The Birth of the Move Element
In the Late 1990’s Altus Technologies Corporation was tasked with defining one of the first organized data center migrations. The challenge was clear: how do you move a data center without causing disruption, ensuring every component and application continues to function as expected?
The problem quickly became evident—it was like trying to pick up a single spaghetti noodle in a bowl of noodles, only to have the entire bowl of noodles lift up with it. Applications and infrastructure in data centers are deeply interconnected, making it difficult to isolate and move individual components without affecting others. Since Altus was working with a chemical company at the time, the analogy of breaking things down into their most essential and indivisible units—similar to chemical elements—became the inspiration for the concept of a Move Element.
Defining a Move Element
A Move Element is the smallest unit of infrastructure and application workload that must remain together to maintain function when migrated. It consists of both components (servers, databases, network devices, storage, and virtual machines) and applications (software that drives business processes). These elements are linked in a many-to-many relationship—applications rely on multiple components, and components can support multiple applications.
To ensure that dependencies are maintained and disruptions minimized, Altus developed a structured approach to grouping components and applications into Move Elements. By understanding these relationships, data center migrations can be planned in an orderly manner, reducing risk and ensuring seamless transitions.
How Move Elements Enable Structured Migration
Move Elements provide a structured way to break down a data center into manageable units. Once identified, Move Elements can be grouped into Events, which are designated windows of time when specific workloads are transitioned. This structured approach allows for:
- Clear Planning: Each Move Element is analyzed for dependencies before migration.
- Minimal Downtime: Because all necessary components move together, functionality remains intact.
- Predictable Execution: Migrations happen in predefined Events, ensuring an orderly process.
- Simple abort: If a Move Element is having an issue during a migration, it can be set aside and rescheduled to another Event, allowing the current Event to complete.
Applying the Move Element Concept to Data Center Strategies
Altus Technologies Corporation applies the Move Element approach in multiple migration scenarios:
- Moves to colocation data centers – Ensuring seamless transitions to third-party facilities.
- Disaster recovery migrations – Moving workloads in and out of recovery environments.
- Cloud transitions – Helping organizations shift workloads into or out of cloud environments with minimal disruption.
At the core of this methodology is Elemental, Altus’ proprietary software tool, which tracks components, applications, Move Elements, and migration Events (and much more!)
By leveraging Elemental, Altus ensures that every migration is methodical, efficient, and risk mitigated.
Conclusion
The Move Element concept revolutionized data center migration by breaking down complex interdependencies into manageable units. What started as an analogy from chemistry has become a cornerstone of modern migration planning. With Altus and Elemental, organizations can confidently transition workloads, knowing that every component is accounted for, dependencies are preserved, and disruptions are minimized.
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