IT Essentials: Not with a bang, but with a whimper

When a system migration is as smooth as gravel

IT is the sad filling in a stress sandwich when a system migration goes wrong.

A system migration is one of the most stressful things an IT team has to navigate, requiring a willingness to learn, technical skills and endless patience from team and end users.

Done well, the experience is practically seamless. Done poorly, the team responsible will have nothing else on their plates for weeks or months. "Done” doesn’t just mean implementation – many readers will be able to tell stories of big changes undertaken at the behest of upper management.

Anyone who’s accessed Computing (or our sister sites CRN UK and CRN Germany) in the last seven days will know why I’m talking about migrations. We recently moved to a new CMS, and the process has been anything but smooth.

Sorry for the late notice about a mass password reset. Sorry that, when you got the password reset email, it had an incorrect link. Sorry for the correct link originally taking you to an unbranded website that looked like a phishing attempt.

Sorry the site is working slowly. Sorry the search function is broken. Sorry some old stories are missing. Sorry some site functionality is currently poor. And sorry you’re being asked to log in every time you visit.

Like any good team, we’re working hard to minimise the impact on the front-end. The back-end might (temporarily) look like a plate of dropped spaghetti, but the first priority always has to be the users.

In the meantime, please bear with us.

We have plenty of coverage from last week's IT Leaders Summit for those who couldn't make it to central London, including a look at why AI adoption has to start with regulation, and examining neurodiversity's glass ceiling.
On the topic of diversity, Anna Brailsford of Code First Girls has written about why diversity is a key weapon against cyber threats; and we've announced a new speaker for the Women and Diversity in Tech Festival: former sub-postmistress Jo Hamilton, who will speak about the Horizon scandal.

Finally, OpenUK CEO Amanda Brock has written about her time at the Labour Party Conference, where datacentres and AI were on the agenda.