Get ready. Start. Migrate.

We’ve entered the final quarter of 2010, the time when Gartner anticipates most Windows 7 migrations will start in earnest. They’ve done extensive number crunching on the costs of Windows 7 migrations, and many other analysts have further reviewed these findings and prescribed their remedy to ease the pains, if not the costs entirely.

Windows 7 migration is expensive.

No matter how one dresses it up, there’s no hiding the plain truth: IT organizations are being asked to budget an extra 20% to 60% to their costs over the next two years. In addition to the well known costs such as new hardware and Windows 7 licensing, there are many hidden costs with Windows 7 migration.

First, there is the cost of identifying which applications to migrate and when? This is a hard, time-consuming task. Even though Windows 7 is supposed to be backwards compatible, the reality is that many applications still do not work flawlessly.

Second, there is the cost of maintaining both Windows XP and Windows 7 environments for a protracted period, which can be up to two or three years for some organizations based on their migration schedule.
Lastly, there is the cost of migrating personal data. In many work environments, there has been a blurring of the personal and the corporate. Windows 7 migration brings this issue to the forefront, since IT has to decide what and what not to migrate.

There is a silver lining. Windows 7 migration also provides the best opportunity to clean up.

While the list of problems with Windows 7 migration seems endless, a migration project provides IT with the opportunity to upgrade its management architecture, enforce better data usage guidelines, and offer greater user flexibility.

The question becomes, which solution can really solve the problem? Virtualizing the desktop can significantly speed up image deployment. Gartner suggests going with a hosted virtual desktop (HVD or server hosted virtual desktop), but at the same time argues that it is expensive, and what you are saving in migration costs you are adding in capital costs.

The alternative approach (MokaFive’s approach) is to virtualize the desktop, but instead of putting it on a server, you send it back down to the endpoint for local execution, thereby eliminating the datacenter requirement. With this approach, you have no additional capital costs. You simply take your existing machines and deploy a Windows 7 virtual machine environment to them. Your users now have Windows 7 environment without having to wait for your hardware refresh cycle. The best part is that the users can still use the Windows XP on their host machine to access legacy applications.

Refresh hardware on your own timeline: Traditionally, with Windows 7, customers are left with the hard choice of either forklift-upgrading their machines or refreshing their hardware. Instead of trying to speed up the refresh, you can use MokaFive to deploy a Windows 7 LivePC on top of your existing machines until they need a hardware refresh. Even if your refresh cycle extends beyond 2014, you will be fine, since your users can be provisioned with a Windows 7 environment on their existing Windows XP machines. Then when the refresh happens on a true Windows 7 base platform, the Windows 7 LivePC can be moved in minutes.

Provide users with platform choice: With virtual desktops, you can now implement programs such as BYOC or offer employees the choice to bring in the much-desired Mac. You can leverage the migration project to get out of the device management business. Let users bring a device, and you manage the secure corporate virtual image on top of the device. Best part, unlike HVD, users are free to work online or offline.
Separate work and personal: Windows 7 migration gives the ideal opportunity to start enforcing best practices around user data. With a virtual desktop approach, users can move their personal data to the host machine, allowing you to lock down the virtual desktop.

Future-proof yourself: In IT, change often means cost and pain. But a hugely disruptive change like Windows 7 is also a golden opportunity to implement a 'future-proof' management architecture. Even if you muscle through a Windows 7 migration by 2014, what happens with the next big upgrade? By upgrading your management infrastructure to a client based virtual desktop solution, you can not only ease the next upgrade cycle but also get huge TCO benefits while at the same providing more choice to your users.

Purnima Padmanabhan, VP of Products & Marketing