ARCONDIS UPDATE No. 03|2017: The smarter solution

12_The smarter solution
English
E_Company mergers and splits are constant
occurrences in the life sciences.
They require a restructuring not only of
the organization but also its infrastructure.
During a recent project, ARCONDIS
demonstrated how to achieve this: when
an international life sciences company
split from its parent enterprise,
ARCONDIS took care of the program
management and migration of the entire
application environment.
Starting point
Following the split of a company from its
parent enterprise, a new technical environment
had to be created, from an active
directory domain to the infrastructure and
application environment. The life sciences
company entrusted the experienced
professionals of ARCONDIS with the task of
migrating all business applications to the
new environment.
The most challenging part of the project: its
scope was still uncertain at kick-off. The
company did not have a central administration
system governing all applications. In
addition, the GxP status of the applications
had to be verified and in some cases
re-evaluated.
Method
Step 1: Establishing an application
inventory
Every migration project needs a clean
database detailing the system infrastructure.
ARCONDIS’ first step was to create an
application inventory and establish it as a
“single point of truth” throughout the
company in order to track the status of all
applications for the migration and day-to-day
operations. This involved the classification of
each application. Categories included client/
server, desktop, Citrix and SaaS applications,
and various evaluation criteria were used.
Several important issues had to be clarified
for the migration planning step, including
dependencies on other applications and/or
interfaces and planned life cycle changes
(e.g. due to planned updates, functional
expansions or compliance findings). In
addition, the GAMP category and validation
status of GxP-relevant applications had to be
reassessed.
In total, 400 applications were identified and
classified; 150 of them were to be migrated
within the scope of the project. Approximately
half of the applications are GxP-relevant
and needed to be revalidated.
Step 2: Making the program manageable
During a gargantuan undertaking such as
this, it is important to keep an eye on the
bigger picture rather than focusing excessively
on details. ARCONDIS chose a
two-step approach and first established a
rough plan for the individual application
categories. In order to get a better grasp on
the complexity, priorities and scheduling
requirements of the migration project,
ARCONDIS developed a multi-level decision
tree. Important criteria included external
access, GxP relevance and whether or not
the individual applications are core applications.
Facts & Figures
■ 2 Mio. Swiss Francs Budget
■ 4500 Users
■ 2000 Clients
■ 150 Applications
■ > 100 Validation Documents
■ 10 Sites
Project Team & Stakeholders
■ 30 Program Team Members &
Supporter
■ 60 Application Manager
■ 20 Vendors
During the second step, a planning project
was initiated for each category to plan the
migration process for each application in
detail. A separate stream was set up for
especially critical applications.
Besides the structure, communication is a
major success factor for programs with
more than 100 participating parties. A
“migration cookbook” was created to
specify the entire program governance
– communication, escalation, risk, issue and
change management, tracking structures,
reporting structures and meeting structures
– and to establish platforms for the exchange.
Thanks to the intelligent planning process,
the enormous endeavor gained structure. Its
hundreds of individual components formed a
manageable whole and a clear, comprehensible
project path was revealed. This
approach was convincing, to such an extent,
that the management decided to expand
ARCONDIS’ range of responsibilities. From
then on, the program management also
included the streams for servers, clients and
networks. Program Manager Stefan Eckert
has been responsible for the entire financial
controlling and upstream coordination of the
GxP Compliance ever since.
Step 3: Sequential migration, global
roll-out
At present, the program is close to conclusion.
Approximately 150 applications are
being migrated and rolled out at more than
ten sites. Half of them are GxP-relevant and
subject to revalidation. The most complex
part of the project is the sequential transfer
of the entire infrastructure to the new
environment. Once all involved components
have been migrated, integration testing will
help ensure compliance. It involves user
accounts and peripheral devices, such as
printers, that interfere with the application.
To ensure that no component or interface
remains untested, the project team has
developed a watertight traceability matrix
that traces all dependencies.
During the next and last step of the program,
applications that are orphaned or no longer
needed will be disabled.
Results
Not only did the program achieve its
objective of a smooth one-to-one migration
to the new environment, it also created
additional benefits thanks to an intelligent
migration strategy. The client will continue
reaping these benefits even after the end of
the program:
The new inventory records all applications
in a central location.
The GxP status of every application has
been determined and all gaps have been
closed.
In order to create synergies, ARCONDIS
worked with the application owners to
determine the optimal point in time for
life cycle changes and migration process-