Article by Nilesh Rane
DC consolidation and migration journey is a rocky one with challenges such as operational disruption, etc. Mandar Kulkarni, Senior Vice President, Netmagic Solutions shares some best practices to follow for a successful DC relocation and migration project.DC migration and consolidation is an uncomfortable truth for most of these Data Center Managers or CIOs.
An optimally functioning Data Center is business critical. But chances are that your organizations data center is not adequate in some way. Either it is growing out-of-capacity, compute requirements, operationally exorbitant, outdated or simply doesn’t match up to the growth of the organization.
According to a recently published Data Center survey report, over 30% of organizations across the globe plan to migrate or expand their data centers within the next 3 years. Most DCs in India are over 5-7 years old and are not designed for power and cooling needs of today, are running out of space or performance, and their total cost of ownership is almost surpassing the growth in business revenues.
Unplanned DC relocation and migration exercise, done without help of experts run into risky waters resulting in cost issues to downtimes and business loss or complete blackout. Here are some best practices to ensure that DC migration project is successful.
Best Practices For DC Migration
Solution to mitigate challenges of DC relocation and migration is pretty simple. It is important to create a design and migration plan keeping in mind all the common pitfalls and crating contingencies for them. Some of the best practices for successful DC migration are as follows:
Start at the very beginning
Start the migration process as you would build a data center. Look at the migration exercise to ensure the new DC will have planned for at least 2 lifecycles of infrastructure.
Identify and detail the starting point
It is important to do a comprehensive review of the current DC. Identify and document your organizations technology and business requirements, priorities and processes. Then do a detailed review of the costs involved in various methods of DC migration and consolidation.
Design the migration strategy
It is important to establish business downtime, determine hardware, application and other technology requirements, and prioritize business processes. Identify at least 2 migration methodologies and create plan for both. Bring in all vendors and utility providers into the migration strategies and take them along.
Plan the layout – space planning
It is important to plan the new DC layout before you plan the migration plan. Think about white spaces, creating enough to allow for future growth – it is important to plan the space judiciously, and take help of DC architects to successfully design this part.
Plan the DC migration
Putting relocation design into action plan – detailed floor plan, responsibility chart and checklists, migration priorities, map interdependencies, etc. Take into the plan inputs from telecom and power providers, technology vendors, and specialists.
Inventory everything
Start with a detailed inventory of everything – from applications to business needs to infrastructure including each cable and device to network including every link and port. It all needs to go into a database similar to CMDB.
Create a baseline
It is critical to know the current DC performance and TCO ratings. Basically, it is important to know your DC well before migration and clear understanding of all aspects of it. Create a baseline for your DC so that it is easy to measure and tweak performance and efficiencies post migration.
Identify and create a risk management plan
Organizations should simply assume that things would go wrong and create adequate contingency plan. Detailing and drafting a fully documented risk mitigation and management plan is essential. Then assess, classify, and prioritize them for the purposes of mitigation.
Take users and business owners along
It is important to inform all users of the migration plan, from end users to support teams and business owners. The key is to plan to the last T and go through the plan to the minutest detail. Make sure to bring all the critical people to the planning events – facilities staff, project management teams, etc.
Identifying the right time for migration
It is important to select the right time for migration – such as choosing non-month-end and year-end, not coinciding with public events such as elections, festivals, etc.
Logistics arrangements
Arrangement of logistics arrangement needs some looking into – who is going to pack and number, name all equipment, who is going to move the equipment to the destination, is there a backup vehicle in case of break down, is there a need for armed guards for the transportation of equipment, etc.
Upgrading systems during the migration
Old servers, switches, and storage devices that are out of warranty or considered a risk when subjected to strains and stress of migration should be identified and considered while planning to replace with new. It is an opportunity for you to consider reducing the overall footprint through consolidation in quest to improve reliability, performance, and efficiency of your DC. It is a popular practice to use data center move to consolidate the DC through virtualization.
Do pre and post migration testing
It is important to create a baseline on infrastructure, network and applications before executing the migration plan. It is important to exactly know how things work – creating the baseline. Document and repeat the tests – a full-fledged success plan.
Rely on experience
DC relocation and migration is not a regular occurrence for any single IT professional to have substantial experience. It is highly recommended to entrust the DC relocation and migration exercise in the hands of an experienced organization who have proven capabilities.
Consider Experts
If it is only a data center move from one location to the other you should consider a reputable third party to support the move – professional IT mover who will use specialized packing materials, etc. It is recommended to use a professional DC provider with expertise in DC migration and relocation – these establishments will have proven data center relocation methodology and best practices that they can leverage for better results and success.
