The purpose of this document is to provide a Data Center Migration Checklist Guideline to help get you headed in the right direction early on in the data center migration planning process. For a more granular guide, please contact our sales team for a data center project walk-through.

0. Call SilverBack Migration Solutions - 888.245.2344 or via e-mail ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) Our experienced staff will walk you through the step-by-step process and help you determine your best migration solution.

1. Identify why you are moving your data center - Surprisingly, over half of the project managers we work with have no concept of the business drivers behind the move. Knowing WHY you are moving makes the planning much easier, especially when faced with complex decisions.

2. Identify key internal resources - This includes representatives from all affected groups (i.e., internal IT, Operations, Customer Support, Engineering, QA, Executive Staff, impacted business units, etc) Having the right people in the right places is key to any project, and identifying WHO those people are at the beginning of the project makes crunch time much more bearable.

3. Identify what it is you are moving - do you have a current (read: accurate) inventory of all of the physical and logical environments slated to move? If you don't know WHAT you are moving, it is really hard to plan for everything. In addition to physical hardware, you need to be aware of applications, backup infrastructure, network circuits*, power and cooling requirements, as well as the associated items most people forget...like backup tapes!

3a. *Network circuits could be an entire article. Not only are there an almost unlimited number of options and variables, but they often have VERY long lead times depending on the type of circuit, and the location of your new data center. Luckily, in co-location facilities, most of the hard work is already done (there is very little need to dig up streets and such) but if you are moving into a private facility, you may end up watching TimeWarner dig up your newly paved parking lot so they can run fiber to your data center. This is a pretty important step, one that should be addressed very early on!!

4. Once you have items 0-3 completed, you are ready to identify WHERE you are going to move. This step can take several months to complete, between site visits and tours, quoting, negotiation, etc, this CAN be a very long step - or - it could not, if you already have the space or location secured, this is a no-brainer, either way, it needs to be accounted for in the checklist along with a complete set of data center requirements to meet your company's current needs and growth expectations.

5. After your space is secured, and you have time lines from your bandwidth providers and any other applicable vendors, you can start to identify WHEN the data center will actually move. There are a lot of dependencies, both internal and external that will affect this date. The 5 (plus "0") steps above will help uncover many of those dependencies.

6. The easiest step in a data center move is the "HOW" part...you may wonder why I think the "HOW" is so easy for a project manager, COO, Director of Operations that has never done a data center move before...and the answer is simple..."Refer to Step #0"...

SilverBack Migration Solutions is well versed in all 5 "W's" and has perfected the "HOW" to move a data center, which is why we recommend you contact us BEFORE you start planning your data center move. Our expertise and insight into each of the steps above can shed light on some of the "gotchas" most people overlook during the planning stages that can wreak havoc on move day.

Contact our experienced Technical Sales Team today to schedule a no obligation review of your data center migration project and to discuss how SilverBack can help.