4.5. Migrate to Production
• Migrate to the New Infrastructure
• Create a Forum for Making Informed Decisions
• Have a Nice Trip
After coming this far, these final steps describe how you move from the planning and implementation in test environments to going live with your changes and focuses on considering the order of the overall system integration, interdependencies, and migration to production.
Migrate to the New Infrastructure
To migrate to the new infrastructure, pick a staging strategy, which might include picking
relatively low-impact or low-risk services for initial integration
in order to prove the functionality and, gradually, the scalability
of the new system. Also consider integrating one or two on-campus systems
or business owners who are strong partners with whom you can work through
political and technical issues early on. Below are possible steps a campus could take at this stage:
- Develop phased migration strategies for moving from the existing infrastructure to the new one. This includes updating or creating the data feeds, code changes, linking in the applications, and deciding the phases of the migration. Schedule the process of "going live" carefully, accounting for time-of-year or other anticipated factors affecting demand on the systems and staff resources. Remember to develop contingency plans for backing out of the new system if things prove problematic.
- Start working through your communications and education plan; hold get-ready meetings with project members (including stakeholders, help desk, etc) as developed by the business process team above. Be sure you discuss expectations of those involved in the project as well as critical campus players so the project isn't over sold.
- Migrate systems and users
Create a Forum for Making Informed Decisions
Lastly, the campus authentication requirements will change as new end-user groups are identified, and new
technologies and services become available. As a result, decide how to migrate the initial project governance team to an on-going function. The creation of a new or enhancement
of an existing forum, where these new issues can be brought to the
attention of stakeholders for the ongoing maintenance of the authentication
system, is critical to the integrity of the integrated service and preserving the risk tolerance level of the institution. Issues referred to in this on-going group should include:
- Changes to the infrastructure that may be needed resulting from new regulations, new user communities added, or new or updated services.
- Major organizational changes that may disrupt established business processes.
- New technologies that become available that could enhance the business process and/or policy framework in place and introduce new resource requirements or changes to existing services.
- New services that are scheduled to be incorporated into the new infrastructure. What is the process for deciding what to integrate, in what order, and how?
Participants could include many of the same representatives who participated in the initial governance structure. In many cases, authentication is coupled with an identity management or overall IT governance body.
Have a Nice Trip
As with many journeys, the road traveled becomes almost as important as arriving at the destination. The authentication landscape is a dynamic environment. It is time to review and adjust your institution's Roadmap again to determine next steps in your authentication service. Over time there will be new emerging drivers to consider, and you may have to make adjustments with your governance team on the order or priority of items in your Roadmap, as you progress.
Finally, you should end this part of the journey with an overall plan, the finished implementation of the first stage of your plan, and a process for continuing through the next iterations. Congratulations and good luck!
The [next] page will list the resources mentioned in the Roadmap.