<<ms was fledging on 3.5, i have the 5.0 beta and the product continues to improve. novell continues to drop in the important area of new sales.
i am both a mcse and a cne, with how the intra/internet market has risen ms backoffice makes for a smoother transition and implementation.>>
Not so sure about your conclusions above at the important enterprise level. Check out the below. Novell's 5.0 IP release this summer should spur new sales and tell the story for them going forward.
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Case Study: Migration Migraines
Preface
Microsoft is making a concerted effort to have its Windows NT product line -
both the Server and Workstation versions - adopted by everyone as the
universal panacea for all that ails the enterprise. To this end, it has put
enormous resources behind the development, marketing, sales and support of
the product to prove it is a worthwhile successor to Unix servers,
mini-computers and mainframe systems, and has been selling it as a
loss-leader to gain market share.
Windows NT has been around long enough for some Fortune 100 companies which
decided to implement NT as the corporate standard to be in production mode.
The following is a case study of one such company, documented over several
months through interviews with those responsible for the implementation.
This is the first of several such case studies to be published which are
based on Aberdeen's on-going research with executives of North American and
European businesses and organizations. As a matter of full disclosure, the
sources within the Company which is reported on here initially approached
Aberdeen seeking assistance with their migration problems. Aberdeen itself
received help in understanding the Company's issues from several of
Microsoft's competitors. Nonetheless, this case study is instructive since
all the facts described here were presented by the company's employees and
not by the competitive suppliers.
Background
Since its inception in the early 1970s, the Company has been growing at a
very fast rate, and has effectively used technology to help foster this
growth. The Company's administrative side has over 35,000 desktop systems,
most of which use a version of a Microsoft Windows operating system to run
Office applications. There are an additional 5,000 OS/2-based desktops used
by developers.
The focus of this case study is the IS group responsible for different
aspects of the Company's extensive call center operations. The call
centers - both in-bound customer service and out-bound telemarketing - are
located throughout the country. All are interconnected with state-of-the-art
networking technology. The call center applications were first developed in
the early 1980s on a then popular mini-computer. In 1991, the senior IS
staff made a decision to migrate both the call center development and
operations to IBM OS/2 servers and workstations.
Eventually, about 12,000 clients were installed, using several OS/2 versions
as the operating system. For the servers, OS/2 Warp 3 was the predominant
choice for the call center operations and OS/2 Warp 4 was being used by the
development group. OS/2 Connect seems to be the favorite workstation version
at this time in the call center, and NT or OS/2 Warp 3 in the development
group. The various platforms and applications were very stable, and few
problems with performance or management were reported.
Microsoft's Entry
In 1995 the Company entered into a business relationship with Microsoft, and
as part of the agreement Line of Business (LOB) executives - not IS -
decreed that the Company would become a total Microsoft shop.
In late 1995, the IS groups responsible for the call centers were told to
freeze all OS/2-based application development work, and any OS/2 upgrades
and enhancements. The decision was to go with Windows 95 for all mobile
users, Windows NT Workstation for the desktops used by both developers and
call center operators, and Windows NT Server for all mid-tier networked
servers. The Company still makes extensive use of mainframes at its
enterprise top-tier.
As part of a separate decision, the call center application code was to be
moved from the client to the server because there were too many problems
managing the applications on thousands of clients. As of this writing, the
transition of the application code has taken place with few problems, and
all call center code is now maintained on the server.
Migration Plans
The Company's call center development group began the transition to NT
Workstation in the Spring of 1996, and to NT Server in early 1997, with the
full migration to be completed by mid-1997. The project missed its deadline.
Although some 70% of the migration is completed, the last 30% is now
considered to be so difficult that the IS management is no longer willing to
predict when the project will be complete.
The call center operations group started the transition at the same time,
with the additional implementation of NT SQL Server as well as NT
Workstation and NT Server throughout the operation.
While other companies have implemented NT Server at the workgroup and
departmental level as application or database servers, few have implemented
NT as the network operating system of choice across multiple domains.
However, NT was being introduced at the Company as the sole operating system
for the desktop, LAN server, application server, database server and
communications server. Truly, Microsoft's dream of running everything with a
total Microsoft solution.
Migration Results
The impact of the migration completed to date on the call center's IS budget
and management has been profound - a one-third decrease in performance
accompanied by a fifty-percent increase in management costs. This does not
include production time lost because of workstation freezes, transmission
drops, or the constant re-booting needed to keep the server operational.
