This large software vendor and consulting company, which employs over 4,000 staff worldwide andmanages 25,000 devices, are expected by their clients to have 24/7 availability. This necessitates exceptionally brief maintenance windows.
"Our corporate mission statement is that we understand OUR business and that our clients know theirs. To adhere to this principle in mobile device management, we rely on the experts," stated the customer’s IT department poject lead. Confirming this sentiment, they further contended that "comdivision has demonstrated their capability in managing a large number of devices within challenging maintenance periods."
Tobias Paschek, comdivision's project lead for this initiative, was aware that the tight maintenance windows meant downtime had to be minimized. "The obvious issue with these kinds of migrations is that thousands of users could be disrupted if the update fails without a fallback option," Paschek noted. "Suddenly, Windows — or Workspace ONE — becomes a business-critical system; not just for our client but also for their customers, should they encounter issues reaching the help desk."
Another significant challenge was the migration of existing personal content data to the NetApp system, especially since VMware had discontinued the personal content feature and the data needed a secure transfer.
Paschek and his team initially developed a timeline for the migration to inform every department — particularly the Service Desk — of the impending reduction in service. "We devised an emergency plan to ensure that we had a fallback strategy ready in the case of any mishaps," Paschek explained, "which allowed us to safely upgrade Workspace ONE and update the operating system simultaneously."For the personal content data, the comdivision team collaborated with the client to devise a plan for migrating the personal content to user repositories.
"Mr. Paschek and his colleagues have shown a very structured approach," commended the customer’s project lead, "we felt well-supported, and during several critical moments in the migration, we were promptly informed and provided with a clear plan on how to respond to these incidents and what issues or failures might arise." He added, "We were also able to keep our service desk well-informed about potential business interruptions during the update, and thanks to targeted communication, not a single ticket related to the mobile workspace was raised during the migration."
"We are already planning new projects and hope that Mr. Paschek and his team will be available again," concluded the project lead.
