Data center migration

Moving Offices : IT relocation service Checklist

1) Planning

When will we have physical access to the new premise to do a site audit of what is currently there? It is useful to ask the previous company if they have plans to leave anything behind. A few site moves we have been hired on, Structured Cabling, UPS's and Phone Systems are mostly left behind for the new tenant to use! They would prefer to pass these down instead of paying for the removal.

Internet Service Providers - One of the longest wait times for a new premise will be Internet and Telecom lines. Allow up to 2 months for these and check if they can reuse any existing cabling to speed things up. This will need to be ordered and followed up weekly to make sure this does not delay the move which can be actioned by your IT Managed Serice Provider. Our recommended ISP can help you with this transfer by moving the numbers and IP Address of your existing setup to your new office.

 Cabling Requirments for new Office

  • How Many Phone Lines do you need?
  • How Many Cat 5 Cables per Desk?
  • Power Outlets for each Desk?
  • Room for Server Rack

What needs to be moved and who is physically doing the move? This can be a great time to perform an IT Audit of all machines and software as this all needs to be moved anyway! Can the people who will be moving your Office Furniture also help out with physically moving IT Equipment?

Moving premise can be a great time to retire old IT Infrastructure and be a useful time to upgrade existing infrastructure so you can run both sites in parallel to speed up the move and help with the testing. It can also be a great time to look at Hosted IT services and cloud.

 Why pay for a server room to be built if you can move it all into the cloud which will help you be more flexible for future moves!? 

Recyling old IT Infrastructure should be done with a proper provider so that hard disks and old backup tapes a destroyed to prevent leak of company data

2) Evaluation

  • Make sure backups of all company system data have all been completed and that there has been a tested recovery?
  • Have you notified staff of when they will need to shut their computers down so the hardware can be moved quickly and efficiently and when the system is expected to be back up to reduce IT Downtime?
  • Is the equipment insured during the move?

3) The Move

  • Depending on the size of your office, it's best to get employee's to pack and label their personal items up which will help with the moving of IT Equipment
  • Testing - Once all equipment is moved servers and systems should be checked and signed off before starting work.