AMWAY MIGRATES OFF OF WINDOWS XP AND INTO THE FUTURE

COMPANY Alticor

SUBSIDIARIES Amway Access Business Group Alticor Corporate Enterprises

LOCATION Ada Mich

FOUNDED 1959

EMPLOYEES 28000

TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT STAFF 600

BUSINESS Alticor is best known for Amway the multilevel marketing company specializing in nutrition wellness beauty and home products Featuring more than 3 million independent business owners Amway operates in more than 100 countries and territories across five continents Access Business Group manufactures develops and distributes products for Amway and other companies Alticor Corporate Enterprises maintains a global portfolio of companies with premier health wellness and beauty brands

At a Glance

Upgrading desktop and notebook operating systems is a critical piece of the companyrsquos technology modernization puzzle

Amwayrsquos migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 leaves the company better positioned to leverage new technology much more quickly says Director of End User Technology Database and Production Support Services Carl Wiegand and Manager of Desktop Engineering Michael VanderMey

CASE STUDY SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT

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2

For the better part of a decade Alticor mdash parent company

of Amway mdash clung tightly to Windows XP as its client PC

operating system About three years ago like a lot of

businesses it realized it had to bite the bullet retire XP and

move on to a more modern OS

So Alticor implemented project Next Generation Desktop

(NGD) which turned into more than a mere OS upgrade

NGD facilitated a fundamental shift in how the company

approaches technology

The company needed to change from being a slow adopter

of new technologies to ldquofast followersrdquo says Carl Wiegand

Amwayrsquos director of end user technology database and

production support services and sponsor of the NGD project

ldquoWe recognized we canrsquot survive by being slow adopters

of new technologyrdquo he says ldquoWe in IT have to be more

proactive so we can deliver computing strategies to the

business instead of waiting for them to knock on the

door and ask us for things The NGD initiative gives us the

foundation to do that in a more controlled wayrdquo

ReconciliationBefore the NGD project Amway operated an open-

computing environment That meant full administrative

rights for users who could install any application desired on

their desktops says Wiegand

The result massive application sprawl

At the time Amway began its XP migration it

uncovered more than 19000 applications installed

on the companyrsquos 4500 domestic desktops and

notebooks mdash everything from line-of-business

applications to personal-finance software and shareware

That raised all kinds of problems including app

redundancy and software compliance issues So the first

big challenge was to reduce the number of approved

apps to a manageable amount says Michael VanderMey

Amwayrsquos manager of desktop engineering

ldquoThe first thing we had to do was discover the size of the

beast we had to tacklerdquo he says Using tools like Microsoftrsquos

Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) and LANDesk the IT

staff went from department to department to inventory all

the apps that had been installed on each machine

ldquoThen we started doing reconciliation and elimination

getting rid of the 15 different screen capture apps to

get down to the two or three that met the needs of

everyonerdquo he says ldquoWe partnered with our users and had

conversations about what software they wanted to use

going forwardrdquo

Over nearly two years VanderMeyrsquos team whittled the

number of approved applications down to roughly 1300 That

helped reduce both licensing costs and complexity he adds

ldquoWe eliminated a lot of license fees via our app

reconciliation projectrdquo he says ldquoSo for example instead of

using a dozen different organizational chart programs we

settled on onerdquo

CASE STUDY SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT

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ldquoWe canrsquot survive by being slow adopters of new technology We have to be more proactive so we can deliver computing strategies to the business instead of waiting for them to knock on the door and ask us for thingsrdquo mdash Carl Wiegand director of end user technology database and production support services Amway

