Data Centre Migration and Optimisation
For many organisations moving business-critical IT between suppliers is daunting and
complex but it doesn’t have to be. CloudCoCo’s specialist team will guide you through the
best options and advise how best to make the move.
What is Data Centre Migration?
Data centre migration involves physically moving assets between different data centre environments, usually changing your provider at the same time and is also known as ‘’relocation’’ or ‘’lift and shift’’.
Data centre migration may well be carried out for several various reasons. It could be the case that expansion or a merger may necessitate the requirements for data centre migration. Data centre migration may also take place due to updates in regulatory requirements, a movement of offices, or straight forward relocation to the cloud.
How is Data Centre Migration achieved?
It’s vital that certain best practices are observed when relocating an established computing environment.
Following CloudCoCo’s best practices will ensure a hassle-free transition without any interruption or interference.
However, these migrations are complex, there will be many unexpected issues that happen and planning for these is of utmost importance.
CloudCoCo’s Assess and Discover services are designed to help you know what you have in place today and most importantly the risk to the business if a service is not available for even one minute.
Once you have a good understanding of the services you are running from your existing data centre, the next step is to identify and consider the reason for migration as well as any risks, advantages and potential disadvantages.
Next, your company stakeholders will need to be advised and approval sought for a data migration plan of action.
The Migration Plan of action needs to identify the services that are running in the existing data centre, the potential risks and business impacts and what the potential costs of completing the migration will be.
To do this you will need to design and plan how you will conduct the migration, this can be a complex undertaking however, as an end to end managed services company CloudCoCo’s talented team can work with you to build your plan, find out more about how we can assist here.
Drawing up a plan of action for data migration will involve assigning roles and responsibilities to key figures within the company.
They will provide invaluable information and support to help ensure the data migration project stays on track and if needed will be able to involve members of their departments’ teams.
Different data centres will have different asset portfolios; a thorough assessment must be carried out to recognise the technical necessities for certain particular applications and data.
The migration process will also involve preparing a methodology for transition to a new system, including the testing phase.
As part of CloudCoCo’s planning process we would look to identify whether the migration can be completed in batches or where needed everything is moved simultaneously, both approaches have different risks and this is where the team at CloudCoCo can share our experiences of completing major migrations to ensure yours goes to plan.
As each service is migrated, there must be a test plan and sign off authorities to ensure once the service is migrated it is working as expected and any issues are quickly resolved. As part of our managed migration service we will do this testing for you, and where required have contingencies in place.
Whilst data centre migration is ongoing, it’s critical that interference with operations is kept to a bare minimum, therefore schedules and work routines should be carefully managed to avoid any disruption, this will most likely involve moving the most critical services out of hours.
What is the best way to plan for Data Centre Migration?
Once you’ve spoken to us at CloudCoCo and learned more about Data Centre Migration, you’re at the stage where it’s been deemed as necessary.
One of the first practical steps before actually initiating the migration is to carefully draw up the plan of action.
The initial phase of this plan will involve devising a catalogue of assets you already have in place and determining whether they should be migrated or not. If you already have an asset register in place, we’d highly recommend conducting due diligence to ensure it’s still correct.
If you need assistance understanding what you have in place today, the team at CloudCoCo can assess your full environment and populate this register for you, as part of the process we will also conduct a security assessment and report back any areas of weakness which can be strengthened during the migration to minimise disruption.
Whether you decide to do the planning yourself or with the assistance of CloudCoCo, bear in mind that the primary objective here is to create an exhaustive migration plan of action by identifying the specific requirements of existing applications and data.
Success when it comes to Data Centre Migration can be defined by ensuring that the new system works with all the applications and data already in place, as well as being able to handle the anticipated future growth needs for the business and data security.
Practical steps for a successful Data Centre Migration
As well as careful planning, there are also some practical steps to consider before the Data Centre Migration begins.
You should go over the contract you have in place with the data centre you are migrating from to double-check if there are any terms and conditions which might affect the migration. Next, create an inventory of hardware such as servers and other equipment.
You should also draw up an inventory of IT resources that might need to be migrated, or perhaps even replaced.
This will include areas such as networks, lines, domain names, and IP information. The final inventory you will need to devise is an applications inventory.
This will include apps running on both physical and virtual machines, and external servers which rely on the apps running on these machines.
Creating this inventory will give you a road map for internal and external connections which your company relies on, as well as allowing you to understand any potential risks and put mitigations in place.
Where should I migrate to?
The simple answer here is ‘CloudCoCo’ as this is our area of expertise and experience, working alongside our partner THG Hosting.
Following the assessment of the existing data environment, you will need to talk this through with our team and we will help identify every area your business needs when moving to our secure data centres.
The data centres we use are designed to provide industry-leading security, reliability, efficiency, and resiliency. Each data centre is built to suit its unique location and maintain a stable environment. By maintaining the data centres and network to the highest standard, we can provide unmatched service on a global scale.
The data centre highlights include;
- 50+ data centres in 30+ locations connecting your business to the world.
- 30+ Network Peering and transit partners
- Connectivity to major public cloud providers Multi-level facility access control
- N+1 Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
- N+1 standby 2.25-megawatt generators
- N+1 cooling infrastructure
- Recycled air from outside to minimize environmental impact
Migration to a cloud-based computing environment may prove beneficial in optimising performance and efficiency whilst making tech support a bit easier and more cost-effective too.
If you opt for a data centre cloud migration, there are many approaches that can be taken to maximise the performance of your systems once they are in the cloud. There are 3 types of cloud computing services we talk about in IT;
Understanding which cloud type is right for your business and deliver the outcomes you want can be difficult, especially with many options available.
As part of CloudCoCo’s Optimise and Innovate service we will conduct a full review of everything you have in place today and provide you with our recommendations leaning on years of industry experience.
It’s has become increasingly common for companies to opt for multi-cloud and hybrid cloud solutions as these will create extra versatility. Our team will help you decide which option is right for you.
When moving to the cloud you might have applications and data which are already virtualised using VMware, This is why CloudCoCo would recommend a modern VMware Private Cloud solution. If you’d like to know more about the VMware offerings from CloudCoCo, please click here.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution; different options will need to be extensively researched and weighed up, but don’t worry, our talented teams are on standby to assist you through this journey in any way we can, don’t hesitate to get in touch today.
As part of the planning process, you may also consider a Hyperconverged Infrastructure or HCI for short. An HCI benefits from being easily scalable and efficient by integrating numerous components into one unit.
Pre-configuration means swift deployment, and there’s also the added benefit that it’s less complicated to scale, replace, or repair individual components.
This could help safeguard sensitive data and offer better asset control. Such a solution could be complemented by the use of a private cloud for a hybrid data environment.
In conclusion, Data Centre Migration can be a vast and complex enterprise to take on. Bearing these steps and best practices in mind will help enormously, but as there are so many different aspects to consider, we’d always recommend speaking to ourselves and we’ll happily work with you sharing our experience to make the next stage in your journey a success.
Never take anything for granted, and leave no stone unturned – the team involved in the process of migrating must be precise, pay excellent attention to detail, and be mindful of the potential risks and hazards involved, and most of all, plan for the unexpected.