Windchill upgrade project duration and cost expectations

[RyanOrwoll]

The Windchill product group is focused on simplifying the Windchill upgrade process and reducing the cost of upgrade projects for our customers. Our ability to do this is reliant on understanding your expectations for what is reasonable for a Windchill upgrade project. Whether or not you have completed a Windchill upgrade in the past, it would be greatly appreciated if you could take a few minutes to complete the following short survey on Windchill upgrade project duration and cost expectations.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MRF83KB

Thank You

[danjdial]

Folks,

Everyone should take this survey. You will especially love how one is
expected to answer how long an upgrade should take as a matter of weeks.

I recently got information on the cost to go from 9.1 to 10 and the
migration (not upgrade, but migration) cost is going to be more than we
originally paid for the software. Speaking generally for SMBs, having to
budget enough money to re-buy the software every time there is a major
release is simply untenable. It is simply unimaginable that a company
should pay 20% of the software's cost annually in maintenance and then in
addition be responsible for a $30k to $50k migration every 18 to 24 months.

Just my two cents.

Sincerely,

[patrick.chin1]

Here are my points:

• I've seen many post mortum upgrades that look exactly like the previous ProI system it came from. This sad where you could have made Windchill 10X better. You first should understand what you business needs are in the future with searches and if they plan to use WTPart. Using the full capability of Windchill Number, Name, object type, orgid, etc as architectually supposed to be. Most of the customers are left with "well, we can work with that and our new stuff will be cleaned"


• Since most upgrade don't really involve the vault, you should have all your files externally vaulted prior to the upgrade to speed up the time to dump/delete and re-import/recover for testing of oracle.


• Make sure the customer is prepared to have a full set of servers for their new envirionment according to ITIL methodologies (development, test and production)
  
  
  
  • get some diskspace in advance or use UnionFS (linux/unix) for the windchill installation vaults to save a ton of space. You can actually layer your production vaults to your "to be" production system. Best to copy it out, to a central location first to get your central location set.
  
  


• Have a task list ready (see attached so it can be followed and repeated multiple times, see attached)


• Make sure the WinDU is tested and successful. PTC should have Windu hopefully 100% successful on your test mirrored system before the upgrade implementation even starts. Saves customer time and consulting money which PTC technical support should solve.


• Prepare to do about 6 repeated upgrades prior to going live with a full regression of test.

Good luck,

Patrick