Simplifying Windows 7 Deployment: The What, When and How of Application Migration

SCCM Expert’s Self Service for Windows 7 migrations provides an understanding of what applications to migrate, gives the flexibility to schedule migrations, and enables an automated migration workflow.

Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB) March 23, 2011

Self Service and System Center Configuration Manager 2007 together simplify Windows 7 deployment and application migration. This enables successful migrations, with minimum downtime and manual effort, and ensures that each employee gets the right applications after migration.

“We are seeing increased demand for a self-service approach to Windows 7 migration,” said John Juris, President, SCCM Expert. “Many of our existing customers, who have been using SCCM Expert’s Self Service for software request management are planning self-service driven migrations after Microsoft Management Summit 2011.”

One challenge for enterprise IT is to get an understanding of organizational software usage, and of the applications each employee requires to be productive. Self Service’s appSurvey collects data on applications currently deployed on an end-user’s machine, and intelligently suggests which applications the end-user should migrate based on usage patterns and administrator recommendations.

Once one knows which applications to migrate, manually assigning different sets of applications to different groups within the organization is cumbersome. Self Service lets administrators define roles — groups of applications that can be applied to organizational units, Active Directory user properties or collections.

Rob Olson, SCCM Expert CTO, elaborated “Self Service assigns roles dynamically based on end-user and computer criteria. End-user’s can add further roles or individual applications, if administrators allow. This approach ensures that end-user’s get exactly the applications they need.”

Upon automatic assignment of roles administrators have the flexibility to:

•     Remotely migrate applications during the operating system build process
•     Start instant application migration (see 4-minute video)
•     Provide end-users a URL to restore applications themselves after migration

Through this self-service migration approach organizations benefit by:

•     Reducing manual OSD and application migration effort
•     Ensuring that end-user’s get the right applications
•     Minimizing downtime

Rob Olson concluded “Along with a smooth migration, enterprises gain visibility on the software they own, and on their software usage patterns. Enterprises can reduce software licensing costs by not migrating expensive software that the end-user is not using. Thus, there is a dual benefit of efficiency and reduced software licensing costs.”

Drop by booth 127 at the Microsoft Management System 2011 to meet the SCCM Experts and learn more about how we can help you with Windows 7 deployment and application migration. We will be giving a demonstration on ‘100% Self Service Driven Windows 7 OSD and Application Migration using Configuration Manager 2007’ at 10:15 A.M. on Thursday, 24th of March at BK14 in the Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas.

About SCCM Expert:
SCCM Expert is a Microsoft Gold Partner and founding member of the Microsoft System Center Alliance. Global corporations, education institutes and government agencies are using SCCM Self Service to automate Windows 7 migrations and lower the cost of software request fulfillment.

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