subject: Data Center Relocation: Four Common Pitfalls [print this page] Data Center Relocation: Four Common Pitfalls
Data center relocations are enormously complicated tasks, and fraught with potential pitfalls that could end up making a move to a better, more efficient server center a ruinous experience for your company. Knowing what could go wrong is half the battle to preventing pitfalls from either happening or becoming unmanageable.
So here are just a few common areas where a data center relocation can go wrong:
1. Failure to Plan, Plan, Plan
A data center relocation is not something you want to try to execute on the fly. Instead, it's a good idea to over-plan -- and work with professional data center movers to do it. A master migration plan should include a detailed approach to how everything will be rebuilt in the new center, thorough assignments of even the most minute tasks, and detailed contingency courses of action for unexpected events, obstacles, and changes.
2. Inventory Failure
Similarly, a haphazard approach to pre-relocation inventory will--at best--leave you with a disorganized mess on your hands to sort through in the new space, wasting valuable manpower and extending server downtime. At worst, critical equipment will slip through the cracks and get left behind or lost along the way.
Everything you're taking--from the servers to the racks to the power sources and supplies to the nuts and bolts you'll need to put it all back together--should be accounted for. Don't just assume you'll be able to find what you need once you're setting up in the new space.
3. Subpar Staffing
In the end, your plans and procedures are only as good as the people you have following them. So it's not a good idea to hire any old moving company to move thousands and thousands of dollars worth of highly delicate, mission-critical equipment.
Relocation firms who specialize in data center moves might cost a little bit more, but you'll more than make up the savings when your move is efficient, secure, downtime-minimizing, and free from equipment damage and loss (with the added bonus of the peace of mind that comes with trusting professionals thrown in for free).
4. Failure to Execute the Plan
When everything is going well, it might get tempting to switch to autopilot, do whatever seems natural, stop communicating, and just cruise through whatever is ahead. Stick to the plan until the bitter end.
Of course, your plans should be flexible enough to accommodate unexpected factors and changes--a dogmatic approach is nearly as risky as a lazy one. But deviating away from the plan you started off with due to laziness, overconfidence, or simple mistakes can have enormous consequences.
