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Today at work I did a very succesfull migration from one machine to another pair of machines. I cannot say the details (ofcourse); but it went very well. All we had to do is pull out the old cables, unshut some network interfaces and plugin 2 detached cables (Additional security measure from us). So what lead to this succesfull migration?
Actually, it’s very simple. We planned the things properly. Ofcourse the company wanted to have it sooner, but hardware materials were not shipped on time, and we needed to do some additional testing before we could deploy this.
Because of that, I had more time then anticipated, so I did a “major” inventory, cleaned up old machines, network cables and stuff like that. That was the first big bullet that you should do. Before migrating anything, cleanup the old environment, so that it’s easier to get an overview.
Next thing I did was do an inventory on the switches that were used to connect the “old” facilities. After getting clear what all was running where and how, it was a simple step to reproduce a couple of networks on the new switches, connect up the old switches and the new ones, and have working switching connectivity. (First time I properly did a stack btw).
So, now we created space (overview by removing old unused stuff), and we did an inventory on the network to learn how that works and what was available and what not.
Next thing we did is bring in all the new goodies. While we put them in the racks, we made sure we had space left to glide cables were needed and things like that. So this is a next item, after cleaning up and knowing what lies in front of you, insert the machines, but keep cabling etc in mind, do not stick machines together, but leave a bit of space, it’s for cooling and cables!
So, after bringing in the goodies and powering them up, we had a couple of switches and some other material hanging around. OK next on this list, decide how we are going to cable the machines on the new switches and how we are going to cope with the cables. It’s important that you know upfront how you are going to do it. I had a basic idea in my head, and was very sure on how to approach the cabling thing (Robert from Snow learned me a couple of things on how cables should flow when binding them together). We placed the cables, and nicely made a couple of bundles (one going down, one returning back up, bundling the binding in the cables so that it had a nice half-round shape instead of being smashed together) and supported them on the side of the rack. Afterwards we put in some more cable gliders, now it’s really neath!
So the machines hang, ofcourse I configured them to be on the management network, and I cabled everything. Lets see whether we can reach them. Jip we could (ofcourse, we knew upfront what we were about to do!).
The next step I cheated myself and already did this with the machines in the test-lab, but in case you didn’t have that luxury, now is the time to easily configure the device and copy over the old settings from the old machine(s) where needed and improving them or doing them better (within the bounds of your project).
One or two days prior to the change, you should familiarize yourself with the goals, try to get someone else involved and look at the steps together. You have them in your head, but that’s not enough. Discuss the points with a collegue and write them down. Make sure you generate a worksheet from it. That way you know exactly what to do during migration and what is left and what not.
We did that today, (the final part) and we might have even broken a record with it. We were very quickly and had good grip on the cases. We didn’t see any problems afterwards so far, so I think the migration had succeeded very well.
One other thing I did throughout the migration is invite different people to help. The current team I am in, has 5 working people. I used them all to help me carry the machines, cables, attach them etc. Everyone now has feelings with the machines. They know which machines we are talking about, they all did something to help making this migration go smoothly. Ofcourse it could have been done without them, but it’s an team effort to make it happen, so use the people from the team to get a platform to build upon. (yes I realise that it’s not always possible to do it like this in the various environments).
Hopefully this helps you to do magic like we did today 