01 · Starting point
Situation
Sites in Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom, Portugal and France had to be moved from an organically grown European environment into the new US-led corporate structure. Identities, messaging, file services, virtualisation, network and operations were tightly interlinked.
Constraints
- Several EMEA sites and international teams
- Day-to-day operations running in parallel with the migration
- Dependencies between identity, messaging, network and virtualisation
02 · Responsibility
My scope of responsibility
As the Senior System Engineer responsible for EMEA, I planned and supported the system migration together with the APAC and US teams. My brief covered the technical transition and stabilising day-to-day operations during the integration.
- I coordinated GPO design, FSMO and directory dependencies with the international teams.
- I administered the VMware environment with 79 virtual servers as well as core operating services such as DFS, SQL, SCOM, Veeam and firewalls.
03 · Technical work
Documented scope of work
Key decisions
Structure the migration as a cross-site operating programme rather than a series of isolated server moves. Only a shared sequence for AD, Exchange, file services, virtualisation and network dependencies could move the regional sites into the target environment in a controlled way.
- I planned and supported file server, Active Directory and Exchange migrations across several product generations.
04 · Technical context
Technology in use
Active Directory
Active Directory was part of the documented toolset in this Active Directory & Migration engagement.
Exchange
Exchange was part of the documented toolset in this Active Directory & Migration engagement.
VMware ESX
VMware ESX was part of the documented toolset in this Active Directory & Migration engagement.
Windows Server
Windows Server was part of the documented toolset in this Active Directory & Migration engagement.
DFS
DFS was part of the documented toolset in this Active Directory & Migration engagement.
Veeam
Veeam was part of the documented toolset in this Active Directory & Migration engagement.
05 · Factual basis
Evidence and limits
The European sites were technically transferred into the new global corporate environment and kept running during the transition.
Collaboration between EMEA, APAC and the US gained a shared technical basis for migration and operations.
- Role
- Senior System Engineer
- Period
- May 2014 — June 2015
Lesson from the engagement
International integrations succeed when dependencies, regional responsibilities and the operational handover are planned as rigorously as the migration itself.
Confidentiality note: Internal architecture and operating data of this engagement are not published.