Migrating Legacy Systems in the Global Merger & Acquisition Environment

Journal of Information Systems Education, Fall 2009 by Katerattanakul, Pairin, Kam, Hwee-Joo, Lee, James J, Hong, Soongoo

ABSTRACT

The MetaFrame system migration project at WorldPharma, while driven by merger and acquisition, had faced complexities caused by both technical challenges and organizational issues in the climate of uncertainties. However, WorldPharma still insisted on instigating this post-merger system migration project. This project served to (1) consolidate the separated legacy MetaFrame systems from the three pre-merger pharmaceutical organizations into one globally managed system and (2) develop a global support team for the newly consolidated global MetaFrame system. This system migration project was aligned with WorldPharma's IT strategy that aimed to streamline its IT resources and enhance system efficiency.

Keywords: Teaching Case, IT Project Management, Migration of Global IT Systems, IT Management

1. INTRODUCTION

After the merger and acquisition (M&A) that WorldPharma acquiring and merging with CB Medicine and PharmaTech (we disguise the names of the three pharmaceutical companies in this case to protect their identities), a new department - the Computer and Information Technology (CIT) department, was established to globally manage the IT resources of the post-M&A WorldPharma organization. The CIT department initially served the main task of delineating the migration and integration plan for various IT systems, including the MetaFrame system, in this new organization.

The main goals of the global MetaFrame system migration project were to (1) consolidate every legacy MetaFrame system from the three previously separated pharmaceutical companies into one unified, globally managed system; and (2) develop a global team for supporting the new and centralized MetaFrame system. A new manager - Mr. John Collins, was hired to manage this MetaFrame system migration project. Since this project was entangled with technical complexity and organizational issues, Mr. Collins would have many obstacles to overcome (we disguise the names of the people in this case to protect their identities).

1.1 Definition of MetaFrame

Metaframe, a software product developed by Citrix Corporation, allows users to access the applications hosted on MetaFrame servers (running on UNIX or Windows operating systems). All applications are processed on these MetaFrame servers, enabling users with less powerful hardware to use resource intensive applications.

Figure 1 shows a centralized structure of a MetaFrame system that includes an Independent Management Architecture datastore (IMA datastore), a Zone Data Collector (ZDC), and several MetaFrame servers. MetaFrame servers run the applications and allow users to access and use these applications. IMA datastore is a database (e.g., Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2) that keeps the information about the configuration of the MetaFrame system.

A MetaFrame system could increase its performance by setting up zones that allow geographic sites to operate on their local computer networks and minimize network communication to the IMA datastore. The logical way of establishing zones is to set up one in every operation that has a high number of MetaFrame servers or has a low capacity network connection to the nearest IMA datastore. For each zone, ZDC maintains non-system configuration information

such as server loads, active sessions, and disconnected sessions. ZDC also manages the communication within the zone as an individual MetaFrame server will not directly query any other MetaFrame servers.

It should be noted that Citrix Corporation had released several versions of its MetaFrame product, beginning with the first release titled "WinFrame" followed by "MetaFrame 1.8" and "MetaFrame XP." During this migration project, Citrix Corporation released a new version entitled 'Tresentation Server(TM)" and also announced that the MetaFrame XP version would be supported until June 30, 2007.

Because there was a great deal of expertise on MetaFrame XP and a substantial MetaFrame XP presence within WorldPharma, it was agreed that MetaFrame XP would be implemented during this migration project even though the newer version (i.e., Presentation Server (TM)) had already been available. Thus, the MetaFrame mentioned in this teaching case would refer to the MetaFrame XP version.

Additionally, during the time when this teaching case was written (i.e., on February 11, 2008), Citrix Corporation changed the name of its "Presentation Server(TM)" product line to "XenApp(TM)." More detailed information about the MetaFrame product can be found at www.citrix.com.)

1.2 Existing MetaFrame Systems: Pre-M&A

Immediately after the M& A, a consolidation plan for various existing MetaFrame systems of the three legacy companies started to unfold. The first issue was related to the difference in MetaFrame structures implemented in the three legacy companies. The legacy MetaFrame systems of PharmaTech and CB Medicine adopted a "centralized" MetaFrame structure (see Figure 1). In contrast, the WorldPharma's legacy MetaFrame systems implemented a "siloed" structure (see Figure 2).