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Need help to justify migration.

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Hello there, this is a wonderful group and here is my first posting.
For several months I have been working as a volunteer (network support) with this company and now they have offered me a deal (this I have learned from a friend working in the same IT dept): There is still no open full time position for me in the IT group but they offered to hire me as a consultant to assist them in analyzing, assessing and migrating their network to a server based infrastructure. The current situation there:
-about 150 workstations (80%Windows, 20 % Macs and Linux)
-PEER to PEER! network
-10 groups with 8-10 users each located in two floors in the building
-all members of one workgroup, no restrictions
-everybody has access to (almost) everywhere
-everybody is Administrator!
-no centralized solution for backup, virus protection, updates..
– no DHCP, AD
-static/manual IP addressing!
As you can see administration is a nightmare here, so they are willing to put some thought and money there. My task would be to justify before the boss my proposition to migrate to server based network. I suppose that won’t be so hard given the above characteristics but still, the more killer arguments I have, the better. Do you have any suggestions and advice to justify this project beside the well known ones about the saved money in a long term(ROI), the greatest security and ease of administration that server based infrastructure would offer?
I would appreciate any suggestions that you might have. This is my first time someone offers me to prepare such a report and I don’t feel very comfortable with the planning side of our business.Thanks in advance.

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In reply to Need help to justify migration.

I get the feeling that your justification is being looked at as a technical justification to the IT manager or director. If so, he is looking for a technical focus. However, unless he has the authority to dictate to the business leaders on all IT matters, he will likely have a real battle on his hands.

The best starting point is to work directly with the business leaders and the users to understand how they use the technology to support their goals and objectives. List these as business requirements and use this to define technical objectives. Every technical specification needs to directly map to the business requirements or its meaningless to the company.

Pay close attention to such things as files sent to printers to become market documentation. Often the printers have specific format requirements that dictate the need for a mac.

Consider user profiles – a common grouping across business teams that defines a set of application and access levels needed for their jobs.

Keep in mind that your proposal will probably be evaluated based on how well it addresses the business leaders time, money, knowledge, security, and prestige – not how sound of a technical proposal it is.

Reply To: Need help to justify migration.

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Your effort will be better received by users if sponsored by a leader outside of IT. Encourage the IT manager (if he is who is contracting you) to get a business leader to champion the effort and make initial introductions to the business heads.

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Thank you for the answer Oldefar.i think I am on the wright track.I liked the one about the business needs dictating the technology ut not vice versa.

Reply To: Need help to justify migration.

In reply to Need help to justify migration.

You asked about 50 questions…..but
Server based enviro is better..explain why for administration, monitoring, support, uptime.
Servers are an expense but Dell is selling some sub $500 …200/400sc i think thats the model..
with 150 employees static ip is still acceptable since it may faciliate monitoring and remote control, accentuate the positives but remember your justifying an additional dollar amount for hardware and management..where does this save the company $ in long run.. more solid environ, better support, less down time or headaches, centralized updates and antivirus etc. you can do a lot of reading or view a few webcasts and get the high points and buzz words for your submission.always ask…if we lost this pc of set of files how badly would we be effected…if we had an extreme data loss how much money would the co. lose. these points need to be organized and well developed..there are many such outlines available from sites like this one. have fun!!!

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