From a very stable environment, the IS staff now report chaotic conditions
which have only abated modestly over the months since the migration started.
Production Problems
No matter how fast the Aberdeen OnSite Analyst wrote, the litany of problems
as described by the Company's IS staff were too numerous to detail. However,
describing a few low-lights gives the essence of the myriad problems
encountered:
The most stable of the NT Workstations now require "only" two or three
re-boots per day. Irrespective of the problems encountered, whenever a
workstation freezes, the Microsoft technical support group recommends a
re-boot. The call center operators call this "Microsoft's [expletive
deleted] three-fingered salute - control/alt/delete."
Since transmission of transactions is of paramount importance to the
Company, the intermittent slowdowns, random packet drops and inexplicable
time-outs of routers, increased congestion due to garbage packets, etc., is
of serious concern. To date, neither the Company's nor Microsoft's technical
experts can identify - let alone correct - the problems.
The actual number of end-users is declining, but the number of "domain
engines" (NT Servers, concentrators, routers, etc.) has increased due to NT
Server's inability to service more than modest numbers of end-users.
Trouble tickets are up dramatically and new staff have had to be hired to
respond, but facts are scarce since the help desk has stopped issuing its
monthly customer service level reports because of "embarrassment."
The problems with the SQL Servers were so numerous that they filled four
pages of edited notes. A few are summarized in Table 1.
IS' inability to recommend corrective measures and make changes has caused
enormous frustration, and has led to an exodus of skilled engineers. Given
the tight market for skilled technical staff, it has been necessary to
replace lost personnel with junior level engineers - furthering the NT
migration problems. This gradual degradation of skill levels was described
as a potential "death-spiral."
Table 1: SQL Server Problems Documented by the Call Center IS Staff
Issues with database crashes, resulting in database rebuilds requiring hours
or days to recover.
Database corruption is much more frequent than desired or expected, and
recovery is time consuming and results in downtime and loss of productivity.
Responsiveness to known product bugs/limitations has been poor. Issues which
have been known for some time still do not have a fix released over the past
three micro-revisions.
Much of the product is viewed as inadequate or immature - including cache
management, referential integrity, replication, messaging, log file
management, native SQL code debugging tools, error messages, and proactive
notification of critical system problems.
Technical support often recommends rebooting either SQL Server or NT to
resolve issues.
Concern over the knowledge, responsiveness and effectiveness of Microsoft
technical support.
Advance communications from technical support on issues such as known
problems are missing.
Concerns expressed by technical staff concerning the scalability and
performance of the product, especially when compared with other DBMS
products on the market.
Concern with single platform support (the Company is a multi-platform DCE).
Concern with Year 2000 compliance.
Source: The Company, August 1997
Aberdeen Conclusions
The concept of a smooth migration of the scope and size instituted by the
Company is illusionary. Problems always emerge, schedules are delayed, and
staff comfortable doing things "their way" rebel at the change. Thus, IS'
first complaints about the move to Windows NT were taken with a large grain
of salt.
But, at considerable risk to their jobs, the IS staff Aberdeen has been
talking with have fully documented their woes, and by any objective measure
the migration pain they are suffering goes way beyond the pale. While this
report captures the "plaintive wail" of frustration emitted by the IS staff
who have been planning and implementing this migration over the past two
years, it doesn't capture the level of pain they feel.
Based on hundreds of in-person interviews with senior executives in major
businesses and organizations, Aberdeen has come to understand how effective
use of technology can vastly improve operations. One critical issue often
ignored is the need for a delicate balance between the roles of the business
executives and IS executives in the development of an IT infrastructure for
the enterprise. One simplistic finding is that technology implementations go
well when the business managers determine what is needed to improve
operations, while the IS managers determine how IT gets implemented to
support those business needs.
For the Company, the senior business executives decreed both the what and
the how. They made a business decision to go with Microsoft irrespective of
its various products' strengths and weaknesses, assuming all were "good
enough" to meet the business' needs. The decree, in effect, tied IS' hands
and prevented it from finding the best solutions available - and now IS
finds it politically incorrect to make their bosses aware of the massive
problems the decree has caused.
It is quite possible that this 1995 purely business decision as currently
being implemented will have a material impact on the Company's operations
and bottom line in 1998. For a Company that has been studied by scores of
business school students as a successful example of David beating Goliath
with advanced technology, the breaking of the decision-making balance
between its technical and business groups could lead to a sadder chapter.
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