Global Financial Services Organisation

The Client, a worldwide financial services holding company, was seeking to strategically relocate its Secondary Data Centre environment. It was essential that the Client chose not only the right hosting environment but could execute the complex migration of the IT services into the new Data Centre facility.

PTS was engaged to assist the Client, performing a “deep dive” Discovery process as a first step in the overall migration programme. Based on a four-month Discovery engagement, PTS determined the underlying IT infrastructure that supported the organisation’s applications and processes. Linking interdependent applications and IT infrastructure together, PTS built up a view of the IT estate within the Data Centre transposed into sets of IT Services that could be grouped together into “Migration Events”. From this collection of Migration Events, the specific IT services to be moved can be coordinated and planned over specific weekends to coincide with the needs of the business ensuring key services remained stable and available without interruption.

Overall Approach

Leveraging the experience of Subject Matter Experts aligned with Technical Project Managers, PTS ensures complex tasks and activities are thoroughly planned and undertaken on time and to schedule. In collaboration with the Client team, PTS’ technical resources design, plan and implement the activities required to deliver the objectives of the project successfully and complete it on time.

To engage stakeholders, PTS builds an excellent, collaborative relationship with the Client. Through well-timed and coordinated reporting and communications, and by involving “the right people at the right time “in the project, PTS met the demands of the Client, the Senior Board and the Executive sponsor.

Phase 1 – Discovery & Migration Strategy

The Discovery process established the scope and scale of the IT services (and associated infrastructure) delivered out of the existing Data Centre. The project team could then determine the necessary IT infrastructure requirements to initiate the migration (seed infrastructure). Given the potential lead times of circuit components and the procurement and deployment of hardware and O/S build, determining the infrastructure requirements as early as possible was essential. This initial phase resulted in a complete understanding of associated migration approaches and requirements.

The first phase also encompassed the further development of migration approaches regarding the individual services, the associated applications and hardware platforms and formulated logical groupings into specific Migration Events (i.e. the creation of a set of IT services that need to move together due to their reliance on each other). It was also during this phase that the project team started to detail and document the necessary migration steps and tasks through technical checklists included in the migration event run-books.

Phase 2 – Detailed Analysis & Planning

During the Detailed Analysis and Planning phase, the applications planned for early migration reached an appropriate readiness level and the team structure was adjusted to commence the execution phase assigned to specific Migration Events. This approach enabled a set of parallel activities to run in the lead up to the migration and streamline the Migration phase allowing the actual relocation of services to the new facility to commence as an overlapping activity while Detailed Analysis & Planning is still active.

Phase 3 – Execution & Transition to BAU

Each Migration Event involved an iterative, collaborative cycle within which the Client (and third-party application providers where appropriate) agreed on the tasks and steps for the successful execution of each weekend planned activities. A sequence of Migration Events is established and all parties work to achieve the schedule. Careful change management ensures any disruptions to the schedule are accommodated and alternative Events scheduled so that activity continues and the project does not fall behind.

Progress reports issued to key stakeholders, business lines and application/technical teams, allowed a transparent and clear programme tracking mechanism in the run-up to, and during, each Migration Event. The reporting format includes progress reports, key milestone attainment and an intuitive graphical dashboard for easy progress monitoring. It also included the tracking and ownership of, as well as the resolution of, the issues and risks encountered during the process.

Transition to BAU is a critical step required to close the project and ensure the Client fully adopts the migrated IT services into the daily operations of the new Data Centre. The project team also needed to append any new IT services into the existing standard operating procedures. The Governance and Auditing processes check to see if the operating procedures reflect the Client’s facility and business.

By leveraging PTS’ vast Data Centre experience and engaging with the Client on a collegiate, rather than the traditional customer-supplier basis, the Client could meet its objectives and accelerate the migration to the new Data Centre facility. PTS managed the project and its resources in a way that allowed the Client to continue with Business-As-Usual activities while being confident that the project progressed to plan in a systematic and collaborative manner.

The outcome is a fully managed, migrated set of IT services (including all hardware/software/infrastructure) to the new DC facility. The service is available on a global basis and provides the Client with a consistent and rigorously applied approach and methodology regardless of location.