Migration of Wireless Intelligence

The GSM Association is the global trade association representing GSM mobile operators throughout the world. Its membership consists of 660 second and third generation mobile operators and more than 140 manufacturers and suppliers, who in turn serve well over 1 billion customers across more than 220 countries and territories. Since its foundation in 1987, the GSM Association has played a pivotal role in the development of the GSM platform and the global wireless industry.

The GSMA required its data and analysis service – which included a website, staging site and databases – to be moved to a single new physical machine, replacing the three separate machines the system components had been running on. The GSMA needed a supplier who could analyse the system, recognise the risks and undertake the work within a time limit – without any disruption to the many thousands of users of the live service.

The site used SQL Server 2000, IIS 6, ASP.NET, SQL Server Reporting Services, and customised security extensions to the reporting services.

Blueberry performed a scope assessment and identified solutions to the various risks. Blueberry then set up a test system on a new server, where the contents of the three machines were collapsed to a single machine. After successful testing, Blueberry was able to safely move the GSMA’s complex site to an entirely new environment with less than a full weekend’s downtime.

The project was successfully completed within the GSMA’s deadline. On completing the project, Blueberry received an additional request by the GSMA to upgrade the system from SQL Server 2000 to SQL 2005. This included a rewrite of the customised security extensions to support the new interface required by ASP.NET 2 and SQL 2005 Reporting Services. Blueberry again completed the upgrade within the time constraints set whilst keeping costs to a minimum by hosting the test system on a virtual machine.