Moving or migrating a data center
Let's start with some basic terminology, so we are all on the same page.
A data center migration (also called a relocation or move) is simply the act of either physically or virtually moving your technology infrastructure (network, storage, compute, applications, and data) from one location to another location, such as:
An on-site data center to a colocation facility
From one floor to another floor
Moving a small sub-set of infrastructure to an EDGE environment
Logically moving application from on-premise hardware to a public or private cloud (A separate post will be done on this soon)
A data center consolidation is the act of moving multiple data centers and the infrastructure into a fewer number of data centers (e.g. Going from 4 regional data centers, down to 2 domestic data centers) via multiple data center migrations.
Why do organizations migrate / relocate their data centers?
There are multiple reason for organizations to migrate their data centers. The colocation industry continuously is undergoing changes, and colocations are closing buildings down that aren't profitable or need to much repair. Sometimes organizations are looking to downsize their physical environments as cloud initiatives and technology is constantly evolving. The reasons why organizations move isn't as important as once the decision is made, HOW do you move a data center?
There are really only four phases of all migrations. Data center migrations, cloud migrations, application migrations, and even data migrations, all come down to four phases. At Vsol we call this process M.O.V.E. Manifest, Orchestrate, Validate and Execute. We know it's cheesy, but in over a thousand (yes, over a thousand) migations it has not failed us yet.
Now there are a lot of steps, activities and deliverables that differ quite a bit between the different migrations, and between each organization's migration. Every migration is unique in the challenges it will present.
So what does M.O.V.E. really mean?
Manifest
In the logistics world, every truck, ship, train, plane, etc. must have a manifest of what it is carry. This phase for migrations is no different. Organizations need to understand;
Team members and responsibilities
Budget and stakeholders
Assets and location of assets
Virtual assets and workload information
Infrastructure dependencies
Migration Business requirements
Migration approaches (Lift and ship, phased migration, physical to virtual, disaster recovery failover, etc.)
These are a few of the critical items that need to be determine, documented, communicated and analyzed before the real planning work can begin.
Orchestrate
Validate
Execute
There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to any type of migration, but by applying the M.O.V.E. process you are always only four phases away from success. If you are overwhelmed, our team of migration specialists are always here to help. We offer solutions for the "Do it Ourselfer's" (those who have the resources, but just need a plan, a process and maybe a little help) to "All-in" (for those organizations that can't handle the extra workload of a migration.