How to Successfully Migrate a Data Center
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How to Successfully Migrate a Data Center
Migrating a legacy data center to a new and updated version of itself can be a grueling task. Here are eight ways to make the process easier. -
Do Your Financial Due Diligence
Cost-benefit planning is essential. Determine up front the total cost of the migration, including assets and labor capital and the benefit on the other end, to determine whether the migration will prove worthwhile. -
Complete a Strategic Data Center Assessment
Create a plan of action that starts with an in-depth, top-to-bottom inventory of IT assets, applications and dependencies. -
Consider the Cloud
Consider a hybrid cloud strategy, which will require a cloud-readiness assessment to determine which applications can move there and includes a cost-benefit analysis of making those changes. -
Set Up the New House
This is the stage when contracts are negotiated, including: Plans for the data center space, Telecom and network infrastructure, Power structure cabling design and installation, Cloud connectivity measures -
Assign an Internal Project Team
Create a project team that includes an executive steering committee to oversee the migration and a dedicated internal IT and project management office to perform migration tasks daily for the duration of the project. -
Get Outside Help
Because data center migrations are grueling, long-term projects, they can wear out your internal staff if you go it alone. Bring in experts who do migration for a living and to balance the workload. -
Executing Your Strategy
To implement your strategy, start with bite-size chunks. Formulate "move groups," with each responsible for a piece of the overall migration. Once you see a pattern of successful moves, work up to more critical changes according to your strategic plan. -
Consider Maturity Options
Acknowledge that every business has a different level of IT maturity. Put data you collected, inventory of your assets and dependencies, information collected through interviews, and automated scanning tools, in an IT service management tool.
What to do with a legacy data center is one of the most challenging questions CIOs face. After years of cycling people, hardware and software in and out of IT, CIOs often want to consolidate and streamline their data centers, but they're not aware of everything residing there. They fight daily time-consuming, costly battles managing the complexity of system interactions. It's natural to migrate the data center to an updated version of itself, but managed services provider Logicalis notes just three reasons to do so: guaranteed cost reduction, the assurance of a more streamlined and manageable operation, the creation of a more reliable data center, or all of these. "There are absolutely opportunities to save money and to make IT a more predictable business," said Bob Mobach, director, Data Center Solutions, Logicalis, US. "But it's crucial for companies to understand that a data center migration is not a quick and easy project; it's not a sexy one, either. It's a long, arduous, often wearisome journey that requires dedication in terms of both finances and resources and can take as many as 18 months." Here are Logicalis' recommendations for a successful data center migration.