There is more to data center relocation services than migrating hardware from one physical location to another. Careful consideration must be afforded to the impact the move will have on the mission critical, highly available systems and infrastructure that are crucial to the day to day operations of your business.

CDI recognizes that there are many business factors driving the decision for a data center move. These factors include meeting the requirements of business continuity enhancements, upgrades to a data center facility, cost containment, and / or a move due to a merger or acquisition.

Gartner states that a data center move or relocation plan requires seamless integration between the data center facilitation plan and the IS organization plan, while ensuring coordinated project management and execution.

That is why CDI follows these critical stages when relocating a data center:

Discovery/Analysis  
Including the inventorying of computing, networking and storage, hardware and software systems, applications, service availability/business continuity, disaster recovery, capacity and performance requirements

Design/Plan/Document
Defining the data center lay-out, network design, approaches to transferring hardware, networks, storage, servers, applications, data and users data and contingency planning.  A Technology Plan that provides complete answers to pre-and post-migration infrastructure including power, HVAC, safety, LAN/WAN and voice, circuit provisioning, hardware and software, etc.  This may include Microsoft Project Plans, Visio diagrams and copies of configuration files.  A Migration Plan sequencing every step for logical and physical movement between the origin and destination data center, outlining the responsibilities of all participants and establishes the Events Timeline and Milestones. A Quality Assurance and Acceptance Plan providing hyper-focused details insuring every aspect of the data center move is completed to the client’s satisfaction. 

Implementation
Consisting of managing the construction/build-out, installing and migrating the new core network, set-up and configuring of interim/swing and staging systems, logical and physical migrating of systems and applications, migrating of the existing network and its users

Admin Close
Conducting the post-migration audit insuring all work is complete and lessons-learned documented, transitioning of final technical information and closing-out of any remaining administrative responsibilities. Once the migration is completed, CDI does provide a new set of documentation which includes Visio diagrams and copies of configuration files.

To ensure a successful implementation, a dedicated team of certified professionals will follow a detailed and integrated roadmap. This team will include a PMI certified Project Manager who is responsible for the planning and executing the signed scope of the project.

Examining business can save you money
While planning the move, many other business initiatives will be examined to decide the benefit of performing them in conjunction with a move. These business discussions include consolidation, migrations, upgrades, application SLA enhancements, among others. Our proven methodologies and best practices indicate that reviewing these initiatives prior to a move allows for additional efficiency and economies. Consolidating servers prior to a move would reduce the cost of the project.

A single point of contact
The greatest value that companies gain from working with a single point of contact on complex moves is the direct link between business need and the responsible parties. CDI makes relocating your business our priority. Our customers prefer working with one firm who is experienced in all aspects of business including servers, storage, networking, software, security, application, design, implementation, and project management.

CDI understands that communication, project management, and technical expertise are key to the success of a data center relocation project. In the end, our customers have a redundant, fault-tolerant, scalable, and manageable data center environment.

CDI is an infrastructure services firm that lends knowledge, experience and credibility to helping companies facilitate communications and collaboration between employees, partners and customers around the world.

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