DataCenterMoving.com - Making You the Super Hero of Your Move!

Let’s stipulate that many experts can help you with a site selection for your data center. Further, you can search for checklists and overviews and devise your own methodology. In case that is all you are looking for, here’s an overview from Ron Hughes.

But before you start, what do you really need to know?

The end result of your site selection will be a real estate transaction. You will end up buying or leasing and in all likelihood you’ll also have to manage a construction project in a time-constrained window.

1. Remember that data center site selection is but one process in a chain of events that has to succeed. Leave enough time for the other events (like construction). It’s not unusual for organizations to take several years for site selection and then expect to build their data center in a few months.

2. Site selections done clumsily will cost your company money. Your entire team from outside technical experts to outside attorneys to local help should all be under Non Disclosure Agreements. Your own internal team should have strict guidelines regarding disclosures.

3. Verify everything independently. From fiber paths to power substations, failure to verify will be costly.

4. Ignorance of local regulation can doom the site. Are you allowed to run your planned diesel generator? Is aesthetic or noise screening required? Can you put equipment on the roof?

5. Know when to use your leverage. Negotiating for favorable signage or tenant finish allowances or even local incentives at the wrong time can cost both money and reputation. Not knowing what you can negotiate is equally costly.

Our help and knowledge can benefit your team right from the beginning. Give us an opportunity to make your entire relocation process successful…starting before the datacenter site selection.

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Corporate Relocations, Data Center Checklist, Data Center Relocation

The searching comes in many forms from a sample data center WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) to a relocation move checklist, to a project plan for data center relocation, to a search for typical relocation costs. After some frustrating searching for the elusive data center move checklist, you may find yourself reading this post.

Since every move is different, we build these plans after a discovery process with our customers. They, in turn, own those project plans and we don’t post them.

If you are trying to build a plan from the bottom up, generally you will need at least these common project elements in addition to your unique requirements:

1. External Connectivity
   a. data
   b. voice
   c. wireless
2. Internal Connectivity
   a. by location if multiple sites are involved
3. Construction time line (if your destination site is being built)
4. Move elements by phase
   a. pre-move
   b. teardown
   c. transit
   d. arrival
   e. re-assembly
5. Test and Validation
6. Post-Move decommissioning

Request our free data center moving guide to give you a jump start with your planning.

Should you need help at any phase of your move, let us earn your business.

Do you have questions about moving your data center? You can e-mail Blaine Berger directly at blaine@e-oasis.com .

Data Center Relocation

While every data center move has unique challenges at every phase, some common factors are at work undermining the move’s success. Awareness and action can mean the difference in the success or failure of your move. Let’s explore a few of them.

1. No Common Sense of Urgency (or No Urgency at all !)
2. The Accelerating Schedule Effect
3. Underestimating Coordination Issues
4. Failure to Contractually Obligate Vendors
5. Failure to Focus on equally critical post-move issues
6. Constructing a Plan where EVERYTHING has to go right

No Common Sense of Urgency (or No Urgency at all !)

A sense of urgency is essential in an organization that is preparing for a major move. Often you will find that there is no shared sense of urgency or worse…no urgency at all. Without this sense of urgency, decisions are deferred, in-fighting is allowed to continue, and priorities are not properly set to make the move successful.

The Accelerating Schedule Effect

An interesting thing happens the closer you get to your move date. The schedule appears to accelerate towards your milestones. In other words, the closer you get…the less hours in the day you have and fewer resources are available. When you review your schedule, pay particular attention to those final months with an eye toward building contingency buffers and resource alternatives.

Underestimating Coordination Issues

While the technical challenges are not small, neither is the coordination required across your organization. Plan for the coordination required with your customers, your vendors, your internal staff, your executive team, and your end-users. You wouldn’t be the first organization that failed to coordinate with their finance staff and missed payroll, vendor payments, and customer invoices due to an ill-timed move.

Failure to Contractually Obligate Vendors

Simply, if you need a vendor to perform a move-related service (like moving your Storage Area Network), then don’t leave that to a handshake. Get a statement of work that outlines the schedule and deliverables so that your key Vendors are Contractually on-board.

Failure to Focus on equally critical post-move issues

These can be different for each organization, but post-move employee retention and de-commissioning of unneeded services are two that rise to the top of most post-relocation plans.

Constructing a Plan where EVERYTHING has to go right

Virtually all move project plans suffer from this mistake. Review your plan with a qualified professional (like us) to ensure that key risk areas and contingencies are address.

Data Center Relocation