a machine or project duration,
so the attempt to split the difference
forces the organization to get the worst
of both worlds.
Second, very often the machine
groups that would benefit the most
from a centralized process are the
farther flung machines that end up
subject to the Brute Force Method.
Third, the gains organizations typically
see from native systems management
OSD capabilities even when enhanced
are not the order of magnitude
difference they may have been expecting.

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As detailed in the section on Zero Touch

Full Systems Management Architecture
below, our experience with migrating
organizations is that the three to five per
technician per day number only
marginally improves using native systems
management OSD even at full throttle.
Cost savings against Manual Brute Force
are about 25% per PC migrated, such
that our 20,000 PC organization would
still be spending $1.5 million to $4 million
to execute the physical migration.

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Zero Touch Full Systems

Management Architecture
This approach has organizations use their
prevailing systems management platform
as a foundation to build an enterprise scale
mass OSD architecture that allows for
remote booting and migration of user
state data, all centrally managed and
executed. It is the recommended
migration approach of nearly every
major systems management platform,
especially including the most widely
used platform Microsoft System
Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).
In addition to the usual SCCM OSD and
content distribution infrastructure
largely made up of distribution points
the migration architecture also requires
the deployment of additional
architecture for remote booting (PXE
service points) and user state data (state
migration points). The benefit is widely
understood to be that a centrally managed
migration can be effectuated once this
architecture is in place, which allows
for a zero touch experience where
scheduled machines are migrated
remotely from a central location.
In practice, however, there are significant
realities and costs that many, many
organizations learned about only
when well into their migration planning
(and in some cases, execution).
First is that in addition to standing up these
various pieces of systems management
and OSD architecture, these machines
must be monitored throughout the duration
of the physical migration of machines.
Should they fail (which happens with
some regularity), they also need to be
troubleshot and repaired. Very often,
organizations do not plan for this piece
of effort before they plan to go the full
systems management route.

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21

Secondly, across the many major

organizations we worked with in
designing, advising and executing their
XP-to-Windows 7 migrations, the average
number of machines migrated per technical
resource per day has averaged about
seven per day, with none reporting results
better than 11.2 per day. So while the pace
of migration using an identical crew is
improved using this method, it is hardly
a sea change.
Coupled with the additional cost of
setting up, monitoring, troubleshooting
and repairing the extensive OSD
architecture, this method has historically
sat right about at the low end of the typical
scale for the Systems Management/
Manual Hybrid, and moves quickly up
that scale if the organization is widely
distributed (and therefore has a need
for more extensive architecture).
So while the migration occurs in a centrally
managed fashion and should usually take
a marginally shorter time, it does not deliver
significant cost savings.
As detailed in the tables in section VI,
our 20,000 PC organization, equally
distributed between large and small
locations and with an average ratio of
PCs to distribution points, shows a cost
of $1.27 million using this method.

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Total Users to Migrate

Core Wired

Branches

Total

10,000

10,000

20,000

OSD Setup/Config (hours; per DP)

PXE Setup/Config (days; per Core Site)

.5

PXE Setup/Config (days; per Branch)

.5

Setup/Config (hours; per SMP)

Servers (DP, PXE, SMP) requiring monitoring on given

8
10

migration day (%)

Average time for DP, PXE, SMP monitoring (mins; per server)
Major troubleshooting (instances; per month)
Time to resolve major troubleshooting issue

30
2
16

(hours + travel time)

Number of Core Sites

10

Number of Branches

50

Number of DPs
Number of Users per SMP in Core

60
1000

Hourly Rate for SCCM Architect ($)

75

Hourly Rate for Deployment Tech ($)

50

Projected Project Length (months)

12

Projected Lead Time for Architecture/Testing/etc (months)

Machines Initially Migrated in Lead Phase (%)

Main Migration Period for Remaining Machines

(months calculated)

Migration Architecture Costs Without Nomad ($)

DP Setup and Configuration for OSD

18,000

Setup and Config of PXE Environment for each site

18,000

Setup and Config of State Migration Point for each site

36,000

Ongoing monitoring of DPs, SMPs, and PXE during migration

Troubleshooting (saturated links, maxed SMPs, etc)

Total Cost

162,000
28,800

262,800

Anticipated FTEs for Baseline Project

14

Projected Project Length (months)

12

Projected Lead Time for Architecture/Testing/etc (months)

Machines Initially Migrated in Lead Phase (%)

Main Migration Period for Remaining Machines

(months calculated)

Total Users to Migrate

Number Migrated in Lead Phase
Remain to Migrate
Main Migration Phase (months)

Needed to Migrate (per day)

Daily Migrations (per FTE)

Total Migration Tech Cost ($)

Total Architecture Cost ($)
Total Cost: Full System Management Architecture Mehtod ($)

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10,000

10,000

500

500

9,500

9,500

53

53

106

3.785714286

3.785714

7.571429

1,008,000
262,800
1,270,800

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

True Zero Touch: Software Based

Distribution, PXE Services and
User State Migration
With a software based solution,
all of the wide content distribution,
PXE services and user state migration
capability that are available from the
full systems management architecture
approach is made available with
a single set of software tools.
The effect of this is that it takes away the
need to deploy, monitor, troubleshoot
and repair dozens or hundreds of different
pieces of architecture, and reduces all of
these activities to a single instance to work
with. This dramatically reduces the effort
and cost in setting up the zero touch
capability, and extends peak performance
to locations that might not even be
suitable to set up physical architecture
in the first place.

Daily Migrations per FTE with Nomad

Daily Migrations with Nomad
Total Migration Time (months)
Total Migration Tech Cost Nomad ($)
Nomad Deploy and Monitoring Nomad Throughout MIgration ($)

Total Cost ($)

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In addition, the software solutions tend

to be much more reliable than any piece
of DP, PXE or SMP server, so the need
to troubleshoot and repair is essentially
eliminated. This reliability extends further
to a much more highly scaled and rapid
rate of deployment and migration.
At 1E, those using our Nomad solution
set have seen rates of migration as high
as 200 PCs per technical resource per
day, which is almost 20 times the very
best using the Full Systems Architecture
approach have been able to achieve.
If we dial down that expectation to be
highly conservative, and instead project
25% of that top end number, we see 50
migrations per technical resource per day,
and a total cost of $170,000 for our 20,000
PC organization, not including the cost
of the Nomad solution, but including
internal technical time to deploy and
monitor the solution throughout the
migration activity.

50
700
1.36
152,000
18,000

170,000

THE AUTOMATED MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF OPTIONS

Conclusions
While the majority of organizations have already made the move to migrate away from
XP, as noted at the outset a surprising number of organizations are still trying to figure
out their plan. Fortunately, these trailing firms can learn much from both the organizations
that have gone before them as well as solution and services providers like 1E who have
had the unique opportunity to work with dozens of these organizations at every point
along the migration road.
What these data points show is that there are very real savings opportunities for
organizations who focus on programmatic automation of both the physical migration
of machines via advanced content distribution solutions attached to leading systems
management platforms and the mapping of applications in the new OS to each user
or PC based on applications present in the old OS.
With a new migration to Windows 10, following these best practices can save
organizations millions and there are essentially zero barriers to using these methods, as
providers such as 1E have solutions and expertise at the ready.

About 1E
1E is the pioneer and global leader in
Efficient IT solutions. 1Es mission is to
identify unused IT, help remove it and
optimize everything else. 1E Efficient IT
solutions help reduce servers, network
bandwidth constraints, software licenses
and energy consumption.

Contact us
US: +1 866 592 4214
UK: +44 20 8326 3880
India: +91 120 402 4000
info@1e.com

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