A practical guide for visionary leaders

Making WindoWs 7 Migration pay rapid and real business dividends.

Windows 7 migration: pain or gain?

Over the next twenty-four months, most organizations will need to migrate their desktop computing environments to the new Microsoft Windows 7 platform. Windows XP support is scheduled to end in August 2014 and, in reality, many vendors will start releasing new versions of software not supported on Windows XP by 2012. This latest version of Microsoft Windows is not a major architectural release, it simply polishes up a range of functionality, helping to simplify the things that your people do every day. As such, it delivers a moderately better user experience and productivity bonuses for your employees going forward.

The fact is that while the new platform may not deliver any significant productivity gains, the pain involved in making a manual migration in the usual way in terms of lost working hours and consumed budget is potentially huge. Just look at Option A to see why.
The question is, can you find a way to make the upcoming migration both less painful now and more valuable in terms of performance and operational improvements going forward?

Look for the opportunity inside the challenge

The most visionary business leaders are taking this opportunity to virtualize their desktop estate with the market-leader, VMware. In so doing, theyre making the migration proactively work for their organization. This may seem counter-intuitive: Why would you want to make yet another IT investment when you are already facing the expense and upheaval of moving to the Windows 7 platform? The fact is that when you compare making a migration with and without virtualization, the benefits become apparent. VMware can help you to reduce the pain and deliver immediate and significant bottom-line business gain, while also putting in place a modernized virtualized desktop architecture that will deliver a long-term strategic advantage.

What is desktop virtualization? Your at-a-glance guide

Desktop virtualization enables multiple, networked computer users to run individual desktops via a single, centrally located computer or server based in your datacenter. Users are all connected to the central machine by a proprietary Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN) or the Internet. This is in contrast to how most organizations currently run their desktops, with every computer operating as a completely self-contained unit with its own operating system, peripherals and application programs all coupled tightly together. This poses management challenges as failure in any one layer of the architecture could cause the whole system to break. With desktop virtualization, overall expenses are reduced because resources can be shared and allocated to users on an as-needed basis. The integrity of user information is improved because all data is maintained and backed up in the datacenter. Conflicts in software are minimized by reducing the total number of programs stored on any given machine. All users can customize and modify their desktops to meet their specific needs and job roles the same desktop can be securely mirrored on a range of devices delivering genuine freedom and mobility. A recent report from Gartner shows that despite the time and cost involved in migrating to the newer versions of Windows or Office there is little payback in total cost of ownership (TCO) savings. Costs will also be higher if some upgrades have been skipped. For example, the cost of moving to Windows 7 will be higher for companies who have not deployed Windows Vista and are moving direct from Windows XP, as more remediation and testing will be needed1. By contrast, incorporating VMware View and ThinApp into the migration process for Windows 7, delivers significant benefits. Up to 50% reduction in cost of migration Time to upgrade cut by half Ongoing operational costs as much as a 40% lower It also delivers a huge range of strategic advantages, which will help to make your organization more lean and competitive going forward.

Read on to find out more.

1

Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00167193 Cost Model: Migration to Windows Vista and Windows 7, Michael A. Silver, 14 May 2009

Compare and contrast

Option A: Conducting a typical migration without virtualization

Manually upgrading significant numbers of desktop devices is costly and time consuming for IT teams, and therefore for your organization. Seven arduous steps: It involves a resource-heavy seven-step process which, in brief, involves all of the following tasks: Audit, Remediation, Acquisition, Testing, Deployment, Restoration and User Training. Incompatibility with bespoke applications: As you conduct a thorough hardware inventory and regression testing to ensure that the existing hardware will run on the new operating system, youre likely to find that many of your most mission-critical custom-built applications are incompatible with the new platform. Repetitive manual upgrades: Physically carrying out the upgrade across your desktop estate is a slow and painstaking task. Numerous manual upgrades are likely to be required to get devices performing to the desired standard. Poor end-user experience: The whole manual process could be disruptive for your end users as well as your IT teams. It will inevitably bring with it bugs, if current IT processes are not mature. Not future-proof: At the end of the migration process, you will still have in place an un-modernized desktop estate. This means that you will have to go through the same pain and expense next time you have to conduct any kind of application upgrade or operating system migration.

