Summary

One analogy used in this chapter is that of building a house. Although this analogy doesn't stand up to intense scrutiny, the similarities are helpful. When an organization is planning a Windows Server 2003 implementation, it is important to first understand the goals for the implementation, and not only the "50,000-foot" high-level goals, but also the "10,000-foot" departmental and "1,000-foot" IT staff goals. Then it is important to more fully understand the environment that will serve as the foundation for the upgrade. Whether this work is performed by external resources or by internal resources, a great deal will be learned about what is really in place, and where there might be areas of risk or exposure. Collaboration sessions with experienced and effective leadership can then educate the stakeholders and deployment resources about the technologies to be implemented as well as guide the group through the key decisions that need to be made. Now all this information needs to be documented in the design document so that the details are clear, and some initial estimates for the resources required, timeline, and budget can be set. This document serves as a blueprint of sorts, and defines in detail what the "house" will look like when it is built. When all the stakeholders agree that this is exactly what they want to see, and the timeline and budget are in line, the migration document can be produced.

The migration document includes a detailed project plan that provides the tasks that need to take place to produce the results detailed in the design document. The project plan should not go into step-by-step detail describing how to build each server, but should stick to summary tasks from four hours to a day or more in duration. The migration document then provides a narrative of the project plan and supplies additional information pertaining to goals, resources, risks, and deliverables, as well as budgetary information accurate in the 10 to 20% range.

Based on these documents, the organization can now proceed with building the solution in a lab environment and testing the proposed design with actual company data and resources involved. The results of the testing may require modifications to the migration document, and will prepare the deployment team for live implementation. Ideally, a pilot phase with a limited, noncritical group of users, will occur, to fine-tune the live implementation process and put in place key technologies and Windows Server 2003. Now the remainder of the implementation process should proceed with a minimum of surprises, and the result will meet the expectations set in the design phase and verified during the prototype and pilot phases.

Even the support phase has been considered, and during this phase, the "icing on the cake" can be applied as appropriate. Although this process may seem complex, it can be molded to fit all different sizes of projects and will yield better results.