Our data center move checklist had 3 major parts - what to do before the move, what to do a short time before and at the time of the move, and how to validate that everything was up and running correctly. The advance portion of it included things like notifying customers of the planned downtime, figuring out who’s DNS was where so it could be properly modified at the time of the move, and quite a few others.

One item caught in advance using this checklist, for example, was that our own network-accessible power strips (for remote rebooting, etc) had the wrong kind of plug to interface with the data center’s power distribution setup - we needed to get adapters. This is an example of one of those things you definitely want to know in advance so you’re not standing in the data center late at night with no way to power your gear.

The “during” portion had a complete checklist for both the tear down at the old location and the build out at the new one. It was ordered sequentially, with the idea of maximum speed in mind while preserving systems integrity. The tear down portion involved readdressing and clean shutdowns of each machine in the correct order, followed by removing equipment from the racks and shuttling them out to waiting transportation, followed by cleanup of cables, etc.

The build out portion had the order listed out to bring the systems back online as quickly as possible, and designated specific portions of it to individuals, ideally timed so that as machines were mounted and cabled they could quickly be turned back on and checked.

Once the build out was finished the final part of the checklist was run through, and we made sure each service was back online. Once finished, it was time to clean up and go home. There was some more follow up work in that part of the checklist that was planned for the next day, and was taken care of then. The first move had a team of 2; the second move expanded up to a team of 4. A good rule of thumb in this situation seemed to be correct - more than two people per rack is probably too many. The second move, with twice as much equipment took about twice as long as the first, so in our case it scaled pretty linearly.

The data center we chose has been performing spectacularly since our last move. We haven’t had any downtime, support has been excellent, and the security arrangements and access policies allow us to get in to work whenever we wish. As we’ve added new racks they quickly take care of their end and make sure they can meet our future needs. The moves may have been a little painful, but we’re happy knowing that we shouldn’t have to do it again.