A White Paper from XS International, Inc.

Transcription

1 A White Paper from XS International, Inc. 1

2 Executive Summary The intent of this whitepaper is to assist your decision and planning efforts to achieve a successful IT datacenter relocation. Its basis is facts and experiences derived from documented and dependable sources. It identifies the considerations needed to provide direction for developing the project s scope, tasks, dependencies and risks. Without every tiny step and minutia detail of the move planned, designed, and implemented you are setting yourself up for a nightmare of headaches and major failures. Relocating data centers in no minor endeavor, and it is imperative to find out exactly what it entails before you begin. You Will Learn 1. Factors that drive the need for data center relocation. 2. Top reasons for data center relocation failure. 3. How to carry out a successful data center relocation. 4. How to hire a data center relocation specialist. 2

3 Contents How to Avoid the Headaches of Data Center Relocation Pitfalls...1 How to Carefully Plan & Execute a Data Center Relocation...1 Executive Summary...2 You Will Learn...2 Why Data Center Relocations Occur....4 Factors that Can Drive the Need for Data Center Consolidation & Relocation...5 Top Reasons for Data Center Relocation Failure...6 How To Avoid The Pitfalls...7 Conduct a Readiness Assessment...7 Designing and Planning the Project...9 Implement the Plan...12 Manage the Environment Post-Migration...13 Conclusion...13 Hiring a Data Center Relocation Specialist...13 How We Can Help...14 The Benefits of XSi Data Center and Relocation Services...14 So What Can You Do?

4 Why Data Center Relocations Occur The world we live in today is one of intense digital information that is expanding at rates faster than we can calculate. In a world where YouTube can start in a makeshift office in a garage and 6 short years later can be the leader in online video, having 60 hours of new video data uploaded every minute, businesses find themselves growing and expanding at rapid rates. The data center, a complex, interconnected array of equipment, software and data that drives the business and powers every aspect of the operation is at the heart of the expansion, often facing the need for migrations and relocations. For other businesses, in an effort to survive in today s challenging economic climate, mergers and acquisitions play a huge part in data center relocations as well. While some companies are growing faster than they can keep up with, others are trying to reallocate or cut costs, and yet others have just been taken over by another company and are in the middle of the crisis that comes with blending two entities. All of these factors contribute to data center relocations being much more common today than they have ever been. Below is an example of a data center from which a general lesson can be gleamed. In this particular data center servers older than 2007 consume 60% of the energy, but contribute only an estimated 4% of the compute capability. Energy consumption by IT equipment is dominated by inefficient servers, often making data center relocation and consolidation imperative. 4

5 Factors That Can Drive the Need for Data Center Consolidation & Relocation Business Growth / Decline Increasing Digitized Data Storage Mergers and Acquisitions Aging Infrastructure Staff Resource management Space Limitations Increasing Energy Costs Lease Renewal No matter the reason for the relocation, the burden of executing the relocation falls on the IT managers and their departments. And anyone who knows anything about IT knows that the daily demands of running a data center feel like they are increasing as rapidly as the videos being uploaded to YouTube! Not only is technology expanding at lightning speed, the complexity of integrating the technologies and creating a heterogeneous server, storage, and network environment is as well. In addition there are the ever changing government compliancy and industry regulations to keep up with. The field of Information Technology has never been a 9-to-5 job, but when you start talking about data center relocations and migration it becomes a 50, 60, or even 70 hours a week job! Every data center relocation is different, yet most seem to be burdened by the same pitfalls. The mistakes can be trivial or substantial, but the results are the same: delays, increased cost and increased disruption to the business. Data center migration projects typically involve a broad spectrum of internal and external participants. Each participant views the data center relocation project uniquely, on the basis of his or her position in the business. Typically, the CFO views it as a cost, while the CIO considers it a business challenge. The data center manager perceives it as a logistical nightmare, the systems administrator views it as a technical challenge, and the business units see it as a potential outage and a threat to the revenue stream. 5