Contingency planning
Finally, even superior planning cannot offset unexpected failures. Contingency planning is critical even after the migration plan has taken into consideration all the common pitfalls. Planning for a failure is better than running pillar to post when it occurs.
Standby Equipment
If during transportation equipment is damaged or does not function at the destination, it amounts to delays or disruptions in setting up the new DC. It is important for the DC migration expert helping you to have standby equipment in cases such as these.
Insurance
It is important for insuring all equipment in case of any major disasters occur during the whole migration process. If you are using a professional DataCenter provider, it is important to add insurance to the checklist of requirements.
Identify and Plan for External Dependencies
It is critical to identify all external dependencies such as network service providers, etc. and their availability at the destination.
In Conclusion
In today’s dynamically changing marketplace and unpredictable economic climate, it is critical that data centers facilitate current business operations as well as provide for the future growth of the business. Following the best practices will ensure success of the DC relocation and migration – a good way to prevent disaster.
link source: http://www.netmagicsolutions.com/blog/datacenter-migration-best-practices#.VsQ3lIV97IU
Service Portfolio vs Service Catalog: 5 Reasons You Should Know the Differences
At first glance, the service portfolio and service catalog almost seem like the same thing. After all, both contain details of IT services. However, there are important differences when you’re talking about service portfolio vs. service catalog.
To the casual observer, these may look similar, but use the wrong one for the job, and the differences become obvious.
A service portfolio is an overarching document used in the management of the life cycles of all services: including those no longer offered, those currently offered, and those in the pipeline. The service portfolio is more of a living historical document of service-related activities.
A service catalog, on the other hand, details the currently-active IT services and may include information on those that will be deployed soon. The service catalog is an “outward facing” document for your end users.
To use an analogy, suppose you’re an architect. Your portfolio contains examples of work you have completed for your clients, work representative of what you’re doing now, and information about where you want to take your expertise in the future. If you as an architect were to create the equivalent of the “service catalog,” it would contain information about exact services you provide, how the services are performed, how long they take to complete, and how much you charge.
There are several reasons you should understand the service portfolio vs service catalog differences. Here are 5 of them.
1. To Remain Consistent with ITIL Framework
This is a matter of good corporate IT hygiene. When you bring in a new IT service manager, collaborate with another company on an IT initiative, bring in a consultant, or take on the task of creating a service catalog and portfolio, knowing the difference between the service portfolio and the service catalog keeps everyone on the same page and makes communication easier.
2. To Prioritize Your Efforts
There are varying opinions on which should come first: the service catalog or the service portfolio. The choice may depend on many factors, including how well-documented past IT services were and what your resources allow. The service catalog is a more focused document, and many people think that this is where your initial efforts should be focused, followed by use of the information in the service catalog as a springboard to creating a service portfolio. The “right” answer about which to tackle first depends on your particular organization’s priorities and resources.
3. To Know Where to Place Your “Marketing” Efforts
The service portfolio is usually an internal document that the IT help desk and management use to gain a historical overview of IT services, assess what worked and what didn’t, and try to lay out long-term plans. It doesn’t “market” services, per se. Your service catalog, however, being an outward-facing document primarily directed at end users, really is like a catalog: here is a service you may be interested in, what this service does, how it’s done, and how long you can expect it to take. It should be written with less “IT-speak” so that end-users understand and appreciate it.
4. To View ITSM Both Long Term and Short Term
Service portfolio vs. service catalog is also about long-term versus short-term. The service portfolio gives the long view and helps you determine how to play the long game, with fewer specifics. Technology changes so rapidly that trying to nail down specific future services using just the information in your service portfolio may be an exercise in futility. Your service catalog, on the other hand, is about here and now, and the near future.
5. To Prepare End Users for Upcoming Changes
Just as your local game store gives you release dates so you’ll know when to expect an anticipated product, your service catalog can tell end users: “Our social help desk app is scheduled to launch September 1” (or whatever). Service catalog users generally have less interest in long-term plans with unknown effects (like when your new data center is expected to be complete), and are more interested in finding out things like, “When does the help desk integration with Salesforce Chatter go live?” or “When will the IT help desk start using remote desktop support so I don’t have to wait for someone to show up or walk me through a fix?”
The service portfolio and service catalog are both important, living documents that make planning and delivery of IT services better. Samanage, a leading cloud IT service management software provider, gives you the tools you need for creating and managing your IT service catalog and developing a service portfolio that can help your organization map out where it’s been and where it needs to go.
Source from: https://blog.samanage.com/it-service-management/service-portfolio-vs-service-catalog-5-reasons-you-should-know-the-differences