The Rahi Approach to Data Center Migration

There are a number of reasons why an organization might need to relocate data center equipment. As IT demands increase an organization may run out of data center space and need to move to a larger facility. Conversely, consolidation projects may free up space, enabling the organization to rearrange equipment to optimize power and cooling or operational efficiency.

Mergers and acquisitions can spur data center relocation, as can changes in corporate structure. As its global footprint expands, an organization could see the need to move equipment closer to users, or to capitalize on the power, cooling or connectivity advantages of another city.

Data center migration projects also come in all shapes and sizes. An organization could move equipment between racks, between rows of racks, between different server halls within the same building, between buildings in the same campus, between different campuses, different cities, countries and continents.

Rahi Systems has completed migrations in all these scenarios. In our largest migration project, we moved 500 racks and 5,000 physical pieces of equipment from one city to another.

We perform migrations in three phases. First is the needs analysis. We meet with the customer to discuss why they are migrating, what portion of infrastructure they are migrating, and where. How many servers are mission-critical? How much downtime can they tolerate? What is the impact if something goes wrong? This helps us determine what kind of resources are required.

Then comes the pre-activity assessment. We label the devices and document where each one is located at the source and where it needs to go at the destination. We document the power, power redundancy, fiber and copper connectivity, and management ports, and the types of cables used. We take rack elevations. We assess the physical movement of the equipment. We can also decommission equipment that is no longer needed.

Stage three is the actual move. The customer’s IT team ensures that every system has been backed up and that there aren’t any active user sessions. Once they bring down the systems, we then disconnect all the cables, unmount the equipment and pack it for transport. At the destination we receive the equipment, unpack it, mount it in the racks and cabinets and connect all the cables. We then power it on and work with the local IT team to ensure that all the services are up and running. If something goes wrong we perform troubleshooting at the agreed SLA.

It may sound simple but it requires significant expertise. You need a vendor who understands data center equipment and all the connectivity and dependencies. You need someone capable of physically disconnecting and moving the equipment. You need a transportation vendor. And if your move spans more than a short distance, you need a separate vendor at the destination to reconnect that equipment and ensure that it works properly.

Rahi does everything from end to end. We perform the three phases and arrange shipment with our transportation partner. We obtain transit insurance on behalf of the customer. And because of our global footprint, we are able to provide these services virtually anywhere in the world.

If you’ve outgrown your data center space, or need to move your IT equipment to another location for business or technical reasons, we invite you to give Rahi a call. Let us plan and implement a turnkey relocation project that minimizes headaches and risk.