Common Concerns with Data Center Migrations
The word migration on its own is certainly enough to cause many IT managers a sleepless night or two. Data center migrations are complex and pose both risks and rewards. Skip Garvin of IBM shares these common data center migration concerns:
- Technical Risks. As you can imagine the first question is – will this data center migration work. Before any migration takes place you need to assess your data center and determine what the risks and rewards will be. Define the requirements and, of course, discuss the process for migrating.
- Cost. With IT budgets tight the cost of new hardware, applications or systems is top of mind. Many times migrations are not included in the budget. When determining the budget don’t forget to include the cost of training your team.
- Schedule. These days no one wants downtime. Conversations about the schedule and the impact on normal operations should be thorough and take place during the initial assessment of the project.
- Skills and Culture. In the end, once the data center migration is complete, your team will have a new operating environment. Determine what investment is needed to train your team, so they can quickly gain expertise and comfort.
Given the complexity of a data center migration it is important to enlist a trusted IT partner. An IT partner can first sit down with your team and assess the impact to your data center – both risks and rewards. They can make recommendations on the systems, applications and hardware that will work best with your data center operations. Your IT partner can also take an outside perspective and evaluate the migration from both a short term and long term view to ensure it will meet your goals. Finally, your IT partner can guide you from start to finish, making sure each step of the migration is a success.
