Eight Steps to A Healthy Sun Migration

    BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI, March 30, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- As Oracle's acquisition of Sun breeds concerns among IT managers over Sun's long-term future, previously loyal Sun users have begun to think about their go-forward strategies. If they decide not to continue with Sun under Oracle, where will they take their mission-critical infrastructures, and what are the steps in a successful migration?

Logicalis, an international provider of integrated information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and services, has identified Eight Steps to a Healthy Sun Migration that can help Sun users migrate to a new mission-critical environment safely, whether that environment is another Unix platform like HPUX or AIX, a Windows platform on Intel or AMD, or even a mixed environment based on the customer's unique business needs.

Eight Steps to a Healthy Sun Migration
Step 1: Decide to Make a Change - Recognize that you need to make a change and define your level of urgency for that change.

Step 2: Develop a Financial Baseline - Inventory your existing equipment. Then, determine your current investment and level of depreciation to gauge the ROI of a new or altered infrastructure.

Step 3: Determine the Operating Systems that Make Sense for You - Examine the applications you are running and engage an experienced partner to help you determine what operating platforms you can move to that will provide the best combination of ROI and performance. Avoid the pitfall of believing that Solaris can't run on other architectures - implemented correctly, it can.

Step 4: Take an Inventory of Your Mission-Critical Applications - Can they all run on one platform? If not, choose a migration partner with the application development experience to re-engineer your existing applications for your newly chosen platform. Also, be open to the idea of a mixed environment - in some cases, this may be your best route to cost savings and a better return on investment.

Step 5: Design Your Target Infrastructure - A smart migration plan has a goal based on the technical aspects of the new platform, as well as the business aspects uncovered during a thorough analysis of your financial baseline coupled with your total cost of ownership for new equipment.

Step 6: Build a Well-Defined Migration Plan - Will you move all your applications at once or use a phased approach?

Step 7: Develop a Training Plan - If you're a loyal Sun user, then you have technical staffers well versed in Solaris, but they'll need training to understand the new operating system(s) and how your specific applications will run on them.

Step 8: Execute The Plans You've Made - Now is the time to procure the equipment, get it on site, and begin the physical changeover.

"Logicalis developed this eight-point migration strategy to help Sun users who have concerns about Sun's ability to support SPARC under Oracle long term. Right now, we're seeing a significant amount of interest in Sun users migrating to HP, but I would also encourage Sun users to be open to the idea of a mixed platform when that makes sense as well," says Brandon Harris, vice president of HP solutions for Logicalis.

It's important to note that Logicalis is a Sun iForce partner, an Oracle-certified solution partner, one of HP's largest national solution providers in North America and a 15-year HP partner, as well as an IBM Premier Partner which has been awarded three of IBM's top honors. So, when customers want to migrate, Logicalis is in the enviable position of having extensive experience in multiple platform environments and the ability to work with customers from a vendor-neutral perspective to achieve the right solution based on each customer's individual business needs.

Learn more about Logicalis' key partnerships here: http://www.us.logicalis.com/our-partners.aspx

"Also, for any Sun user concerned about managing a new HP or mixed-platform environment, whether in the short term while ramping up or on an ongoing basis, Logicalis has a host of managed service offerings that can smooth that transition," Harris says.

Learn more about Logicalis' managed services here: http://www.us.logicalis.com/solutions-and-services/outsourcing-services/managed-services.aspx

For more information about Logicalis, visit www.us.logicalis.com.

About Logicalis
Logicalis is an international provider of integrated information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and services founded on a superior breadth of knowledge and expertise in communications and collaboration; data center optimization; application development and integration; and outsourcing and managed services.

With its international headquarters in the UK, Logicalis Group employs over 1,900 people worldwide, including highly trained service specialists who design, specify, deploy and manage complex ICT infrastructures to meet the needs of over 6,500 corporate and public sector customers. To achieve this, Logicalis maintains strong partnerships with technology leaders such as Cisco, HP, IBM and Microsoft.

The Logicalis Group has annualized revenues in excess of $1 billion, from operations in the UK, US, Germany, Latin America and Asia Pacific, and is fast establishing itself as one of the leading IT and Communications service providers, specializing in the areas of advanced technologies and services.

The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec Limited, a $4.2 billion revenue business listed on the Johannesburg and London AIM Stock Exchanges (LSE/JSE: DTC).

For more information about Logicalis, visit www.us.logicalis.com.

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