[18] in winnt
winnt: project status report
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rob Smyser)
Fri Jun 13 14:34:34 1997
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 14:33:13 -0400
To: tregan@MIT.EDU, ganderso@MIT.EDU, azary@MIT.EDU, hogue@MIT.EDU,
goguen@MIT.EDU
From: Rob Smyser <smyser@MIT.EDU>
Cc: winnt-mtg@menelaus.local, brendakg@MIT.EDU
Folks, I'd like to keep you informed of the current status of the WIndows
NT on the Desktop project.
Ove time, the Project has evolved into three phases.
1. Compile the IS Perspective on Windows NT issues
2. Prepare to roll out Support for Administrative End-Users of NT
3. Model an Ideal Rollout Process for Future Releases
Phase 1 is largely complete, as far as NT Workstation version 4 is
concerned. Over the last several months we've conducted or participated in
many meetings, email exchanges, and survey instruments in which IS members
with an opinion were encouraged to express them.
Deliverables from Phase 1, due during the :week of June 16 to June 20.
A summary of the results needs to be written up in html and posted to the
Project home page (http://web/winnt/project/). I expect to have a viewable
notebook-style thing in the project directory by Monday June 16.
Phase 2 is underway. Preparing support mainly means establishing web
documents, training classes, etc., so that a customer feels that NT is
supported. The benchmark is to duplicate the level of support for Windows
95, and to extend it to the special issues added by the nature of NT as
time permits.
Deliverables for Phase 2, due June 30, include these win95-inspired
baseline documents:
- winnt home page (http://web/winnt/) smyser
- hardware and software recommendations smyser, desktop products
- eudora and NT pgalt
- kerberos and NT sbjones, done,
http://web/is/help/mink/
- getting on MITnet with Ethernet and Tether sbjones
- upgrading to NT
and these NT-extras:
- security issues smyser
- software installation checklist smyser
- printing from NT smyser
A first draft of these is due during the week of June 16 to June 20. The
final draft will be due during the week of June 23 to June 27.
On June 30, members of the winnt team will meet with Steve Dowdy and other
internal leaders of the IT Partners to review the state of NT support.
Milestone: On July 1 perhaps we send a mailing to IT partners announcing
the existence of the web directories, training classes, etc. that
constitute supportedness.
Phsae 3 has begun, with Brenda starting to model the lifecycle of a
commercial platform being introduced to MIT. There are many stages to this
process, not all of which IS now does consciously or at least in as
structured a manner as might be needed.
Deliverables for Phase 3 consist of a report and recommendations.
Hopefully, this report/recommendation might be the basis for rationally
approaching the inevitable prospect of rolling out support for new products
not created within IS.
No specific date has been set for this deliverable, but it should happen
before August 15, 1997, when we all get ready for Back-to-School.
- - - - - - - -
In the interests of actually sending this out, I will stop writing now and
queue it up. If you have questions about any aspect of what I've included
here, please let me know.
Updating the project database is on my list of project managing
deliverables that I aim to do more regularly from now on.
Have a great weekend!
Rob
--------
Rob Smyser
I/S Computing Help Desk, MIT, 11-226, 617.253.1358
smyser@mit.edu
