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Project Abstracts
Responsible, as the primary contractor,
to coordinate the efforts of multiple project teams comprising both
internal employees of a parent company, internal employees of a
subsidiary, and external consultants in the consolidation of an
IBM data center from Pennsylvania into an IBM data center in Missouri.
This project was the result of an acquisition and merger and required
the physical movement of an IBM Mainframe with all associated pre-processors,
peripherals, and associated communications components to a new data
center where operations were outsourced to another organization.
Three (3) major applications were processed
on the mainframe. They included: Sales/Order Processing, Accounts
Receivable, and Human Resources. Also, there was communication
functionality and electronic data interfaces to manufacturing facilities,
distribution centers, financial institutions, and a second corporate
subsidiary. There were seven (7) distinct project teams involved
in this project. Each team had to complete specific required activities
for the move to be successful. The teams were: the Sales/Order
processing application support team, the Accounts Receivable application
support team, the Human Resource application support team, the Pennsylvania
based operations team, the Missouri based operations team, the Wide
Area Network team, and the Move coordination team.
Extensive planning, testing, and coordination
was required because the sales and receivables applications were
mission critical and could not be “down” for any period of time.
Not having either of these systems available for even 1-2 days would
mean that the company could not process any sales orders.
Plans were developed and processes
were tested that permitted the following:
- Users pre-entered end-of-month sales figures
- Data backups were taken beginning at midnight on a Friday
- Hardware disassembly, packaging, and moving was completed on
Saturday
- Hardware reassembly, application testing, communications testing
was completed on Sunday
- Monday morning, 8AM EST the applications were available for
processing.
The project was completed within the specified time period and
resulted in no lost time from any application.
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