Niclas Andersson, Principal Consultant, Agdiwo
Niclas remembers an exciting assignment that, despite time pressure and unexpected challenges, could be solved with agile working methods, teamwork, and expert competence.
The customer had a client environment of approximately 7,000 computers. Client management at the time was based on Altiris, together with several in-house developed solutions.
Due to a changed license model by Altiris, the customer needed to find an alternative that could measure up to today’s solution and provide opportunities to scale as the client base grows.
Considering that they use other products from Microsoft, they looked at Configuration Manager and discovered that you were already licensed in existing agreements.
With this as a basis, a needs analysis was made which showed that Configuration Manager and other products from Microsoft could replace Altiris.
At the beginning of the project, it turned out that they lacked competence in Configuration Manager and needed help in developing a design for the new platform and a roadmap for how the migration would play out
There was a deadline when the clients had to be over in the new platform in order not to have to renew Altiri’s licenses.
With strong competence within their own platform, they needed to find a collaboration partner to drive the project to its goal. At the same time clients in Norway also needed to be included in the solution.
During the project, a challenge in the form of Covid-19 appeared, which placed new demands on routines and processes. With distance work, it became more difficult to follow up on the project and work together.
Agdiwo came in as experts and helped in several areas. With a focus on client management and working methods, we quickly got on track and were able to start the dialogues that were required to produce a basis for the design but also adaptations of the platform for the respective regions.
With Agdiwo’s background in Agile working methods, we put together new routines for stand-ups, workspaces in Microsoft Planner, and processes for how to move forward.
We developed a custom design for the customer and Norway, where we have a broad common base and local adaptations.
When the design was ready, we started the implementation of the platform where we had scalability and flexibility as a focus, while maintaining the flexibility of the local technologies that exist underneath the business.
We drew a plan to migrate all 160 sites over several months, where we sometimes migrated 5 sites in the same week. Since the size of the sites varies between 5-300 users, we were able to implement this remotely together with the respective local technicians who performed the work on site.
Even though the scope grew during the project, we managed to keep to the schedule. The customer was ultimately able to terminate the licenses for Altiris, thus saving unnecessary expenses.
With new processes and routines for their way of working, the operation is ready for new projects in the same style, where the habit of the participants is strong with standups and Planner boards.
Decommissioning old hardware and reducing the number of servers on the sites simplifies operations, and we have received better support for keeping computers at home up to date.
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