HP Visualize B1000 Supplementary Manual page 3

Ease of Migration
Risk to Current
Systems
Infrastructure
Acceptance of
Current Personnel
Impact on Current
System Procedures
and Processes
02/04/00
Ease of migration can be described as the amount of effort required to move from a
UNIX-centric environment to the Windows NT-centric environment. This would include
consideration of the percentage of information that is unique to UNIX. For instance, if
data is to be migrated, consideration must be given as to whether it is uniquely UNIX
binary data, thus requiring a translation program to be written (tested, etc.) for moving the
data to NT. If software must be migrated, the question must be asked, "Does it use UNIX-
centric code?" For example, assembly or Fortran language programs are inherently UNIX-
centric with little migration support for NT. In addition, it should be ascertained whether
the system environment scripts are using a standard, like the Korn Shell, or a more obscure
shell scripting language or procedure. Finally, consideration must be given to the
availability of the source to the software, scripts, procedures and documentation for the
current UNIX environment.
The risk to the current system's infrastructure needs to be assessed. This revolves around
the concern of "breaking" or at least impacting to an appreciable degree, the current
infrastructure. For example, the NT 4.0 browsing service can increase network traffic. The
lack of consistent, interoperable file security may force the use of a network file access
method that is inconsistent with organizational goals. This can also require changes to
such simple things as file backup methods and procedures and would affect such functions
as system monitoring and system wide resource sharing.
There is also a cost associated with ensuring that personnel will accept and utilize the new
environment. Since the UNIX application and system environment has become the
standard system, it is important that all personnel be willing and able to move from this
standard environment to the Windows NT system. This entails ensuring that all personnel
affected have been properly trained. Affected personnel include software development
team members - who must provide a cost effective development base when moving to NT,
System administrators - who must have familiarity with NT system tools and terminology,
and end users - who need to be as productive in this migrated environment as they were on
the legacy systems.
System procedures and processes previously established in the UNIX environment will
undoubtedly be impacted by a migration to Windows NT. Procedures requiring
assessment for migration will most likely include software updates, operating system
updates and patches, user configuration and security. Migration costs will even depend on
the number of mundane procedures, such as system backups, operating system builds,
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