Data Center Moves
Moving an entire data center is an extremely challenging undertaking involving myriad moving parts and numerous stakeholders—not to mention exposing the business to potential risk. As such, data center migration must be painstakingly planned and coordinated. Whether moving a data center from one physical location to another or performing a data center migration from company-owned assets into a cloud environment, there is little room for error.
GreenPages Helps LEK Consulting with Data Center Move; Physical to Virtual Infrastructure
Joe Foley, Network Administrator, LEK Consulting
GreenPages helps LEK Consulting move its physical data center, helps them migrate from a physical to virtual infrastructure, and provides routine health checks in LEK’s environment.
GreenPages helps companies plan and execute even the most complex data center moves with multiple steps:
- Creating a comprehensive technical plan
- Determining the assets (software/hardware) an organization has, is using, or isn’t using and perhaps does not need
- Determining where all the IT assets are located, and on which devices
- Determining the functions all equipment and systems are performing
- Reviewing all policies to ensure compliance and security
- Creating a comprehensive communications plan for employees, customers, and other stakeholders
- Shutting down all the equipment and systems and decoupling all equipment systematically (can involve 1000s of cables)
- Coordinating the packing and physical move—whether a mile away or across the country
- Coordinating with third party vendors (WAN and Internet providers, Telcos, security companies, etc.)
- Ensuring adequate cooling and electrical power
- Ensuring adequate capacity and rack space
- Ensuring connectivity and WAN links are working
- Physically racking and connecting the systems and equipment in designated order
- Testing all the equipment and systems; troubleshooting any problems
- Documenting every action and workflow to ensure project success
All of the above initiatives must be achieved within strict time parameters and with zero tolerance for any mistake. One misconfiguration, missed step, outage, or equipment loss, and the entire data center move is jeopardized. It’s crucial to work with a company who has done complex data center moves before. GreenPages.
Learn how GreenPages helped The Channel Company with the daunting task of separating from its parent’s centralized IT infrastructure, under the weight of looming deadlines, while fundamentally rethinking its entire IT strategy from top to bottom.
We had a unique opportunity. We were a startup that had an established business. But we didn’t want to buy new infrastructure and hire a large IT team to manage it. We had to move fast so we wanted to go with someone with whom we trusted. I knew that if we had issues, GreenPages would address them. And I knew there were going to be issues because moving our entire infrastructure to the cloud in just a few months, it’s not all going to be perfect. —Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Companies
