Moving to the Cloud – How a Conversion Works with IVDesk – continued

Continued from previous Post

The Pilot runs for as long as needed.  With small clients it can be a day, with larger ones a week or more.  The goal is to get the applications tested and fix/adjust anything identified.  It’s a trial “Live” day and we treat it as such.  Support’s available for the users, the Pilot group has gone through IVDesk training, and everyone’s ready to go.  We check off applications as they’ve been tested and work through the details.

Once the Pilot is complete, we affirm the live cut-over date and schedule the cut-over items: Training for users, final setup of a secondary Internet connection, Email cut-over requirements, data migration/cut-over scheduling, etc.  Most of this occurs during the last week or so of the turn-up and is scheduled fairly tightly.  We do special things for Internet connection failover, large data migration, application data/database migration, and other items as needed.  Our focus is on a smooth cut-over timed best for the client.

Last couple of items to give you an idea about are the cut-over day and the first Live day.  We’ve gotten everyone though the straight-forward training and prep week, and have scheduled MX record cut-over time and are capturing live data copies.  Friday (usually) afternoon comes and we show up on site to touch each PC, do some basic clean up, finalize capture of user settings locally, data, favorites, etc., and get what we need.  For some server applications this can be very detailed.  We’re on site until we’ve got everything and then route the data and details to the data center.  This can be remote or via physical data moves as needed.

Over the weekend we import all the data, email, databases, etc. and have key Pilot users testing on Saturday.  Everything is there by now, all users a live, email’s flowing, and we’re just finalizing every desktop for each user.  We login as each user and go through an exhaustive setup of sets to insure that the first Live day will be good and solid for all users.  No one wants surprises.

Monday comes and we’re there with donuts/bagels when employees arrive.  We want to make sure that first experience is solid and answer questions as they arive.  We’ve tested everything by now but they’ll be a few small things that we address on site.  Depending on the size of the customer and complexity we may be there a few hours to a few days.  What ever is needed.  We want it smooth and will do what we need to to make sure it is.  Users can call the Helpdesk at any time or grab local staff while we’re there.

After the initial Live on-site time, users contact the Helpdesk by phone or email and get immediate help.  We can quickly shadow their sessions and work with any issues as they arrive.  We can help set users up at home or on the road (very easy) and are available when ever they need it.  At their finger tips…

That’s it.  Kinda detailed here but very smooth to our customers.  You can see a few talk about it on YouTube by searching for IVDesk and hearing it from their own experiences.  Not a lot to worry about, we Pilot everything, and our goal is to make it smooth.  Once a customer is up, things are very straight-forward for them.

Let us talk with you about getting out of the IT business and saving you time, capital, money, and your sanity!  Give us a call to talk about how we can help.

Thanks
Bill Sorenson
www.IVDesk.com
612-605-5461

Moving to the Cloud – How a Conversion Works with IVDesk

I thought it would be good to go over how a typical LAN/WAN Network environment moves to a Cloud Computing solution like IVDesk and how this goes smoothly.  This will help take some “fear” out of a conversion and show what we see as best practices that have been developed over the last 8 years of moving customer to the Cloud.

We start our process with a typical “Kick-off” meeting to gather details across the board.  This includes information on all applications in use, existing server hardware, Internet connections, existing network infrastructure, all vendors utilized support across the company, and existing user information.  This process helps document the current environment and provides a “Requirements” document and test plan basis for our Pilot phase.  If we know about it and run it we can test it.  Pretty straight-forward but starts to build on our process of documentation for the customer.  What’s running on what and where, who’s running it, where’s the data, databases, files and folders, and how’s it being managed today.

Our next step is an internal analytical process where we look at server applications and figure out virtualization in relation to how we want to run things.  Normally, the client isn’t involved here but our staff comes up with how each application will run, which will be on virtual servers, what will be physical servers, what will run on the desktops.  Again, pretty straight-forward but detailed.

Once the plan is complete and all the installation CDs, etc. have been gathered, we begin the process of building the environment for them.  We contact the large application vendors and review their migration documentation and strategies, talk with staff, etc., and document the process for each app.  Most of the time this is pretty straight-forward as each vendor has helped their customers move from older servers to new ones, so we’re no different.

At the same time we’re adding all the user information into AD, setting up security groups as needed, verifying email information and groups, and basically setting up the company.  This again is smooth as we’ve done it so many times.  Some applications have AD interaction so that gets setup as well. 

Next, we build the “Pilot” environment.  Setup desktop servers for users, VMs with applications, Physical servers as needed, and literally build the company’s IT infrastructure.  We take a backup copy of their local data and use it as a snapshot for the Pilot.  We verify basic application usage internally and setup the formal Pilot testing and validation, using the “Requirements” and test plan developed early on to make sure everything’s covered.  There will always be some straggling information or settings but this is handled during this Pilot phase.

Continued on next Post

Thanks
Bill Sorenson
www.IVDesk.com
612-605-5461

Moving or Expanding? Cloud Computing Makes it Easy!

Another wonderful benefit of moving your environment to the cloud involves the flexibility and easy of expanding your business to new locations or moving.  Many times a physical move of the office can cause dramatic issues with technology and applications being used.  You have to plan to move the servers, applications, network, infrastructure, connections, PC, printers, everything, and without any downtime.  Most often, companies buy additional equipment to move their main applications first, mirror them, then cut over as the physical move happens.

Very expensive and prone to failure and long outages.  IVDesk customers, who have all their applications, data, and desktops hosted in the cloud, never have those issues.  Opening a new location or moving is simple.  The new location Internet connections come in (we setup the router), and they physically move their PCs.  Everything else is just the way it was.  No need to touch the applications, servers, security, etc.  Everything is there, always.  Talk about a relief!

Our customers continually have access to all their applications from everywhere.  A physical move or an expansion only needs to have Internet connectivity and everyone works, just as they do from anywhere.  All their desktops are there, applications, data, everything.  Nothing could be easier!

Join the group of companies that are taking advantage of IVDesk’s 8+ years of experience running hundreds of applications in the cloud.  Excellent customer service, low monthly fees per user, and not capital costs involved.  Get moved today and start taking advantage of ALL the benefits of a great IT solution.

Predictable Pain Free Computing.

Bill Sorenson
CEO
www.IVDesk.com