6 Most importantly, it represents a potential inconvenience to customers, and perhaps even a reason for them to go elsewhere. In fact, most data center moves have planned outages that average between 24 to 48 hours depending on the type of business. For example, shortly after a merger one popular web hosting provider was moving several thousand dedicated servers to a new data center 270 miles away, leaving thousands of sites offline. The move was scheduled to take 12 to 15 hours, but 75 hours later more than 50% of their customers were still reporting their sites down. Some of the reported causes were hardware failures including hard drive failures that wiped customer s website data clean! The result lost revenue and profits for them and their customers, not to mention a serious blow to their reputation. In another recent data center move, an Internet commerce organization found incorrect electrical outlets installed at the new location. The company should have specified the proper electrical outlets early in the design. This critical issue stopped the weekend move until the company could find electricians (at time-and-a-half) to change the outlets. Over 48% percent of multi-day data center outages were related to poorly planned and executed relocations. Without a proven methodology in place, any data center moves become a logistical nightmare, wasting time, money & resources. Top Reasons for Data Center Relocation Failure Human Error Haphazardly planned and executed move Bad Cabling Design Application / Hardware compatibility Equipment Failure Latencies between servers Poor Data Center Design Electrical Discrepancies According to analysts, 88% of enterprises are currently in the early phases of either consolidating servers or executing a major data center relocation. Consolidations and relocations can impact service levels in many ways and one of the primary reasons why data center relocation is delayed for so long is often based on business owners concerns that their critical applications and services will be adversely affected by such moves. It is therefore important and necessary to address each key participant s concerns and work with them to design and implement a plan with the least impact on customers. 6

7 How To Avoid The Pitfalls So, how do you avoid the major pitfalls and move forward in a way that will be beneficial for the company and all those involved in the relocation? Conduct a Readiness Assessment Assess the IT Lifecycle Environment Designing and Planning the Project Manage the Environment Post-Migration Implement the Plan Conduct a Readiness Assessment If you're using 90-95% of your total data center capacity, it may be time to consider relocating to a facility with more space. Performing a readiness assessment of your company s infrastructure in an effort to evaluate the accuracy and completeness of processes, procedures and documentation is always a good idea before you start working on a data center move. There are specific questions you can ask that will help you determine your readiness. 1. How much growth are we expecting in the next three years? 2. Will our budget cover what we need for the relocation? 3. What is our expected long-term savings as a result of the move? 4. Is our staff equipped to handle the data center relocation? 5. What hardware needs to be added to the data center to accommodate the potential for growth? 7

8 Assessing the IT Lifecycle Environment It is imperative that the proper assessment be done on your data center environment and processes. This phase of the project involves gathering, combining and correlating information about assets and their use in support of the business. 1. Do we have efficient processes in place to prevent disaster? 2. How much downtime can we afford during the move? 3. Do we have updated asset documentation? 4. What is the total amount of assets that will be involved in the move? 5. How many business units / end user applications will be affected by the move? Proper pre-planning can eliminate many of the headaches that typically come with a data center relocation. Every aspect of the business that will be affected by the move needs to be taken into consideration during this phase of the project. 8

9 Designing and Planning the Project Directing a complex data center move is anything but easy. When done right, a move requires careful planning and expert execution. But, if poorly managed, a move can disrupt business operations for days, or weeks, while problems are being resolved; this could cost your company thousands, even millions! Longer term, moving to a bad location one with insufficient power, suboptimal space, or an inflexible landlord can force a company to move its data center again long before it should. Data center relocations require excellence in planning and execution. One of the major problems around data center moves is the attitude of Why can t we just unplug everything, load it on the truck, and re-plug it in on the other end?? Unfortunately, it s not that easy. There is a lot more involved in data center relocation. It s imperative to get all involved parties on the same page and understanding the depth and scope of the project well before it ever begins. There are a number of questions that need to be addressed during the design and planning phase of the project. 1. Should I do a single move, or multiple moves? 2. What can be moved together? 3. Can I move everything in a cabinet all at once? 4. How will my application perform when I move to the new environment? 5. Who within the company uses what that will be involved in the move? 6. What are the dependencies among systems? 7. What will be the impact of the move? 8. How do we ensure the organization knows the impact of the move? 9. What processes are we going to use to test and assess the move? 10. How do we manage user expectations? With so many questions and pieces of the puzzle to organize during a data center move it s necessary to create a well-organized plan. One of the first steps in preparing for a data center relocation is to gather a list of all inventory. A comprehensive inventory of applications and infrastructure to be moved from the old site to the new site is essential. Before IT can begin the data collection phase of the move, it s important to know who will be involved in the move. The data collection plan should include the roles and responsibilities of each involved party. The Following Tasks Need To Be Assigned: Application Data Collection Hardware/Software Bundle Creation Application Data Validation Bundle Order Infrastructure Data Collection Vendor Contact Collection Infrastructure Data Validation 9

