Do these 3 steps well and data center migration can be done without interruption

If you ask network engineers what issues keep them up at night, many will first point to data center migrations, as not only does it take a full network team several months to complete, it will also delay the implementation of other important IT initiatives, and most organizations will inevitably face multiple network outages during this time.

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The threat of downtime will put tremendous pressure on IT teams, especially considering the cost of IT downtime. According to a survey by research firm Gartner, data center downtime losses average $5,600 per minute. During data center migration, there is a high probability of network outages.

By implementing automation and taking effective action during the three key phases of a data center migration project, network connectivity can be more assured, knowing that the tedium and risks of the project can be handled with less risk.

Phase 1: Evaluate what is being used

The first step in a data center migration project is to fully understand every aspect of the network. However, this is easier said than done with the complexity that comes with today's modern hybrid environments. Organizations need to discover, verify, and document hundreds of thousands of components during the migration process. Network engineers must inventory every network device, develop a topology and design diagram of the data center, list every application affected by the network, and develop detailed application dependency diagrams.

This is the stage where most organizations fail during migration projects. While most organizations recognize the importance of understanding how every device and application interconnects throughout the network, many simply don’t have the resources to properly document their networks. These teams still rely on lengthy manual documentation methods that are somewhat outdated. In today’s landscape, manual documentation is not cutting it, which leaves network teams flying blind as they begin the data center migration process.

Automated network diagramming not only makes life easier for engineers, allowing them to focus on more strategic initiatives, but it also helps teams with special projects like data center migrations. Automated systems can create a “digital twin” of the entire network that includes device data, topology, design configurations, routing, and more, which automatically updates when changes occur. These systems must also adapt to any data center network environment to support both traditional and software-defined infrastructures, such as Cisco ACI or VMware NSX.

Phase 2: Plan, Test, Adjust

Most organizations take a thorough approach to data center migration and migrate the network at the same time, then troubleshoot problems that arise afterwards. However, any complex migration strategy will include a lot of upfront planning, testing, and adjustments. With the help of centralized automated systems, network teams can easily develop detailed connectivity maps of the data center's new layout and routing protocols, identify virtualization, consolidation, and enhanced storage opportunities, and determine space, circuits, hardware, and software requirements, all before the migration begins.

By leveraging a digital twin of the network and using automation that adapts to the knowledge that must be validated, the team was able to visualize and validate each configuration in advance and check key application flows and routing table changes, so they could proactively prevent misconfigurations and reduce any disruptions after the migration. Once the team was confident in their planned changes, they could automate them to save time and avoid human error.

Phase 3: Final Check + Troubleshooting

Once the organization has completed all the migration work and the network has been migrated, the last step for the network team is to do a final check to ensure that it is running smoothly. While the organization may have planned every detail of the migration process, there is always a chance that something did not go as planned. At the same time, the migration inevitably leads to small changes in the network, making troubleshooting slower and less reliable. If the network team realizes that the network is not running as usual, manual troubleshooting techniques may take hours or even days to determine what exactly is wrong.

On the other hand, automation that adapts to knowledge that needs to be validated and tested greatly reduces the steps required to manually diagnose and mitigate problems. Dynamic mapping and executable runbooks allow network teams to quickly identify problems and automatically fix them, minimizing downtime caused by migration changes.

When it comes to data center migrations, network engineers often don’t have a lot to look forward to, other than the anxiety of unexpected downtime caused by a migration mishap. But it doesn’t have to be this way. With the right tools, network teams can easily understand how to properly manage the process and can do everything they can to ensure the success of a migration project.