Introduction
Bidfood is one of the largest food wholesalers in the UK. Their established food service offers variety and quality, making them the food supplier of choice.
Bidfood wanted to migrate their servers, about 200 in total to a new office location, since few of these were operationally critical systems they wanted minimal downtime during the switch.
The Challenge
Bidfood wanted a complete audit of all the equipment and a detailed and phased migration to ensure minimal disruption, so Technimove were engaged to:
Provide a fully managed migration solution
- Complete a physical audit of all equipment within the migration scope
- Complete a pre-cable of destination datacentre
- De-commission re-commission 200 devices, across 2 phases
- Reduce downtime
The Solution
Technimove scoped the work required, designed, planned and delivered the project as per CDG and Boeings requirement and timescales. Technimove worked closely with the IT and facility departments to deliver the following scope of works.
Data Centre Audit, Environment Readiness and Relocation Services
Planning and Project Management
Our migration methodology is designed to focus on minimising downtime, reducing risks and
guaranteeing the efficient delivery of server migration projects. A key element of this process is ensuring that your project manager has prepared for the challenges and utilised the available resources in the most effective way.
The Pre-Cable
Pre-cabling is a key strategy for ensuring that we achieve our goal of minimising your downtime. For Bidfood, this meant our engineers were pre-cabling the new location 4 weeks ahead of the migration. As part of the process, the team installed copper and fibre cables in line with a specific set of requirements outlined by the client.
The Migration
On the day of the migration, Technimove engineers arrived onsite 30 minutes prior to the start time to sign in and prepare packaging material.
Once onsite, the devices were handed over to Technimove to systematically decommission, de-rack and wrap in anti-static bubble wrap for protection, before being placed into purpose built, foam lined, server flight cases.
Once the flight cases were secured in the pre-fuelled GPS tracked Mercedes Sprinters, Technimove travelled directly to the destination site via the safest and shortest pre-planned route.
Once at the destination, the equipment was unpacked and installed in line with the destination rack plans. Once racked, devices were recommissioned in line with the patching schedule.
Technimove undertook final checks before handing the equipment back over the client for the testing to commence ahead of schedule.
The Result
The Technimove team worked closely with Bidfood to ensure that the migration was delivered and all project goals were achieved. From the very beginning, the processes we had put in place through our project management methodology ensured the safe migration of Bidfood’s equipment. The pre-planning activities ensured the project was completed, comfortably within the agreed timescales.
Feedback
The customer shared the following feedback:
Faye Reeve, Senior Buyer at Bidfood said, “From the point of initial engagement with Technimove, they gave us confidence in their ability to deliver a low risk data centre migration and addressed concerns we had in a pragmatic and logical manner. As we went through the process, they demonstrated their attention to detail and methodical approach to planning and executing key tasks. We would certainly recommend Technimove to other businesses and would not hesitate to use their services again in the future.