10 Once you know who is responsible for what, you can begin the inventory process. All equipment located in the data center should be recorded to compile all relevant information for the data center move. This information will be used in later stages of the move to determine move bundles and move order of bundles on the day of the move. Include equipment such as servers, storage, routers, switches etc. What Information to include in your data collection and validation: Application Application Name Application Description Application Environment Criticality Application Interdependencies Hardware/Storage Dependencies User Dependencies Vender Name Infrastructure Device Name / Description Configuration Storage Configuration Storage / Server Dependencies Application Dependencies Support Vendor Device Location Server Backup Process and Scheduling It is important to keep a complete record of all vendor contacts and internal contacts (i.e. application and infrastructure coordinators) for the day of the move should they need to be contacted. Document all contacts for the move in one location to ensure quick reference and resolution. Once you ve made a complete inventory of both application and infrastructure you will have a better understanding of how to organize your move. Every aspect of the company s information flow must be taken into consideration. You must know the implication of removing any cable, network device, server, storage volume, database, application, service or person within your core business during your move. 10

11 Next, analyze the information you ve collected to prioritize business services, establish downtime if necessary and determine the hardware, application and technology requirements for a nondisruptive move. Define and analyze potential risks and prepare contingency plans to mitigate possible problems. As part of the plan you will need to include floor layouts and rack diagrams that will outline the exact tasks to complete the relocation. More than likely, you ve discovered during your analysis that your data system contains complex interdependencies between your business-critical applications and assets. Creating a dependency map of your data center will help mitigate the risks involved between the two during the move. This process commonly referred to as application bundling, allows the relocation planners to develop a picture and logical sequence of events that must take place in order to move an application or service. It also helps to flush out the logical and physical dependencies that applications and services have on one another. The next stop on the planning roadmap is to determine if there will be any necessary hardware or software changes needed during the move. Many organizations will find that some portion of existing assets is not worth moving. This may be because the assets have reached end-of-life (EOL), are being virtualized or are otherwise decommissioned. Regardless of the reason, any change in the number or type of assets that will reside in the new data center site will have an effect on the physical and environmental requirements of the data center. There will be a significant amount of planning that will take place in preparing the new data center site for the move. Create a physical space plan that includes the necessary calculations for space, power and cooling. Since most equipment racks are designed to be stationary, the systems must be removed from the racks prior to physically relocating them. For this and other reasons, most relocations will require some new racks to be pre-deployed at the target site in order to receive incoming systems from the source. When specifying the requirements for the new data center, it is important to keep in mind the opportunity for improvements and the ability to correct shortcomings that developed over time and as a necessity to sustain growth in your current data center. Consider pre-cabling or at least detailed cable planning at the new site for ease of transition as well. 11

12 The importance of dotting every i and crossing every t cannot be overstated when it comes to this planning stage. You cannot afford to make assumptions. At an IT manager s roundtable event one attendee said, We assumed that the electrical utility from Town A was the same in Town B 40 miles away, but that wasn t the case. This lead to a major implementation nightmare and he went on to say, I ll do a better job of planning this part next time. I ll test everything, and do a better simulation of DNS changes to make sure everything works beforehand. Implement the Plan Once all the planning is done, it s time to execute. Unfortunately, the fun is just beginning as this will be the riskiest part of the project. Stress will be high, tempers will fly, and employees will be waiting to see if your plan is really going to work, or if (as they have predicted), their mission-critical applications will fail! Implementing the plan involves scheduling, managing and coordinating the logistics of the data center relocation. The relocation plan should include a strategy for an equipment move sequence, backup operations during the move, installation and testing and ongoing operations after the move. Each device to be moved should be positioned within the racks, and each rack module must be positioned within the layout. Detailed layouts and schematics of this move sequence can be generated using tools such as AutoCAD, Intergraph, or Visio. In parallel, a detailed analysis of applications must determine which applications can be transitioned during the move, and which will need to be offloaded to a third-party operator or backup site (to ensure no disruption in critical operations during the move). It is essential to evaluate the equipment move plan with the facilities staff to ensure close coordination of electrical distribution plans, HVAC capacities, backup power and compliance with building codes, local ordinances and real estate lease covenants. Be sure to review the lease for your new center to identify all restrictions and covenants that might disrupt your move data center move projects have been stopped by fire marshals, city building inspectors and ill-informed landlords (and their attorneys). One of the major reasons relocation projects are seen as failures is due to poor communications between all the parties involved including, IT employees, business unit management and other staff members. Communications are just as important in the implementation stage as they were in the planning stage. You may want to consider an meeting with all the parties involved and do a walkthrough of the move. Explain to them the depth and scope of the relocation and give them specific expectations about the move. Especially, the aspects of the move that will directly involve them or the applications they use. Being upfront with realistic expectations will ease the tension associated around the move. Establish a command center to coordinate the activities, track and communicate progress, and perform problem management and escalate resolutions. You may want to consider an outside vendor to do the physical move of your equipment, as there is too much liability and danger associated with your equipment to have your internal IT staff move it. The vendor will have the proper expertise and equipment to make your move a success. 12

