Migration Methodology Overview:

This blog is intended towards the audience to provide some high-level overview of typical Datacenter migration methodology and process flow. In any given Datacenter Migration Engagement there are 3 important key phases which play a vital role for the project success.

• Discovery Phase
  
• Analysis & Planning Phase
  
• Execution Phase
  

1. Discovery Phase:
   

During this phase of engagement, consultants/vendors would perform inventory discovery and application dependency mapping using various discovery tools which are available in the global market (VMware vRealize Network Insight™, Device42, DTM, etc.)

Below are the key tasks which would be performed during this phase:

• Collection of Discovery Data
  
• Physical inventory and assets
  
• Baseline Data and Workshops
  

   

1. Analysis & Planning Phase:
   

During this phase of engagement, consultants/vendors would perform discovery validation, analyze the data, identify the gaps and dependencies and build the move bundles for each migration move events.

Below are the key tasks which would be performed during this phase:

• Discovery Validation
  
• Analyse dependency mapping between VM’s and Applications
  
• Understand the flow analysis and communication between the physical and virtual components
  
• Create move bundles and scheduling
  
• Creation of runbooks and sign off from Customer
  

   

1. Execution Phase:
   

During this phase of engagement, a team of migration engineers would perform migration execution by leveraging various migration tools which are available in the global market (HCX, Zerto, Doubletake etc.)

Below are the key tasks which would be performed during this phase:

• Pilot Migration (Choose some low hanging fruits/non-critical applications and perform a dry run to understand any underlying issues, showcase tool capability and boost confidence to the customer
  
• Pre-Migration activities (Validate access to source and target environments, Pre-clones, Resources availability, Base replication etc.)
  
• Migration activities (Perform cutover/switchover of a VM, Monitor and report progress, UAT etc.)
  
• Post-Migration activities (Migration event sign off, Lessons Learnt etc.)
  

I hope this blog helps you to get some high-level understanding on typical datacenter migration process and methodology.

Happy Learning!