Business organizations generally look at data center migrations or relocations as a “problem” project. Organizations feel this way because of the daunting amount of planning and coordination required to accomplish the project. They know that data center migrations cut across every aspect of IT – and the rest of the business as well. This means a successful data center migration requires a fully meshed data center facilities plan and an IT organization plan so the migration events are transparent to the “business as usual” activities. Altus offers these plans and more as aspects of our data center migration services for our IT customers.
Data Center Migration Services
Data center migrations require teamwork, planning and communications, and professional IT expertise to achieve success
Data center migrations involve the movement of IT systems, applications, and infrastructure from one operating environment to another. This can be a private cloud environment, a shared (CoLo) facility, a different corporate location, or a brand new data center.
Data center migrations can be challenging but rewarding projects for companies looking to save money or to find better infrastructure options with more flexibility. Collaboration among IT groups is essential if the migration process is to succeed.
Each data center migration project involves a large amount of planning and coordination between multiple teams such as networking, storage, information security, application support & development, server administrators, and IT management.
Data Center Migration Risks
This makes a data center migration the IT equivalent of open-heart surgery. Data center migrations & relocations are high-risk projects from a business point of view, particularly to businesses with mission-critical customer-facing online applications. Any risk that gets realized will probably cause a significant systems outage that results in lost revenue or lost customers or, worse, both. This “problem” label can be removed with proper planning that utilizes available technologies along with proper project management and risk mitigation plans.
Another reason data center migrations are considered “problem” projects is that the amount of effort and risk associated with this kind of project is almost always underestimated. The amount of time it will take, the hardware that will be needed, the skills required to do the job – these issues always seem to be underestimated. This underestimation seems to be more the rule than the exception when it comes to data center relocations & consolidations.
Allow Altus data center migration consultants to review your data center facilities plan, IT organizational plan, relocation assumptions, and your project estimates so that we can develop a Move Readiness Assessment to give you the peace of mind that your project is positioned to be a success for your company. We have vast experience in this vital area of I.T.
The Altus Method for data center migrations protects client workload with our renowned “Three-Phase Approach”
Successful Data Center Migrations – The Altus Difference
Consistently meeting data center migration project timelines and budgets. All Altus clients and stakeholders have been successful in their migration projects and are completely satisfied. Our approach to data center migration project management is unique and often stays with the customer for future projects.
We provide a complete project-based solution for our data center migration services – covering everything from initial discovery and planning to the execution of complete data center migrations for our clients. We are able to engage with you at any level of need – for just a particular portion of the project or for the entire process from end-to-end.
Because of Altus’ data center migration process, we are continually being complimented on how we consider and engage the business perspectives of migration and not just the technology aspects. This produces a wholistic approach, rather than a technical focused solution.
Altus’ reputation is very strong and our client referrals impact decisions. Our pricing is competitive, our reputation is stellar, and our past performances with data center migrations & relocations speak for themselves.
Why Choose Altus?
Altus data center migration consultants have been performing moves and migrations since 1996
As a data center consulting team, we are focused on achieving the lowest-risk data center migrations and workload placement projects possible. While other companies have a much broader focus when it comes to data center projects, we truly are specialists at what we do.
We have 100% customer satisfaction. Gartner endorses us in this area as “on the short list” for data center migrations. We take pride in our method as the best data center migration consultants available.
Altus works with you, your teams and your technology. We are brand-agnostic. The Altus experts will work with whatever equipment and applications you have on-site.
We are small and efficient. We use fewer data center consultants on your engagement than the “Big Boys” and we provide continuity (the same team from start to finish). We pioneered the “Three Phase Approach” in the early 1990s which every company uses today.
Move Risk
Data center migrations come with risks. Our team of professionals are experts in risk mitigation, and will be with you every step of the way. We will help you plan your project to minimize risks and to maximize functionality and validation.
During a data center migration project, potential performance slowdowns, incidents, and other issues could arise. With our experience, we can help you avoid those pitfalls. We will help you to be well-prepared and to have needed mitigation plans in place.
As you can see, there are many different types of move risks associated with data center migrations or consolidations. Some may include:
- Move Method
- Move Timeframe
- Move Staffing
- Move Change Management
- Move Device Refresh
- Move Network
Altus will help you and your team by assessing each of the unique risk factors within your environment (and project) and help you to gain confidence in planning the best and most cost-effective path to success.
Our Approach
The Altus method for data center migration services and projects follows a four-phase project structure:
- Roadmap
- Discovery
- Planning
- Execution
Roadmap
Phase 0Roadmap
The Roadmap is used to give clients guidance on how to proceed and undertake the project, and to highlight areas in need of remediation in order to facilitate generating high project satisfaction with the end result.
The Roadmap is also used to determine the Workload Placement (target) for a data center migration to a new facility. This can be a new datacenter IT infrastructure build, a move to an existing datacenter, a colocation datacenter, or a data center in the Cloud.
Discovery
Phase 1Discovery
The Discovery Phase focuses on understanding what is moving and what requirements need to be met during and after the migration/relocation project. Discovery reviews various migration strategies and determines which ones should be deployed for this particular migration.
What makes our method unique from other data center migration companies is that we use a two-step process in the discovery phase. First, we employ a “server centric” pass on your environment. Then we employ an “application centric” look at the environment. These two views are then correlated and any discrepancies between the two will result in a deeper investigation into the specific application or server that caused the discrepancy. The final output is a blend of application and server dependencies.
Planning
Phase 2Planning
The Planning Phase is based on a planning methodology where three levels of plans are created. Data center migrations are very complex projects where the complexity does not come from a technology perspective, as most would assume, but rather from an activity coordination point of view. All the activities executed during the migration project have related effects, which must be isolated from impacting business processes.
Our planning approach begins with a high-level transition plan, which determines how the data center migration will progress from a strategic level. The key element of the transition plan defines which technologies will be used for the transition to the target environment. The key elements of this plan determine the order in which things will migrate, what dates they will migrate (what we call the Move Event schedule), and what the size of the “migration window” will be, based on what your users have told us that they can tolerate.
Execution
Phase 3Execution
The Execution Phase is where Altus assigns resources to execute the migration plan developed in the Planning Phase, trains the professionals in completing their assigned tasks, and finalizes any timing requirements. The key element in the Execution Phase is to ensure that all participants in the data center migration understand their role and responsibilities. We also make sure we have contingency plans ready should things not go according to plan.
When you entrust your data center migrations or relocation project to Altus, you can always expect these exacting best practices:
- Altus defines the goals and expectations of the move project with you, the client
- We collect and validate assumptions and mitigate the migration risks with you
- We gather all needed inventory and dependencies with your IT team
- Altus determines and assigns all the needed data center migration strategies with your team
- We plan the data center migration while mitigating risk with the you, the customer
- We execute the migration or relocation with your team and all associated vendors – we are always “hands-on” for our clients with our data center migration services