Data Centre Migration Completed in 2 Days — vs. 5 Days Expected

The challenge

Migrating active IT infrastructure between data centres is one of the highest-risk operational activities an enterprise undertakes. The scope here was substantial: 7 cabinets containing approximately 250 servers, along with the full network layer — switches, routers, and patch panels — all requiring coordinated decommissioning, transport, and recommissioning at a new south London colocation facility.

The client is a major global Content Delivery Network provider. Their infrastructure does not sleep. Even a planned maintenance window has real business cost. Their maximum acceptable downtime was 5 days — a conservative but not generous timeline for a migration of this scope.

Three factors made this project structurally difficult. First, the client operated with limited local in-house engineering resources — their own team would be managing the migration largely remotely from their US and European offices, meaning DACPROS needed to function as a trusted extension of their team without constant supervision. Second, the timeline was compressed relative to the estate size. Third, the client needed ongoing maintenance capability at the new facility after migration, meaning the quality of the installation work would have lasting consequences beyond the migration itself.

Planning the move

The foundation of a fast migration is not execution speed — it is the quality of planning that precedes it. DACPROS employed a structured project management methodology built around a single principle: identify tasks that can execute in parallel rather than sequentially, and plan the schedule to maximise parallel working.

Advance planning is fundamental to delivering a tidy, smartly laid out and configured installation. — VP Global Network Infrastructure, CDN client

Planning began with precise positioning specifications for every device in the new environment — not just which rack, but the exact U-position of every server, the routing of every cable, the placement of every blanking plate. This level of pre-planning seems like overhead until you see how much time it saves when 250 servers are being installed under time pressure.

The plan covered: precise placement of servers, routers, and patch panels in the new facility; strategic positioning of rails and blanking plates pre-fitted before any equipment arrived; cable management routing specified in advance to avoid the improvisation that creates messy, unmaintainable cabling; and logical equipment grouping designed for ongoing maintenance access rather than just initial installation convenience.

Critically, the plan identified that switch configuration did not need to wait for decommissioning of the old environment. By pre-staging and configuring network equipment at the new facility in advance, the DACPROS advance team removed this from the critical path entirely.

The execution

Execution began with comprehensive on-site surveys of both facilities — the origin and the destination — to identify access risks, floor loading constraints, power circuit availability, and anything that might create a day-of surprise. Surprises during a migration are expensive; the survey is cheap.

Servers were physically marked with labels indicating their new cabinet location and loading sequence before a single one was removed. This eliminated confusion during the transport and installation phase — every engineer on site knew exactly where each piece of equipment was going before it left the source rack.

While the labelling work proceeded at the source facility, the DACPROS advance team was already at the destination, fitting rails, installing blanking plates, and pre-configuring the network layer. Two streams of work ran in parallel from the start.

Instead of waiting for old cabinets to be decommissioned, we pre-fitted and configured switches. — DACPROS Installation Technician

On migration day, the sequence was tightly controlled. Servers were decommissioned systematically, transported securely, and installed at the new location with power supplies and cabling following the pre-specified routing. Every cable was labelled at both ends and patched according to the pre-planned schedule. The main ISP cross-connect — often a source of delay in migrations — had been pre-arranged and was finalised as the final step in the commissioning sequence.

The result

The migration completed in 2 days against a 5-day allowance — a 60% reduction in downtime against the expected timeline. The installation was delivered to the client's quality standards, within budget, and with full as-built documentation provided on completion.

Our expectation was five days downtime. We were impressed when completed in just two days. — VP Global Network Infrastructure, CDN client

The documentation was not an afterthought. As-built diagrams, cable schedules, equipment inventories with serial numbers, and cabinet photographs were delivered alongside the operational handover. For a client managing infrastructure remotely from overseas, this documentation is not just useful — it is the basis on which all future maintenance decisions are made.

The outcome of the migration led directly to DACPROS being commissioned for ongoing Remote Hands maintenance services at this facility and at other locations in the client's UK estate. A migration delivered well is the most effective introduction to a long-term relationship.

What this means for your migration

Data centre migrations do not have to carry the risk profile they typically acquire. The variables that drive downtime — switch configuration falling on the critical path, destination preparation waiting on source decommissioning, engineer confusion about equipment placement — are planning failures, not execution failures. They can be eliminated before migration day begins.

If you are planning a migration, relocation, or consolidation project, the conversation about methodology should happen at the planning stage, not after a timeline is already committed to. Talk to DACPROS about your project scope and we will tell you where the time can be saved.