Fortune 500 Financial Services Company Case Study
Summary
EXTEND, PivIT’s professional services offering, worked on a Data Center consolidation project, creating a realistic and achievable timeline and providing transparent insight into risk and change management. EXTEND conducted a site survey, added a pre-cable phase to reduce installation time, and relocated racks and devices while following cable management and labeling standards. The project was completed on budget and ahead of schedule.
- Client: Fortune 500 Financial Services Technology
Company. - Equipment Footprint: 30 racks, 2 locations.
- Consolidate two co-locations into one main location.
Customer's Needs
The client needed the following services to consolidate two co-locations into one main location:
- Site Survey
- Cabling Procurement
- Pre-Cable Installation
- Secured Transit
- Weekend Maintenance Timeframe
- Full Contingency Rollbacks
- Cabling Standards
PivIT's Solution With EXTEND
EXTEND was brought in at the beginning of the planning and design of the Data Center consolidation. EXTEND worked with the customer on defining a realistic and achievable timeline based on their available maintenance windows and multi-phase relocation approach. A project management methodology was provided with transparent insight into risk and change management throughout the project. This enabled insightful and meaningful communications for our client during the
planning phase.
A site survey and cable/devices audit was conducted at each site, providing the precise cabling needs for every port connection and run. Cables were purchased, labeled, and delivered to the destination site. A pre-cable phase was added to the timeline to help reduce the installation time needed during the limited maintenance window.
Each origin and destination site had complete racks and un-racked devices relocated with facilities and patch cabling reconnected following cable management and labeling standards. Alongside the remote client team, the EXTEND team powered on and validated that the equipment was visible on the network before departing the site. After each phase was executed, lessons learned sessions were conducted, improving the project’s efficiency and morale. The project came in on budget and ahead of schedule, moving over 250 devices and 1500 cables originating from 2 sites, all matching a uniform installation, cabling, and labeling standard.