Finish this statement: “Give a man a fish, and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you ____.”

If you plan and strategize right, you can have more than just a new operating system on all of your users’ endpoints. You can gain a practice to upgrade machines continuously, no matter what Microsoft throws at you.

As the end of life for Windows 7 approached, many companies—especially those operating under regulatory compliance—had to migrate large numbers of machines all at once. These high priority projects cost companies millions of additional dollars.

Much of that cost came from hiring outside consulting firms to identify your needs, create a migration plan, and use their tools to perform the migration. When the experts were done, they took everything with them and left organizations with upgraded machines but not much else.

Get there faster with a guide

It is better when navigating uncertain waters to have a guide who can outfit you with the right equipment, show you where to cast your line, reel in a few fish to show you proper techniques, and then let you go for it.

Most organizations of any size are not migrating everything at once. If your Windows 10 project plan calls for a phased migration that includes, 1) migrating through attrition, 2) providing pushes to specific departments or groups and 3) individual upgrade capability through a self-service portal, Ivanti can jumpstart your practice.

Ivanti will provide the systems and the knowledge—as well as perform a portion of the upgrade—so you can get a positive start and minimize the learning curve.

Catch more without handling the mess

I have an uncle who fly fishes three or more times a week. Yet, he and my aunt hate to eat fish. He is an artist at catching the fish and an engineer at the "catch and release" method, so much so that he’s got it down to a science.

He uses barbless hooks and created a small device he slips onto the line and pops the fish off the hook without touching the fish. He never gets his hands dirty, but he catches 60-80 fish for every six to eight I can catch.

Are your provisioning processes so efficient that you don’t have to touch each device? Every organization uses hardware attrition to upgrade a portion of their operating systems. Usually, that means IT receives a new machine, re-images it, and delivers the device to the user who has backed up their data and profile somewhere.

Ivanti can provide practices and processes that help you deliver a device without touching it, just like my uncle and the many fish he catches. You can deliver a new machine, lay down the approved corporate OS image, provision the latest apps and drivers, and restore the user profile all without IT needing to touch the user’s device. This process involves integrating with a distributor, such as CDW, which can fulfill an individual user order with the corporate image and uses Ivanti to extract the user profile and provision the appropriate drivers and up-to-date applications.

Feed them for a lifetime

Learn the best way to automate your provisioning and you’ll be casting more often for bigger fish with your IT resources. Let Ivanti be your outfitter and guide so you can get your Windows 10 project up and running or working more proficiently. We’ll migrate hundreds or thousands of machines for you so you can jump start your Windows 10 implementations. Then you’ll be able to migrate, update, and patch your Windows 10 devices in a more automated fashion. After all, if you’re going to do a major OS upgrade, you might as well feed your users the devices they need over many OS lifetimes.

Key takeaways

  1. Provide multiple methods for migrating to achieve a phased migration
  2. Wherever possible, automate your new device provisioning to eliminate the need to touch each device
  3. When using an outside resource, make sure they help you improve your provisioning practice

Steps to Windows 10 migration success