13 Manage the Environment Post-Migration After you ve completed the data center migration it s important that successes and failures are documented as you do a post move audit. Your company s IT infrastructure has been changed, and along with that change comes the need for updated processes, procedures and documentation. Be sure to accurately create detailed diagrams of your new data center layout including, rack, network, patching, and LL connectivity. Another important part of managing the post-migration environment is to rebalance air-flow systems, check electricity quality and closely observe all building and equipment monitoring and security systems. Conclusion Clearly, data center relocations are an exceptionally high-risk / high-stress process. The level of effort put into the planning phase by those who specialize in orchestrating these migrations is directly proportionate to the amount of risk mitigated. Data center relocations are infrequent events for most businesses; as a result, your in-house IT staff may not have the proper skill set to manage a project of this magnitude. Even if they have the appropriate skills, it is unlikely that they have the time necessary to plan and execute a move while attending to their real job. Because of this many organizations decide to use a data center relocation specialist. Experience counts when selecting a partner to help with your data center relocation. Selecting the right specialist could mean the difference between a successful move with minimal downtime and a sloppy move with broken equipment and missed deadlines. Hiring a Data Center Relocation Specialist Data Center Relocation Specialist can provide many services including: Relocation Plan and Analysis Project Management and Consulting Budget Plan EOL Equipment Removal / Replacement Pre-Cable / Plan / Design New Facility Schedule / Execute / Manage Move Vendor Contact Collection Data Center Migration Clearly, there are many moving components to a data center relocation. This is not an exhaustive list, but all aspects of the relocation process should be considered and reviewed when choosing a data center relocation specialist. The more you know about the process the better qualified you will be to select a provider that will best suit your needs. 13

14 Here s How We Can Help: The OEM solutions for high-performance and enterprise data center equipment relocation and consolidation, like their solutions to almost everything else, are expensive. XSi can provide help at every stage of your data center relocation. From the pre-analysis stages all the way to the post-relocation stages we are equipped to assist you with your data center relocation needs. The Benefits of XSi Data Center and Relocation Services Include: Data center relocation consulting Extensive data center analysis and planning Innovative data center project management methodologies Comprehensive budget planning EOL equipment removal, recycling, and replacement State of the art data center design and planning OEM certifications Flexible scheduling including nights and weekends to ensure uptime Planning, de-installation, packing, short-term storage, transportation and re-installation services Extensive experience with super computers and proprietary enterprise equipment On-site configuration, system administration and break-fix capabilities Computer manufacturing, custom cabling, labeling and management Years of experience working in mission-critical production environments Expertise with network cabling including Infiniband, Fibre, PCI Express, etc. Ability to sell and upgrade equipment prior to re-installation On-site data wiping and disk destruction services IT asset disposition services for obsolete legacy equipment So What Can You Do? If you are ready to look for a data center relocation specialist that can fulfill your needs for less cost today, please contact: Harry Carey Director of Strategic Business XS Interna onal, Inc Alderman Drive, Suite 212 Alphare a, GA (678) Todd Bone CEO XS Interna onal, Inc Alderman Drive, Suite 212 Alphare a, GA (678)