Deploying Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is a substantial undertaking, even on a small network. Just the task of planning a Windows Server 2003 deployment can be a daunting process, especially in a large enterprise. The larger the business, however, the more important it is that the planning process be thorough and fully account for the proposed project's goals, as well as lay out exactly how those goals will be accomplished.
Accommodating the goals of all the business units in a company can be difficult, and it is best accomplished with a well-planned series of steps that includes checkpoints and plenty of opportunity for management participation. The organization as a whole will benefit from your thorough preparation and so will the information technology (IT) department. Careful planning can also help you avoid common obstacles by helping you identify potential pitfalls and then determine how best to avoid them, or at least be ready for any unavoidable complications.
A clear road map can help with any complex project, and deploying Windows Server 2003 in the enterprise is certainly a complex project. A number of firms have developed models to describe IT processes such as planning and systems management—often used by their consulting group—each of which offers its own structured method of approaching a complex project. This detailed description of the people who should be involved, the tasks they will perform, and the order in which they should perform the tasks can be useful when approaching a large-scale project.
These models all share a largely common path for walking through the planning process— they divide it into different phases and describe it using different phrases. The Microsoft Solutions Framework Process Model, described in the next section, provides an illustration of one approach.
Microsoft has defined its own formalized processes for implementing IT solutions and network management. Two models are used: the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) defines deployment project methods, while operations administration is the focus of the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF). The MSF process model defines the following phases:
Envisioning During the first phase, project goals are defined and clarified. Using this information, you create a vision/scope document stating the overall vision, goals, and scope of the project. The final step in this phase is approval of this document.
Planning Once the goals and scope have been agreed upon, you have to translate that information into the specific features, services, and configuration options that are required to achieve the goals. A master project plan, which describes how the implementation will proceed and sets the schedule, is approved at the end of this phase.
Developing During this phase, the Windows Server 2003 infrastructure, any required custom code (applications or scripting), and documentation are developed.
Stabilizing When the new environment has been created in the lab, it is thoroughly tested prior to deployment. This is your chance to ensure that the platform is stable and ready to go before you begin the pilot deployment.
Deploying Finally, you deploy Windows Server 2003 into the production environment. IT staff first perform a small pilot project; once that is successfully completed, Windows Server 2003 is rolled out across the rest of the environment.
These stages are seen as occurring more or less linearly, but not exclusively so, in that stages are commonly revisited at multiple points along the way.
Note
For more information about the MSF, visit http://www.microsoft.com/msf/.
The Microsoft model is an interesting one, but it is useful to get a bit more specific. This is especially true when working with people from other departments, who might not be familiar with IT processes. For our purposes, the deployment process can be broken down into a roughly sequential set of tasks:
Identify the team For all but the smallest rollouts of a new operating system, a team of people will be involved in both the planning and deployment processes. The actual size and composition of this team will be different in each situation. Collecting the right mixture of skills and expertise will help ensure the success of your project.
Assess your goals Any business undertaking the move to Windows Server 2003 has many reasons for doing so, only some of which are obvious to the IT department. It is important to carefully identify the goals of the entire company before determining the scope of the project to ensure that all critical goals are met.
Analyze the existing environment Examine the current network environment, even if you think that you know exactly how everything works—you will often find you are only partially correct. Gather hardware and software inventories, network maps, and lists of which servers are providing which services. Also, identify critical business processes, and examine the administrative and security approaches that are currently in place. Windows Server 2003 offers a number of security and management improvements, and it is useful to know which ones are particularly important in your environment.
Define the project scope Project scope is often one of the more difficult areas to pin down, and one that deserves particular attention in the planning process. Defining scope requires prioritizing the goals of the various groups within the organization and then realistically assessing what can be accomplished within an acceptable budget and time frame. It's not often that the wish list of features and capabilities from the entire company can be fulfilled in the initial, or even later, deployment.
Design the new network environment Once you have pinned down the project scope, you must develop a detailed design for the new operating system deployment and the affected portions of the network. During this time, you should create documentation describing the end state of the network, as well as the process of getting there. This design document serves as a road map for the people building the testing environment and, with refinements during the testing process, for the IT department later on.
Test the design Thorough testing in the lab is an often overlooked, but critically important, phase of deploying a new network operating system. By building a test lab and putting a prototype environment through its paces, you can identify and solve many problems in a controlled environment, rather than in the field.
Install Windows Server 2003 After you have validated your design in the lab and management has approved the deployment, you can begin to install Windows Server 2003 in your production environment. The installation process has two phases:
Pilot phase—During the pilot phase, you will deploy and test a small group of servers running Windows Server 2003 (and perhaps clients running Microsoft Windows XP) in a production environment. You should pick a pilot group that is comfortable working with new technology, and for whom minor interruptions will not pose significant problems. In other words, this is not a good thing to do to the president of the company or the finance department just before taxes are due.
Rollout—Once you have determined that the pilot phase was a success, you can begin the rollout to the rest of the company. Make sure you schedule adequate downtime, and allow for ongoing minor interruptions and increased support demands as users encounter changed functionality.
As mentioned, these steps are generally sequential, but not exclusively so. You are likely to find that as you work through one phase of planning, you must return to activities that are technically part of an earlier phase. This is actually a good thing, because it means you are refining your plan dynamically as you discover new factors and contingencies.
Inside Out: Getting off to a quick start
People need not be assigned to all these tasks at the beginning of the planning process. If you have people who can take on the needs analysis and research on the current and new network environment (these are roughly the program management, product management, and development assignments from the MSF model), you can get the project under way while recruiting the rest of the project team.