Randy Henry of Northwestern University and Kim Howell of Llama present the details of Northwestern's migration from an IBM-hosted SaaS environment to a Llama-hosted system. Prompted by changes in licensing models, the 16-week project utilized Red Hat OpenShift to transition the university's asset management database, reporting workflows, and integrations. The speakers share critical lessons from the migration, emphasizing that organizations must budget time for configuration and performance optimization during a post-go-live stabilization period, as full-scale load testing is often unfeasible before launch. Additionally, they highlight the challenge of adapting to the new AppPoints licensing structure, noting that their point utilization grew rapidly from an initial allocation of 750 up to 2,600 points. This session offers a practical look at the hurdles and necessary preparations for organizations executing a large-scale system migration.
