Best Practices to Avoid Data Center Migration Pitfalls - By: Martin Lobo

The requirement for data center migration could be the aftermath of several business decisions such as mergers and acquisitions, increasing the visibility of your business by projecting an environmentally-friendly company with the adoption of the green technology, improving the flexibility and agility of your processes to meet the growing demands in future, eliminating the risks related to use of redundant and obsolete hardware and software, reducing the IT costs, the need for a customized data center hosting and consolidation service, reducing vendor management costs or relocating assets with minimal effects on the performance.

Whatever may be the reason for data center migration there is no doubt that you business is going to gain maximum as costs will be reduced with the deployment of an optimized datacenter virtualization process, scalable IT systems and applications, improved performances and uptime, improved security measures, efficient disaster recovery strategies and space saving benefits through effective organization of assets. The data center migration process is a critical one and laden with innumerable pitfalls. You need to ensure that the normal operations are not disrupted or there is no hardware failure due to the migration. Of course replicating the applications, testing them and migrating them will incur a huge expense. Thus you need to follow few simple rules to ensure that your data center migration process is a success. They are as follows

* You need to document the equipments and the systems from where you want to migrate your data. You should also document any independent data sources that will be part of the process.
* Build a database of the existing applications and systems and decide whether you want to migrate each application. Be sure regarding the quality of data and its significance that you plan to migrate.
* Do not be tempted to migrate all your data at one go. Migrate those applications that are crucial for your business. Make a strategy regarding not only the migration process but also why you are implementing this process.
* If you are planning to migrate your data center for consolidating with the data center of an IT outsourcing partner ensure that you migrate your IT operations first and not the entire server because the further the data center moves the downtime will get affected adversely. If your new data center is located in a foreign location you may face challenges with the different electrical requirements.
* Assign internal and external project managers as well as a central project manager to oversee the migration operation with each one being assigned a definite role.
* Ensure that updates and information regarding the migration is shared to assess the progress and determine when the systems can be operational.

Choose a data center migration provider that has a knowledgeable and proficient team with each member possessing talent in individual roles. The provider must be an experienced one that has successfully overcome all sorts of datacenter hosting challenges. They should have the capability to comprehend the operation and provide productive execution plans. They should provide services that are secure and mitigate risks. They should be flexible to incorporate changes in the midst of the operation. They should be willing to work onsite for the duration stated in the contract and should provide a fixed cost for the project to avoid any cost escalations during the ongoing process.

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