What are the security related applications, processes, and regulations in 

place? This gives an overview of products used for securing the client, such 

as anti virus, desktop safeguarding, port scanning, as well as rules and 

regulations of how those applications are installed, maintained, updated, and 

the user is enforced to use them. It also includes policies for security patches 

of any operating system component and installed application.

4.1.4  Assessing data dependencies

For most client/server applications, the availability of a functional replacement 

client side application that runs natively in Linux is the only requirement. This is 

the case for applications such as a database client, which can be installed 

(assuming availability on Windows and Linux) on both platforms. Another 

example could be an application using a Web interface to access data stored on 

the server. As long as the Web interface can be run in a Linux based browser, 

then client side migration of that application becomes a non issue.

For some applications, and those tend be local and native applications, data can 

be stored in a proprietary format and with file system dependencies that will 

require a data conversion process.

Applications in this category include native mail systems (that is, Lotus Notes) or 

productivity suites (that is, Lotus Smartsuite or Microsoft Office). Without 

discussing the actual technical migration, during the assessment, you are 

required to explore the current use of such applications.

Some example questions to ask in this area are:

Do you use Microsoft Office? If so, which components and how often?

Do you use macros in Microsoft Office? If so, which type of macros and for 

which components and how often?

Do you use Microsoft Outlook? If so, which components and how often?

Do you use Lotus Smartsuite? If so, which components and how often?

Do you use Lotus Notes? If so, which components and how often?

Do you use Microsoft Project? If so, which components and how often?

Do you use Visual Basic to automate activities within or across applications?

Do you share files with external organizations? If so, which formats and how 

often?

With some of the above questions, it becomes very clear that the underlying 

infrastructure also has to be reviewed. Using Microsoft Outlook on the client 

often leads into Microsoft Exchange on the server, while Lotus Notes on the 

client usually indicates Lotus Domino on the server. For both scenarios, such 

42 

Linux Client Migration Cookbook   A Practical Planning and Implementation Guide for Migrating to Desktop Linux