The Challenge
Specialising in science, engineering, medicine and business, The University of Surrey is a public research university located within the county town of Guildford, with over 15,000 students. Partnering with CDW, Technimove were engaged to provide;
- A fully managed migration, taking complete control of the process
- Internal move with uneven flooring between buildings
- Short project engagement period
- Post cabling 60 cables to migrate 20 servers
- Working with temperamental lift at the collection sit
The Solution
Planning and Project Management
In order to achieve a more tailored managed service, Technimove were engaged to control the tempo of the project and reduce or even eliminate many of the risks relocating the Universities equipment.
Technimove deployed an experienced Data Centre Project Manager to be an integral part of the initial project meetings, setting the client’s expectations from the start. Our project manager played an integral part in the project, guiding the client, and the Technimove Operational team, through the project.
Audit
A Technimove Audit is part of our best practice approach to migrations, as such, we audited this environment 2 weeks before the move. With the audit complete we were now able to confirm all devices within scope of the project and the connections needed to be replicated in the new environment.
Post Cabling
Due to the specific client requirement pre-cabling was not feasible. The Technimove team performed a bespoke service by ‘post-cabling’ the already installed devices on the migration day. As part of this process, the team commissioned the copper and fibre cables and completed testing in line with a specific set of requirements outlined by our partners at CDW.
Technimove undertook final checks before handing the equipment back over the client for the testing to commence ahead of schedule.
The Migration
On the day of the migration, Technimove engineers arrived onsite 45 minutes prior to the start of the migration to sign in and prepare packaging material.
After final discussions with the client, The Technimove team were divided into two teams post cabling team and migration team. The post cabling team went to the destination building and proceeded with the cabling and labelling of the environment.
Once onsite, the devices were handed over to Technimove migration team to systematically Decommission, De-rack and wrap in anti-static bubble wrap for protection, before being placed into purpose built, foam lined, server flight cases.
Once the flight cases were secured in the pre-fuelled GPS tracked Mercedes sprinters, Technimove travelled directly to the destination building via the safest and shortest pre-planned route.
Once at the new building, the equipment was unpacked and installed in line with the destination rack plans. Once racked, devices were recommissioned in line with the patching schedule.
Technimove undertook final checks before handing the equipment back over the client for the testing to commence ahead of schedule.
The Result
In partnership with CDW, we ensured that the migration was delivered and achieved all of the goals for the project. From the very beginning, the procedure we had put in place through our project management processes ensured the safe migration of their servers.
As a result we delivered above and beyond expectations by;
- Unloading and packing all 20 servers within 2 hours
- Reduced, restrained, installed and connected within 3 hours
- Completing the project 2 hours ahead of schedule.