Planning for Deployment
Planning for Deployment |
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Before you design your Windows 2000 environment, you need to thoroughly understand your current computing environment. Documenting your existing computing environment will help you understand your organization's structure and how it supports your users, and it will help you design your Windows 2000 deployment plan. Diagrams are a useful way to deal with complex concepts such as network layout. Where appropriate, create these diagrams and include them in your project plan documentation.
For more information about network diagrams, see "Preparing Your Network Infrastructure for Windows 2000" and "Determining Network Connectivity Strategies" in this book.
When reviewing your current computing environment, be sure to document the following:
Business Organization and Geographical Requirements Describe the location and organization of your business units. Are large groups of employees located in widely separated geographic areas or are they all located in close proximity to each other? Are your business units closely related, or do they have significantly different needs and requirements?
Key Business Processes If you are modifying key business processes, include diagrams that illustrate these processes and how the new IT infrastructure will affect them. For example, in some organizations, a key Windows 2000 Server deployment goal might be to use Active Directory to distribute administration to local administrators. By distributing administration, you allow administrators to provide better responsiveness to local user requirements. If this is the case, create a model that illustrates how the overall plan will achieve that goal.
Information Architecture When you diagram your key business processes, illustrate how the information needed to make critical decisions will be available at the right place and time. For example, are sales and marketing personnel able to confirm precise delivery dates for customer orders? In your conceptual design, verify that key data stores are well organized and easily accessible.
Application Requirements Conduct a complete inventory of the applications that are used in your organization. Include all custom (in-house) applications. As you are documenting your computing environment, also note the different tasks for which employees use computers and note how the change to Windows 2000 will affect their work. For example, if employees are using an old line-of-business application that is reliant upon certain Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) driver versions, the line-of-business application needs to be tested to ensure that it will work.
Technology Architecture When documenting your network architecture, be sure to include topology, size, type, and traffic patterns. Any significant changes you plan to make to your technology architecture, such as hardware, networking, and services, needs to be illustrated in high-level diagrams.
Current and Future IT Standards Over time, the network and application standards in many organizations become fragmented or obsolete. This is common in organizations that have merged with or acquired other companies. Disparate systems, built over a wide time frame, designed by different people, and often geographically separated, are a potential risk to a successful deployment. An audit of existing systems contributes to the success of the deployment team.
Administrative Model By examining your existing administrative model you identify the administrative tasks that IT personnel have been performing in all areas of your organization. This helps determine whether you need to change any aspect of the existing administrative operations design to accommodate features of Windows 2000 you want to deploy.