Migration Expert Zone

For those of you who saw the title and thought this was a horror story featuring a migration that went terribly wrong, sorry to disappoint.  It would be interesting, though, to hear from you about the longest-duration migration project you ever undertook…

We took a look back through the MEZ archive to review the highlights of 2011, and found it amazing how much happens in the short span of a year.

In the very first post of 2011, Rick Broida reported that Windows 7 had achieved higher market share in a year than Vista did in four.  While that’s no surprise to anyone who ever migrated to Vista, it’s worth noting that with only two years left until support is withdrawn, Rick reported as recently as October 12 that Windows 7 has just passed XP in user count.  In fact, we shared a video in late April asking “Is Windows XP Good Enough?”  Apparently just less than half the user base is still answering “Yes!”  But two years is a very short time in the IT world, and Windows 7 has proved every bit as stable and solid as XP, with tons of improved features.  It is past time to consider doing your migration.

On January 19, 2011 Rick announced the availability of the Microsoft Assessment & Planning (MAP) Toolkit version 5.5.  On June 6, we talked about the new features of the MAP 6.0 toolkit beta, and just about two weeks ago, we announced the release of version 6.5.  With toolkits like MAP, MDOP, and the Infrastructure Assessment (IO) Frameworks, Microsoft continues to demonstrate its focus on the importance of “measure twice, cut once.” 

Assess, Plan, and Deploy

Similarly, an Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate was announced on February 10, and we’ve already seen a platform preview for Internet Explorer 10 slated for general release along with Windows 8, scheduled for beta this February.  Of course we introduced Windows 7 Service Pack (SP)1 last March, but haven’t seen anything beyond rumors of an SP2 coming anytime before May 2012. Of course, this could just be further testament to how well Windows 7 was built in the first place!!

We also focused on several issues that will likely receive even more attention as we head into 2012. Virtualization is becoming mainstream, and Hyper-V has been gaining market share in recent months.  System Center Virtual Machine Manager has become a very important part of managing virtualization in the data center, and as we get closer to the general release of the 2012 version, we’ll be talking more about this.  Virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) and the Windows Thin Client will also continue to show up in our blog as adoption of these technologies continues to expand.

We’d very much like to see the Migration Expert Zone become more of a conversation with you, the technical community that turns to us for insight and information into new tools, new platforms, and new best practices.  Please share with us in the comments section which topics and issues you’d like to see us address here.  Thanks for a great 2011, and have a healthy and prosperous 2012.