Application Migration-

Planning and Execution

- Girish Natarajan

Category: Data Centre Migration

| ©2011, Cognizant 2

AGENDA

Data Centre Migration and Application Migration

)

Planning and Execution.

Migration Phases

Key Roles

Key Risks and Mitigation Strategy

Appendix- Detailed information about the

migration process

| ©2011, Cognizant 3

Data Centre and Application Migration - Overview

Data Centre Migration: Data Centre Migration (DCM) represents

the physical or logical relocation of IT

services from one hosting location to

another.

Deliver the Data Centre Migration

Services in discrete phases to ensure

business continuity and consistent

design

Plan and execute a Data Centre

Migration with the appropriate level of

rigour and control, utilising proven

methods and expertise to ensure the

business can continue as usual

Complete the change with minimum

impact on business activities

Maintain similar performance levels

across data centres and minimize impact

to the underlying architecture.

Application Migration Planning and executing the

migration of individual

application components and

environments.

Migration approaches were

chosen based on a detailed

assessment primarily ,new

build, Physical to Virtual and

Virtual to Virtual.

Ensure the technology stack

was retained without any

changes to underlying

hardware and software.

Completing the migration with

with minimum impact on

business activities.

| ©2012, Cognizant

Application

Migration

Application Migration – Mind Map

Migration Approach Technical Assessment to

chose among the various

migration methods:

New Build

Lift n Shift

Virtual to Virtual

Physical to Virtual

Restore to Virtual

Identify and Validate

Migration Tools

Identify migration

tools

Conduct proof of

concept exercise

Identify and Record

Application

components

Servers

Environments

Platform

Dependencies (

NAS, Load

Balancer etc.)

Performance and

Latency Test

Performance

benchmarks need

to be set.

Latency tests for

critical

applications.

Identify Pre

Migration and Post

Migration Activities Identify pre

migration to prepare

for the migration

Identify post

migration validation

steps and support

activities.

Communication

Strategy

Understand the key

milestones in the

migration process

Building

communication

strategy and

templates for

communication.

Identify Legacy

Applications and

Modernize

Legacy Application

discovery.

Prepare a strategy

to modernize before

migrating.

DR and Risk Strategy

for Production. Plan for contingency

for production

servers, particularly

for Lift n Shift.

Identify and mitigate

technical risks due to

migration

| ©2012, Cognizant

Migration Phases

Planning

Analysis &

Design

Analysis of all

migration

components

Compare existing

infrastructure with

new infrastructure to

understand the risks.

Create design

documents for any

key architectural and

configuration

changes due to

migration.

Proof of Concepts

for identifying the

tools and

methodologies for

migration.

Migration

Migrate the data

from the source data

centre to target data

centre and maintain

data integrity.

Migrate all

environments in a

phased manner starting

from Dev to Production

in that order.

Cut down

dependency on the

application in the old

data centre without

affecting the business

users.

Ensure performance

benchmarks are not

impacted due to

migration.

Post Migration

Qualify and Test

the application for

each server

migration.

Perform any

configuration

changes required for

application.

Follow the GxP

validation process for

validated

environments.

Maintain and

archive logs created

as part of validation

for future audits.

Hypercare

Support

Establish the

process to support

any issues post

migration.

Detailed planning

and coordination to

ensure adequate

validation of the

Production

environment within a

short span of time.

Scoping,

scheduling and

resourcing for the

entire Migration

Programme.

Due to the size,

complexity , risk and

business involved

extensive planning

was required covering

minute details

without which the

migration would not

be a success.

Data collection,

Risk Analysis and

Mitigation process

| ©2012, Cognizant

Ideal Team Structure

Key Roles

Project Manager: Plan and

schedule the migration , assess the

risks and manage the resourcing

and cost of the project.

Migration Architect: Assess the

migration methods and formulate

the ideal migration approach for the

application across environments.

Validation Analyst: Formulating

strategies for validation and testing

pre and post migration to meet the

GxP guidelines.

Testers : Prepare and execute the

test cases for pre and post

migration testing.

| ©2012, Cognizant

Key Risks and Mitigation strategy

Different strategies available

for virtualizing physical

boxes. Each comes with its

own risk. Need to perform

proof of concept and choose

in the initial phase.

Outdated Technologies

used for storage might

not be easily portable to

the new data centre.

Need to assesse during

the planning stages and

plan for remediation.

Server running on legacy and

out of support operating

systems like Sun Solaris etc.

need to be phased out to the

extent possible and modernized

before migration.

Performance can be impacted due to variety of

reasons , database parameters, network stability

etc., extensive analysis and pre migration

performance testing should be done to ensure

performance is not impacted. Lift n shift of servers should

be minimized and used a the

last option where its not

possible to use any alternate

migration methods.

For critical systems a

contingency plan should be

put in place if Lift n Shift is

involved.

Configuration activities

that do not need

application downtime

need to be planned and

executed ahead of

migration to minimize

application downtime.