Seven Guiding Principles for Data Center Migration Success

Key Challenges

• Perfection kills migration progress. All too often organizations attempt to achieve IT perfection rather than solving 90% of the problems driving the migration.

• Operational dysfunction is not cured by a migration; it often compounds the challenges. A root cause analysis will expose the pain points that should be addressed either before or after the migration.

• There are an infinite number of improvements that can be made to an environment, many of which may have been deferred over a period of time. These improvements can easily “slip” into the scope of a migration project and threaten the success of the project.

Recommendations

• Avoid environmental changes during a data center migration project as they increase risk factors by order of magnitude.

• Define clearly for your vendors the scope of the project and deliverables up front, covering just one phase of the project at a time.

• Review high-level and low-level design recommendations at the beginning of a project to avoid costly, future corrective actions.