By: Roads & Bridges
Platform migration is never easy, especially when mission-critical applications must remain online. Farid Saddik, chief information officer for R&L Brosamer Inc., a highway-heavy construction and engineering contractor, took all the necessary precautions when his department migrated the company’s enterprise from Microsoft Windows NT to Windows Server 2003.
The goal was to bring the network down on a Friday and be back up in all offices and branches simultaneously by Monday morning. Saddik and his team contacted the support departments of all their application vendors with an alert to the possible need for immediate off-hours support.
One of those calls went to Bid2Win Software, developer of Windows-based cost estimating and bidding solutions.
Some typical problems arose as Saddik’s department tested the applications that Friday. They contacted the Bid2Win support department to help troubleshoot and were able to resolve the issues quickly.
R&L Brosamer is located in northern California, while Bid2Win is on the East Coast. At about 10 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on Friday, another problem arose with the migration, prompting R&L Brosamer’s network administrator to contact the Bid2Win support line and request a call back. Saddik quickly realized it was 1 a.m. Eastern time when the call was made, and both he and his administrator soon discovered the problem was not related to Bid2Win.
At 1:10 a.m. EST, however, a member of Bid2Win’s support team contacted the network administrator.
“We take the 24/7 claim from most vendors with a pinch or two of skepticism,” Saddik said. “I was impressed by the speed of the response, given that the day before we were placed on hold for over an hour at a time—in the middle of the business day—by other critical applications and infrastructure support departments.”
