Designing an On-Demand Enterprise Architecture

A successful on-demand enterprise architecture depends upon a comprehensive project design. A detailed and in-depth plan needs to address all aspects of the migration to the SBC model, including data centers, disaster recovery, bandwidth, system management, policies and procedures, security, applications, migration strategies, clients, and support. Unanticipated problems will occur even with the best-laid plans. Diligent work up-front, though, will minimize the potential for problems and help ensure a successful implementation.

Windows 2003 Terminal Services is far more desirable and stable than a distributed PC-based computing environment, but PC users are often particularly unforgiving of SBC problems because they are initially reluctant to give up the "personal" part of their personal computers.

The considerable technical and cultural challenges make in-depth project and associated organizational change planning absolutely essential to a successful SBC implementation and on-demand enterprise architecture. The first step is to set up a proof-of-concept pilot to ensure that the crucial applications will run acceptably within an SBC environment. Next, assemble a project planning team to prepare a project definition document. The definition document should include the project goals, scope, roles, risks, success criteria, and milestones. The third step involves a comprehensive infrastructure assessment that both ensures support for an enterprise SBC implementation and enables a meaningful planning process. Finally, a comprehensive design plan for migrating from a PC-based environment to an SBC environment serves as a roadmap for the project managers and implementation teams. These steps are covered more thoroughly in Chapter 4.