Intel China's former CIO disclosed Windows7 deployment strategy

Windows 7 has been officially released in October 2009 for 25 months, and the current sales authorization is close to 500 million sets. It is the largest PC operating system in history, accompanied by With the popularity of products, the trend of Windows 7 deployment is shifting from individual consumers to enterprise users. However, enterprise users are not as simple as deploying Windows 7 when deploying Windows 7, and they need to ensure that existing applications are fully compatible. IT giants spent more than two years to ensure that Windows 7 is deployed in an orderly manner, and its methods are worth learning from companies in the traditional industry.

  Intel started the deployment of Windows 7 in the second half of 2009. The company conducts compatibility testing for more than 2,000 applications, pilots among 3,000 employees The bottom will be deployed in more than 100,000 PCs with more than 80,000 employees. "In the interview with ZDNet, Liam Keating, Director of Global Sales Operations for Intel IT, Asia, said in an interview with ZDNet: "The process of deploying Windows 7 has taken two years. More time, but value for money: Windows 7 meets Intel's needs in every area of ​​assessment, helping companies improve employee productivity, manageability and security, while achieving IT cost benefits. The company's internal evaluation reduced Intel's TCO (total cost of ownership) by $11 million over the five-year Windows 7 update cycle. In the batch deployment process of Windows 7, whether it is the result of laboratory performance testing, or the scores of early users and late users, Windows 7 scores very high, 97% of early adopters are willing to recommend Windows 7 to colleagues This percentage is not easy. & ldquo;

Li Keding said that the compatibility test, business and IT departments full communication, flexible deployment is the three key points of Intel's successful upgrade of Windows 7.

Spend more than 2,000 applications in 20 weeks

Li Keding said that one of the major challenges encountered in the large-scale deployment of any enterprise-class operating system is application compatibility.

“ Intel spent 20 weeks specializing in migration testing for more than 2,000 applications. Of these applications, 1,100 are key business applications that are used by several major business units. Our IT team also used more than 20 people to support the business unit testing application process. “

Intel IT currently has more than 6,000 employees worldwide, supporting 91 data centers and approximately 120,000 desktops, laptops and mobile devices. Intel's IT department in China has 300 employees, serving Intel's 8,000 employees, and three data centers, 1,200 servers and 10,000 PCs.

Li Keding said, & rdquo; We also found that less than 1% of the applications need to be fixed. This ratio is very low compared to previous versions of operating system upgrade compatibility. We also repaired these programs very smoothly. “

Selecting 3,000 employees for piloting

& rdquo; The second key success factor is the close cooperation between the IT department and the business unit. Each business unit is responsible for testing its own applications, and the role of the IT department is support, consulting, and training. “

Li Keding said, “About a year and a half ago, we launched the Windows 7 early adoption plan, and among the more than 80,000 employees of Intel, we found about 3,000 users as early users. From different business units. “We have requirements for the hardware configuration of early deployment users. In addition to the Intel Mobile965 series and above, we need at least 2GB of memory and Intel SSD solid state drives. Because this can give users a better experience. & rdquo;

Li Keding said that the full communication between the IT department and the business unit is an important factor in the successful deployment of WIndows 7. In order to communicate well, we used social media, internal blogs, and targeted emails, and even pioneered some methods. “We have a special project called Smile Morning. The project refers to the first day of the upgrade of some Intel employees to Windows 7. An IT staff is waiting for everyone in the lobby outside the office. Tell other employees that we are already using Windows 7. I hope everyone can use Windows 7 well. And introduce some of the benefits of Windows 7. & rdquo;

Choosing a flexible deployment method

Li Keding also said that in the process of deploying and migrating Windows 7, to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach, Intel provides a variety of ways to deliver and deploy Windows 7. for selection.

& ldquo; There is a formal way for employees to take the machine to the PC center and upgrade it to the PC center. There is also an interesting way: take a few tables in our lunch area, use the lunch time, internal staff to eat, the IT department upgrades their terminal to Windows 7. In addition, we also provide employees with a self-service upgrade and upgrades to remote sites. ”

PC products have an average life cycle of 3 to 5 years. Li Keding told ZDNet reporters that the average replacement cycle of Intel employees' PCs is three and a half years. When employees PC hardware upgrades, they can deploy Windows 7 at the same time. Make the experience better, especially with Intel's SSD solid state drives and new processors, mission-critical startup and responsiveness. & ldquo;

Li Keding also revealed that with the expansion of the scope of deployment of Windows 7, Intel has also developed more indicators to measure the scale of success. ” We have deployed a BI tool that tracks the progress of Windows 7 deployment through a series of pre-defined metrics like a dashboard