38008004239 | CDWcom

Keys to OS Migration SuccessGather your source code A key ingredient in making a

migration project go smoothly is to quickly locate the

sources of applications says Amway Manager of Desktop

Engineering Michael VanderMey ldquoIf yoursquore not able to locate

apps and get enough information to automate them that

can really slow a migration project downrdquo he says

Make the geeks go first When Amway began its Next

Generation Desktop project it started by upgrading IT

department desktops ldquoWe believe in eating our own dog

foodrdquo says VanderMey ldquoIf we run into issues or areas of the

process that need to be worked out we wanted to do that

with the people in IT By the time we got into the larger more

sensitive departments the process was completely smooth

and had far less impact on our operationsrdquo

Get support from above Executive sponsorship made

the migration possible says Amway Director of End User

Technology Carl Wiegand ldquoOnce the executive leadership

was made aware of what our environment really was like

they were supportive from day onerdquo he says ldquoThey helped

champion the message throughout the organizationrdquo

Raise your sights Ask yourself why you are doing this

advises Wiegand ldquoIs it just to get the latest version of the

software or are you trying to create a foundation you can

build on moving forward You need to look at what you can

do to enable yourself to become a fast followerrdquo

Compatibility ChallengeChanging OS platforms almost always means encountering

compatibility challenges as legacy software often cannot

run on newer operating systems The pleasant surprise

for Amway was the relative lack of incompatible apps

says Paul Bateman a consulting engineer for CDW who

specializes in Microsoft and spent 18 months in Amwayrsquos

offices helping to package and automate application

installation

ldquoNormally when you go from a completely unmanaged

application portfolio to a managed one itrsquos like the Wild

Westrdquo says Bateman ldquoLocating all the installation sources

and documenting each installation is usually a huge

challenge Some clients are pulling out apps that havenrsquot

been updated for 15 years But that wasnrsquot the case with

Amwayrdquo

Bateman and his crew developed workarounds for

mission-critical apps that would not run under Windows 7 by

altering folder permissions using terminal emulation taking

advantage of Windows 7rsquos XP mode and deploying apps via

virtual desktops

ldquoWe had to isolate a few legacy apps for our research

and development and marketing departments where the

apps would have cost several million dollars to life-cycle

and replacerdquo says VanderMey ldquoWe did that primarily

by virtualizing them or putting them in a terminal server

environment And we were able to eliminate the majority

of incompatible apps by choosing other apps that did the

same thing but were compatiblerdquo

It was a time-consuming process says Bateman

Automating a single application took about eight hours on

average and often much longer if they ran into snags

ldquoWe had one Cisco app that integrated with a lot of other

apps but wouldnrsquot work with Lotus Notes when we did the

auto deploymentrdquo he says ldquoI had to create

some custom scripts to make it do what

the vendor couldnrsquot make it do which took

me five days of workrdquo

You Canrsquot Touch ThisAmway implemented a department-by-

department wave deployment strategy

says VanderMey While one group

performed app discovery another might

be executing app reconciliation packaging

and virtualization or deployment

ldquoAt any time we might have four or

five different departments actively in one

process of the NGD projectrdquo he adds

Though VanderMeyrsquos team ended up replacing about 400

machines that were near the end of their four-year refresh

cycle the vast majority took in-place upgrades of the OS

and apps usually done remotely via Microsoft System

Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) When all went well

the Amway team could upgrade as many as 300 machines

over the course of a weekend

ldquoWhen users left on Friday they left

their machines logged in and dockedrdquo

he says ldquoOn Monday theyrsquod find a new

operating system and new apps with

their legacy data in place Occasionally

wersquod run into an issue we needed to

troubleshoot like a disconnected LAN

cable or a failed hard drive so wersquod have

to plug in the cables or swap out the

system But for the most part it was all

zero-touch or light-touch deploymentsrdquo

No Place Like ChromeAn essential component of Amwayrsquos

NGD project involved recovering

46

Microsoft OS Market

ShareWindows 7

Windows XP 31

Windows 8 8SOURCE NetMarketSharecom

8008004239 | CDWcom

This content is provided for informational purposes It is believed to be accurate but could contain errors CDW does not intend to make any warranties express or implied about the products services or information that is discussed CDWreg CDWbullGreg and The Right Technology Right Awayreg are registered trademarks of CDW LLC PEOPLE WHO GET ITtrade is a trademark of CDW LLC All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the sole property of their respective ownersTogether we strive for perfection ISO 90012000 certified121668 mdash 131126 copy2013 CDW LLC

The CDW WayLike many successful partnerships Amwayrsquos collaboration

with CDW on its Next Generation Desktop project began

with a conversation

Although parent company Alticor originally considered

moving to a virtual environment it quickly became apparent

that intermediate steps were needed says Kathi Grumke

a CDW solutions manager who attended the opening

discovery meeting

ldquoAlticor initially wanted to talk about virtualizing its desktop

platform but by the end of the session we had to tell them

they just were not readyrdquo she says ldquoThey needed to back

up get their environment in shape and then come back and

talk about virtualization Thatrsquos where it all beganrdquo

Over the course of several months CDW subject matter

experts met with executives at Alticor learning about

the companyrsquos existing environment mapping out new

architectures and breaking the project down into more

manageable segments Finally with a solid plan in place

CDW consultants starting helping with the implementation

and rollout of Next Generation Desktop CDW Professional

Services employees then spent many months onsite to assist

with application discovery reconciliation and packaging

ldquoWhen wersquore talking about a project that has as much

impact on a business as a migration you want as little

disruption as possiblerdquo Grumke says ldquoThat means taking

more time up front inventorying the environment and

working closely with the business units A lot of customers

donrsquot understand and think of it as simply an IT project but

itrsquos much bigger than thatrdquo

4

administrative rights from employees so that only

approved applications could be installed That proved

to be a bigger sticking point than almost anything else

admits VanderMey Users really want to be able to

choose their own tools especially when it comes to web

browsers

ldquoWe started with 15 different browsers in the

reconciliation process and ended up with twordquo says

VanderMey ldquoBecause some of our major business apps

require Internet Explorer we standardized on IE And

because we do have some Macs and iOS devices we had

to support Safari But itrsquos been two years and our Chrome

users are still howling Browsers are a personal thing like

cellphones Some people feel the company doesnrsquot have

the right to tell them which ones they can userdquo

Wiegand adds that Amway is constantly re-evaluating

its technology needs and if a case can be made for

adopting a particular piece of software his team will not

hesitate to deploy it

ldquoIt all comes down to the question Is this software going

to advance our business processesrdquo he says ldquoIf you need

it to do your job we will absolutely provide it As long as

there is a business case we want to be partners in thatrdquo

Modernizing the companyrsquos desktops was a critical piece

of the puzzle says Wiegand But itrsquos only the beginning

Now that the Windows 7 migration is complete for

corporate users Amway is partnering with its affiliates to

deliver consistent services on a global scale Office 2013

is already packaged and ready to be pushed out to US

desktops for example And the company is retiring Lotus

Notes and adopting a cloud-based version of Microsoft

Exchange It also plans to shift to a Cisco WebExJabber

solution for instant messaging video and collaboration

says Wiegand

ldquoThe organization saw this only as a Windows and

Office upgraderdquo Wiegand adds ldquoFor IT it was a global

technology rollout that lets us deliver software in an

automated fashion gain more flexibility in the services we

deliver and create a foundation we can build upon in the

future Now wersquore in a position to leverage new technology

much more quickly and get the most out of itrdquo

CASE STUDY SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT

ldquoLocating all the installation sources and documenting each installation is usually a huge challenge Some clients are pulling out apps that havenrsquot been updated for 15 years But that wasnrsquot the case with Amwayrdquo mdash Paul Bateman consulting engineer CDW

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