The Art of a Cutover Plan (Part 2)

The Second part of "The Art of A Cutover Plan" has been published.

Click the image to go there:

The Art of a Cutover Plan (Part 1)

This was posted in my Data Center Consulting Blog:

Click the image to visit the blog:

http://datacenterconsulting.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-art-of-cutover-plan-part-1.html

Disaster Recovery - Are you Ready? We Passed the Test!!!

It's amazing how often we forget the importance of our data, especially when an actual disaster such as a hurricane, an earthquake, or a tornado hits! Since Hurricane Sandy just blew through the northeast, we recently experienced a test of our own from a data backup and recovery perspective.  With that, I wanted to take this opportunity and make you aware of the services we offer should you be in need or thinking about disaster recovery.  We have first-hand experience with this and I am happy to say that we have survived this potential disaster, as we have a data center located in the New Jersey area.  Essentially, proper planning has allowed us to be ready for geographic separation of facilities and data to ensure business continuity. 

Just like you should have a will for your personal effects, you should always have a Disaster Recovery Plan for your business.  The key benefit here? Peace of mind and a well thought out backup strategy that allows you and your organization to overcome destructive incidents that threaten your business and its functionality as a whole.  If you don't have a DR Plan or you would like to have yours reviewed, get in touch with us and we will be glad to help you out. Click the logo or visit the link below:

http://info.KnowledgeCentrix.com/acton/media/3789/disasterrecovery-backup

The Art of a Cutover Plan

*** The first post in a series of 3 has been posted. Just click on the image:

 I just sent out an email referring to a basic set of information regarding a "Cutover Plan".  Out of Curiosity, is there interest in a full blown Blog entry wrapped around this message:

"In order to come in with a strong, well formatted plan so everyone involved knows exactly when they have tasks to do and when they need to be done,  let's create a cutover plan with the following:

At a minimum the plan will have  two milestone related markers:

1.  Activity Milestones (when a particular task is completed it marks a milestone for the cutover)
2. Time based milestone (any time that is defined that activities have to be completed before or after it.

Tasks will need to have the following information at a minimum:

ID

Desc

Resource

Start time

Duration

End Time (calculated)

Dependency on another task or specific time or both (defined later)

Each of the defined tasks will occur before or after the defined milestones (#2) above. We will also be able to know if we meet any timeline constraints after we have completed filling out the plan."

Post your responses if you would like to see a detailed step by step creation process for a "Cutover Plan"!  I would go into detail on many more columns of vital information for those really high risk cutovers as well ....

Transitions

Our lives and our pursuit of happiness can take us on a wonderful life journey, which for me is now ready to help a different company grow and take their next step. I have taken the next step in my career and as of 9/24/12 , I have joined KnowledgeCentrix as their new Vice President, Data Center Services.  

For those of you that don't know KnowledgeCentrix, It is a full-service information systems consulting firm specializing in providing Managed and Professional Services to businesses needing help to support their I.T. organization.  Although they offer Cloud based services, they are not in the clouds, but their vision, and technical savvy certainly are.  As a quick example, these are some services that KnowledgeCentrix offers that you might have an immediate benefit from:

1. Cloud based (public or private) App hosting.  We have 3 physical data center locations offering you robust co-location options.
2. Onsite / Offsite Backup / DR recovery
3. SharePoint Hosted solutions with consulting for creating automated work flows.
4. Many others... Get in touch with me to learn more 

My time with PlanNet has been an incredible experience offering me wonderful projects to implement and great clients to work with, such as Toyota, Ingram Micro, Broadcom , Reliance Steel,  Herbalife, and the list goes on.  

My knowledge gain as well as input to each companies successful projects has lead me to this point of taking this next step.  I will be continuing to work with PlanNet as a partner on open projects.  

For those that are interested, please follow me on twitter @GardnerDarrell, or connect with me on linkedIn, If you haven't already done so.  I will still be giving back to the online community via my hosted linkedIn groups, twitter and still plan to continue speaking on similar subjects regarding Time Management, Data Center management, project / program management, and cloud initiatives.　　

Here is to your continued success,
Darrell Gardner

What good is CMDB if it does not Tie into Change Management

No matter how cool the reporting you get from your CMDB tool is, if the information contained in it is stale outdated, or just plain wrong.. You are hosed.

The content of  your CMDB is as valuable as the last person that updated it.  Most likely the CMDB will be around longer than that person so make sure it is up to date.

Make sure that you update your CMDB as part of your Change process!!! Adds/Moves/Changes to any part of the data center should be required to use Change process.  Part of the process should be a check piont that updates any dependent documentation.  If you have a CAB board that reviews changes, the udpates shoule be required to be implemented as of a time limit within the change window or even as part of the change plan.  Possibly the clean  up prortion of the plan right after updating monitoring tools.  Then review to verify that changes were put in place.  Sign OFF!

Do this and you will be ready for changes to your data center environment.  Especially in a hosted environment when you have hands and eyes that are less familiar with your environment (New Hires, Contractors).

Tying your Inventory/Assests back to Applications

As I have done many Data Center Migrations, I have found one common thread on the initial engagements....
There is a disparity amongst the support teams and the application owners as to what they call their applications. Support folks tend to shorten or give acronyms to systems and the application teams have their own names as well. This causes some problems within the change management arena as well as documentation. My suggestions are as follows:

1. Standardize on the names of systems within your data center
2. Standardize on all potential classification area's (ie. locations, support groups, Operating systems, function, etc...)
3. Verify that every device ties back to a common system name.

Within your system documentation you could then track:

• System Name - Common or Highest Level System Name
• Component: Module or Subsystem Name associated with System (Blank ok)
• Function : Type of device (Websvr, DBSvr, Storage, AppSvr, citrix svr)
• Servicing Location: What locations or Enterprise does this device support?

By doing this you are on your way to having a healthy change management system with accurate information regarding systems and their associated owners, stakeholders, and other upstream or downstream devices/systems.

This is also imperitive in order to have a proper dependency matrix (I'll cover that in another post).