Examine planning and purchasing
Before making any purchasing decisions, organizations should carefully plan their requirements for new systems. Most organizations have a mix of old and new devices. They can replace some of these devices with new equipment and upgrade others to Windows 11. Upgrades require careful planning to ensure they work correctly and efficiently. During the upgrade process, correct any previous operating system misconfiguration.
The Planning stage includes:
- Computer strategy: This planning stage includes policies such as image and hardware standardization, environment design, replacement frequency, mobile device versus desktop usage, and Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policies.
- Computer selection: This process involves choosing hardware, software, and peripherals. It includes design configuration and application compatibility testing.
- Deployment methods: Each deployment method includes inherent costs to support that method. Often, IT professionals can use multiple deployment methods to accommodate different scenarios. You should determine whether a cloud-based solution addresses your deployment requirements or what requirements you needed for a device to enroll.
- Demand forecasting: This stage is the organization’s attempt at predicting its future computing resource requirements to determine the resources it needs to purchase.
- Design configuration: This process determines which new features you use and how to incorporate them into the overall plan. The new tools, resources, and settings can dramatically simplify configuration processes.
Purchasing involves getting personnel, material, services, or property from a vendor through allowed means. It's the action or process of acquiring items at the operational level. The purchasing process includes negotiation, contracts, vendor management, shipping, and disposal of packaging materials.
During the Purchasing stage, several decision points affect the overall cost of the deployment:
- Hardware: Hardware typically represents approximately half the costs in the purchase phase of the computer life cycle.
- Software: Software costs include productivity applications, antivirus software, and communication tools.
- Accessories: Accessories include various computer-related supplies, such as cables, power supplies, keyboards, mice, laptop bags, docking stations, and secure-access cards.
- Deployment process: The chosen deployment method will directly affect the overall deployment cost. Additional costs can include storage requirements of file servers and hard disk drives, USB flash drives, and providing greater bandwidth for pushing large images and user data across a network.
- Hardware staging: After the systems arrive, you must prepare them for deployment. This process includes securely and adequately storing, unpacking, inspecting, and inventorying the systems. You should set aside the necessary space for staging the newly purchased hardware before it arrives.