Data Center and Cloud Migration Methodology
A detailed and structured approach to effectively guide your migration program, ensuring a smooth transition from start to finish
Data Center and Cloud migrations are critically strategic
initiatives
that must be completed without impacting essential business services. Gartner
recommends leveraging an established migration methodology to minimize your risk and accelerate
project
activities.
CTM Technology Group has a proven, well-defined, and adaptable methodology to help your company
be
successful.
Our management team and experienced staff work flexibly with your organization to ensure the
migration approach fits your timeline, budget, and goals.
01 Project Initiation
The project is initiated with the project charter and business case approval. We hold a project kick-off to ensure all the proper stakeholders are identified and involved. We agree to a high-level approach, while clearly defining our migration goals and ensuring the scope aligns with stakeholder expectations. A high-level project plan and budget is created, accounting for resources, hardware, licensing, disposal, etc.
02 Data Center and Cloud Discovery
During discovery, CTM Technology Group reviews available documentation, performs physical inspections, and interviews the subject-matter experts. If required, we may perform automated discovery of system assets and look for consolidation opportunities. In addition, we verify any software licensing and perform an overall discovery review. For additional details, see our IT Discovery Services and Application Mapping Methodology
03 Migration Planning
The planning phase starts by deciding on the technical migration strategies and creating move groups leveraging our Migration Wave Planning Tool. Based on the move group plans, the technical teams will create detailed migration plans and associated test plans for infrastructure and application components. During this phase, we design the target environment, ensuring it follows the organizational standards for design and configuration. In addition, we discuss and potentially consolidate any assets as required for the migration. We incorporate and adhere to any corporate required change management process and quality program and work to mitigate any identified and documented risk.
04 Execution of Migration Steps
In this phase, we verify the target environment is ready and prepare any systems required for the migration. Our testing teams ensure applications are performing as expected prior to our migrations, and based on test system migrations results, the technical and executive stakeholders agree on a Go/No-Go decision. Next, we perform our live migrations to the new data center or cloud, including all post-migration testing and support. Lastly, we hold move group retrospectives and perform any asset decommissioning that’s required.
05 Project Close Out
We close out the project by finalizing all support documentation, contract changes, and updates to CMDBs. CTM also provides a project scorecard showcasing the migration’s success.
Project Governance and Reporting
Throughout the program, CTM provides status reporting and communication tailored to each customer including weekly status reports and meetings for executives and project stakeholders; detailed project plans; monthly/weekly Migration Activity Calendar; Move Group Plan by application database and server; move group communication and status; Change Control, Test Plan and Asset Decommissioning Tracker; Action, Issue and Risk Log; and financial management. See our Migration Project Management Services for more details on our practice.
Are you ready to take the next step? For a deeper understanding of how we approach data center and cloud migrations, we invite you to download our comprehensive Ultimate Migration Guide. This resource provides detailed insights into our proven methodology and offers valuable information to help you navigate every step of the process with confidence.