The cold reality is that Data Center Migrations are hard. Each Migration is a unique and complex undertaking where literally one wrong move (pun intended) can leave you months behind and millions in the red. That danger is magnified by the fact that most entities face this task as first-timers. Like open-heart surgery, it’s not something you do every day and certainly can’t afford to screw up.

For Management:

 There are a few things you can do to make a big difference.

1)    Know your goals and priorities. Use them to make choices and set limits.

My first meeting with a client always starts with “why?” Understanding the primary problem or opportunity you’re trying to address is the only way to know if you’re pursuing the right path, let alone how you measure success.

Are you moving to save money? Relocate headquarters? Gain capacity? All three? Which is most important? All too often the initial response is a laundry list of conflicting items. There may even be a better way to achieve your goals without ever moving in the first place. Any good migration firm should be asking you these kinds of questions first so they can tailor the approach to your needs (or advise you towards an entirely different path). Instead of buying that shiny new SUV from an SUV salesman, you might be able to achieve your goals with a simple trailer. Things like lease renegotiation, WAN optimization, and server virtualization enable a broad palette of options before ever leaving your existing facility.

Once in the middle of a migration, your commitment to those original goals and priorities will be sorely tested. Quick decisions will be required on six figure equipment purchases, departments will be forced to choose between downtime and migration cost, services may be forced to retire as they don’t fit into the new architecture, and endless other difficult compromises will need to be made. As feelings are hurt and longstanding customs are challenged, you must keep your eye on the prize.

2)    Provide strong authoritative sponsorship.

People don’t want to move, and reasonably so. It’s a lot of work, the system could go down, jobs might be eliminated… there are a long list of reasons, excuses, and motivations not to support such an initiative. This is especially true in heavily matrixed organizations. Make sure there is a person in position of authority who can serve as ultimate decider and point of escalation so that concerns can be quickly adjudicated.

3)    Balance risk vs. reward.

If you want to migrate hundreds of servers and have zero downtime, it will be very expensive and require a broad array of veteran staff. Allowing a few hours of downtime per system can take a digit off the price tag and greatly reduce effort required. A few days of downtime during a holiday weekend can mean the reuse of existing hardware via forklift instead of buying all new. It’s a dirty little secret, but corners can and do get cut all the time to fit within set schedule and budget constraints.

Don’t, however, gravitate to the other extreme end of the scale. Don’t have employees moving full racks of servers themselves to save a few bucks. One damaged rack and you’re 6 figures in the red. One employee stuck under 1500 pounds of tipped over servers and you’re sued out of existence. Disks damaged from 600 miles of vibration in the back of a rental van easily justify the cost of professional transport.

4)    Don’t get stuck in planning.

It’s common for larger organizations to get stuck in an infinite planning loop. There is always more that can be documented, analyzed, and tested… people are afraid to start putting systems in motion. At some point you have to jump in the pool and get wet. The trick is in knowing what you’re likely to need and having the ability to troubleshoot in case surprises occur.  

You could waste months gathering information you’ll never need. Here’s one area where having experience and proven methodology pay off big time. An experienced firm can help you quickly understand what info you need to gather in discovery for what kinds of scenarios. They will know from experience how to deal with the exceptions that arise and be able to get you moving faster.

5)    Hire an experienced firm to help.

When you take a hard look at the numbers and risks, there really isn’t a reason not to. You get a proven methodology and team day one. All the questions you don’t think to ask get answered. All the disasters you don’t see get averted, and all the issues have seasoned veterans to fix them. An outside firm wants you to be successful and has singular allegiance to your goals.

As for the cost, unless you happen to have a group of highly skilled people sitting around doing nothing you’re going to need to pay for the extra labor anyway. With pros it will go faster (cheaper) and present fewer headaches (cheaper). There is no point in bringing migration experience in house as it is a one-time use that is difficult and expensive to develop. In the same way you would pay a doctor to perform surgery versus learning yourself, you want professional hands doing such critical once-in-a-lifetime effort.