Thursday,   24   April   2025

LinuxForce Migration Services

Whether you are migrating one system or your whole server room, LinuxForce can help. We are the Linux migration experts. We have migrated whole server clusters and mission critical systems. Our staff knows how to ensure a smooth transition. We have migrated systems for AIG, AFLAC, the Franklin Institute Science Museum and many more. Contact us to plan and manage your migration to Open Source Software, Linux or Debian GNU/Linux.

The LinuxForce Migration Methodology

1. Preliminary Audit. The first step is to audit the existing systems to understand comprehensively the hardware, software, communications protocols, user and software interfaces, security requirements, etc. involved in the system(s) to be migrated.
2. Specifications. Engineer and specify the new post-migration environment.
3. Deployment. Deploy the new post-migration system in a test environment.
4. Testing. After a complete testing of all components by the migration technicians and engineers, all business constituencies need to thoroughly test the new system(s) to ensure that their particular needs will be met by the new system.
5. Migration. Implement the detailed step-by-step plan to transition the old environment into standby mode and bring the new environment into production status as seamlessly as possible (often zero downtime plans can be developed).
6. Evaluation. Evaluate the effectiveness of the migration on an ongoing basis and make recommendations designed to ensure continued, positive business results.

Appendix: Reasons to Migrate to Open Source Software (OSS)

OSS is a disruptive technology. It enables a fundamental change to the way organizations provide IT services. It is a move away from a product to a service based industry. OSS costs nothing to license. The question is where to get support. In the greater Philadelphia region, LinuxForce is the premiere third party support company for OSS. LinuxForce bridges your organization to the OSS community in which we have been immersed since 1993.

There are many reasons to migrate to OSS. These include:

• OSS provides freedom from the concerns of software licensing. Using lock-in (sometimes called proprietary) software involves tracking software licenses and usage which demands extra administration and legal exposure. Both raise costs.
• The foundation of the business case for Open Source is high reliability. Open Source software is transparent and is 'peer-reviewed', that is, scrutinized and tested by many users and developers around the world - a resource pool that not even the largest software monopoly can afford. The result is mature code that makes for software of a relatively high level of quality.
• OSS solutions tend to be more general purpose and so incur lower implementation, evolution, and training costs.
• OSS software is more transparent, adaptable, and repairable than lock-in software because it is possible for anyone with the appropriate skills to audit how the software works and modify it to fix a bug or misfeature or improve it to better meet business needs.
• OSS solutions tend to work on less expensive, more diverse and scalable hardware platforms.
• OSS provides open standards (lock-in file formats and protocols decrease your organizations options).
• OSS provides a greater level of security.
• The cost of the OSS itself: $0.
• For server computing, OSS is well understood and is extensively deployed. Migrating servers to OSS server software can generally be done without having any adverse effects on the users.

Resources:

• Case Study: Hentzenwerke Publishing Migrates to Linux.
• The Linux Migration Project.
• The Open Source Definition.