We now have over 30 years of experience in helping companies move their IT infrastructure. Here’s a few tips we’ve collected along the way that could save you a lot of money and stress!
Some of these things won’t be important to you, so…
What’s the Scope?
Think about the job- if it’s happening over the Christmas break you may not need continuity (ie. seamless services across the office move).
If you’re moving 1 business unit at a time, you may not need your movers to work over weekends, and could save some money.
ie. Is it more expensive to give your staff a day off, and get the movers in on a workday, or get your staff to box up their stuff and have the movers do it on a weekend?
If most people can work from home, you might not need overlap on the lease…
The Lease
When you’re negotiating a lease for a new office, there’s a few things you should keep in mind-
- Overlap– to minimise disruption, you should have some overlap in the lease, ie. your new lease should start BEFORE the old lease finishes. You can sometimes use this as a bargaining chip- ‘our old lease finishes on 1 March and the new lease starts on that day, but can you give us 2 extra weeks before that for free?’
- Alternatively get early access ‘our old lease finishes on 1 March and the new lease starts on that day, but can you give us 2 extra weeks of access before that for free?’
- Owner paying for the fitout? Document that the job is done to your standards (and document those standards).
- You’re paying for the fitout? You must tell the other party about the access you require (lifts, cabling, electrical etc.) and get them to tell you about any restrictions and costs (in writing) before you sign!
The Movers
Are you moving yourself? That’s probably ok up to a certain size, but beyond that you should engage a moving company, for larger companies you’re going to want a Project Manager- either internal or external. Expect better results from professionals- but you must be engaged in the process!
Get a quote- and read it!
You must know exactly what is in scope or out of scope for these resources. Don’t get hit with extra charges because you needed something done urgently…or for something that could have been done by a faster or cheaper resource.
The Interwbz
The very second that ink (pixels?) are dry on your new lease, start thinking about your internet connection. In Australia, TPG takes 35 business days to provision a new fibre connection, and you really need someone following this to watch for issues.
Note that says ‘business days’ – in reality this is 45 days because some of us get weekends, thankfully.
The IT People
You knew we’d get to this right? Get a quote for the move from your IT people.
Pre-Plan all of the following-
- Who is moving the computers?
- Who is moving the network rack equipment?
- The actual network racks?
- Did they include in their proposal to take backups before shutdown?
- Did they promise to move the backups separately from the main data?
- Which days do you want them onsite?
- They probably should attend some planning meetings and have contact with builders and electricians
Of course a lot of these issues go away with cloud storage, but others might pop up. Like – is the internet connection up and running at the new site? ie. Properly configured for access to your cloud resources?
More IT Things to Watch
- If your Server Room needs 15amp or 20amp outlets, make sure these are on the plans
- Make sure the correct number of these are on the plans
- Electricians must finish their job several days before the move, otherwise the IT people won’t be able to do their jobs
- In general this also means the builders need to finish before the electricians are finished
- Yes this includes testing and tagging- you don’t want your IT people on the day of the move following the sparkies as they stick numbers on the outlets
- Always get more ethernet outlets than you think you will need- I guarantee you will want more on day 1 if you don’t do this!
- Cat 6 is fine, can ask for higher if needed but they need to be tested!
- Ask the electrician if they will provide the test results for the network outlets
- Infrastructure like this can make a big difference to your business, and you can’t see it. Unless you ask for a Ferrari, you may get a Lada
- ‘We’re going all WiFi’ oh please no, this is a terrible option, ask us why!
Example
Recently a client moved. We had trouble because some things weren’t finished on time. The electrician had been booked for the final day the client was supposed to be up and running, (but we had no control over this). They went hugely over time and walked out, leaving confusion and chaos.
On that day when they were supposed to be finished, Servicemax turned up and they were still pulling cables through walls. We installed and tested as much as possible- including installing a bunch of patch cables, ready at one end for the other end to be plugged in when the job was finished… We then spoke to the electricians, showing them the cables and asking that they plug in the other end as they finished the cabling, and they agreed.
When they left, they plugged in every second cable and told the client they were in a rush. There was about 20 cables- it would take literally seconds to push them all in and do a good job. Instead they chose to deny connectivity for half the network!
(and then didn’t communicate this to us, leaving us scrambling for answers)
Let’s leave with a win-
We knew this job would go down to the wire. So Servicemax had temporary WiFi running nearly a week before WiFi infrastructure (and cabling) was installed.
It helps to get IT people with experience!
Contact Servicemax if you need help with a move.