Option B: Migrate to Windows 7 with VMware View

There is an easy way to deliver real and lasting business value from your Windows 7 migration: first deploy market-leading desktop virtualization technology from VMware a solution called VMware View. This will speed and ease the migration and reduce costs immediately. Perhaps most importantly, it will also deliver lasting business value.

Conducting a Windows 7 migration in a virtualized desktop environment is proven to cost half as much, be twice as fast and one third less complex.
VMware View is the market-leading, proven solution for desktop virtualization, letting your IT team deliver desktops from the datacenter as a secure, managed service. Its the only platform on the market designed specifically for desktop virtualization. Greatly minimize immediate cost and disruption by putting in place a thin client desktop estate. Manually deploying new operating systems to numerous desktops can be measured in months or even years, for some large enterprises that are forced to undertake the upgrade in batches. With VMware View in place, you can deliver the roll out in a matter of hours. Migrate critical custom-built applications. You can also migrate all of your critical custom-built applications with ease and speed. According to Gartner, the cost of remediation for custom applications can range anywhere between a couple of thousand to several hundred thousand dollars. If an application is suitable for virtualization it can easily be packaged and delivered within days, which can significantly reduce costs. Deliver long-term desktop lifecycle benefits. Running a virtualized desktop environment will make inevitable future migrations to new Windows releases faster, cheaper and simpler. It will also mean that all future application roll outs, upgrades and security patches will be easier to manage. Lower ongoing support costs. Isolating applications from the operating system and each other reduces conflicts and resulting support issues. Free up IT expertise for critical business innovation projects. This all results in fewer IT glitches and headaches going forward, meaning that your valuable experts can focus on competitive innovation projects, instead of non-value added roll outs and maintenance.

Making it rapid and real

Our market-leading desktop virtualization solution frees up valuable IT resources, while overcoming the cost and disruption of traditionally-managed migrations. Gartner estimates that upgrading each installed PC to Windows 7 costs $1274 - $2069 per PC. With zero-touch deployment processes and tools, this could drop to $100 per PC or less2.

Migrating to Windows 7 with VMware desktop virtualization takes away the pain of cost and implementation and delivers the following serious gains: CEOs and CFOs gain
Increased productivity from existing resources The ability to manage costs to your advantage Strategic advantage for your company Increased business agility and flexibility Minimized risk Ensured and effortless compliance

CIOs gain
Improved desktop IT staff efficiencies The ability to flexibly meet the needs and ensure the business continuity of your organization Secure access to data and IP Minimized risk

Your organization gains

Improved levels of service and faster end user support The ability to work securely and effectively remotely and via mobile devices One experience everywhere seamlessly

2 Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00167193 Cost Model: Migration to Windows Vista and Windows 7, Michael A. Silver, 14 May 2009

Do something visionary today

Its always tempting to take the path of least resistance do the least amount possible and make the minimum possible up front investment to save precious budget for attractive innovation projects. However, this is a short-term approach that will cost your business much more in the long run and sap your competitive abilities while delivering no real business dividend. As you prepare yourself to come out of recession and into recovery, it will pay to take a more visionary approach one that will position your organization for success over the coming decade. By addressing the migration issue now with a virtualized desktop environment you can put in place a lean, agile and low-cost IT infrastructure. This can easily scale and deliver the reliable, high quality performance necessary to be competitive, without sapping IT resources. Your IT teams are then able to focus on innovative, business-building projects that can contribute to your organizations bottom line. Virtualizing your desktop environment now also puts you one step closer to embracing the benefits of cloud computing. Talk to your team today about your Windows 7 migration plan and consider desktop virtualization with VMware in your approach. Youll find numerous educational resources on our microsite that will help you to build your business case for VMware View, try the software in your own environment, calculate your cost savings, and more.

Any questions?
Simply contact us through the form on the website www.vmware.com/company/contact.html or call us on 1-650-427-5000 and one of our experts will be happy to talk you through your options and provide you with any support you need.

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