Data Centre Migration -Case Study

The Client

This ‘big six’ oil and gas multinational appointed a Principal Consultant from Broadley Consulting  to manage its complex office  and data centre relocation  project.

The Challenge

Following a severe power outage at a 40-year-old data centre  which put at risk the client’s ability to trade shares on  the world’s oil market.

An executive decision was made to mitigate the risk of a future outage and to close the ageing facility. This involved moving the entire data centre and adjoining offices to a new location on the outskirts of the city.

Time was of the essence. The relocation needed to be performed within an accelerated schedule, not only to minimise risk, but also because the old building needed to be sold off promptly to fund the project.

The Solution

A Principal Consultant from Broadley Consulting was selected to manage the 50 plus-strong multi-vendor team, which included individuals from the client’s three incumbent IT service providers: AT&T, T-Systems and HP.

The Principal Consultant adopted a tried and tested Data Centre Migration methodology (based on the standard discovery, analyse, plan, implement and decommission stages), which was customised to meet the client’s specific objectives.

For example, the decision was taken to reverse standard industry practice and migrate all business-critical applications and associated infrastructure during phase one, in order to quickly remove the risk of power outages impacting on oil trading.

This meant that all non-critical applications, together with all the network, satellite and telephony infrastructure, were migrated or decommissioned as part of phase two. All office and data centre staff were also relocated during this time, and all outdated technologies and racking were decommissioned.

Client Recognition

The Broadley Consulting Principal Consultant involved in the engagement received awards from the client for early completion of both project phases..

The Results

The entire activity was completed six months ahead of schedule and $500 thousand under budget.

Broadley Consulting also saved the client approximately $6 million on monthly service provision costs due to the early finish.

Both phases of the migration were completed with no reported, unplanned service outages.

Phase one:

• 69 Business Critical Applications (BCLs)  migrated
• 350 servers and 50 shared services supporting the BCLS relocated.

Phase two:

• 250 Non- Business Critical Applications  migrated
• 900 servers supporting the non-BCLS relocated
• All network, satellite and telephony infrastructure migrated or decommissioned
• All office and Data Centre staff relocated
• All technology and racking decommissioned.