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Data Center Transformations and the BOCA Process
The IT community, including end users, consultants and installation contractors, is familiar with MAC - Moves, Adds and Changes – to IT network infrastructure. MAC work occurs on a daily basis as end-user personnel are added or removed, change locations or upgrade services. MAC work is handled locally, sometimes informally and, for some sites, almost continuously. This paper considers data center transformations and introduces a new process - BOCA - Build Outs, Consolidations and Acquisitions. Different than MAC, BOCA supports large scale projects - new data center build outs, restacks of existing data centers, major technology upgrades and the integration of data centers as a result of a business acquisition.
The BOCA process supports a data center as it grows in size, complexity and criticality. Once implemented, the BOCA procedures are intended to create an IT infrastructure that will support future growth while minimizing the impact on existing facilities and operations.
Key considerations in a data center transformation are the complexity and risks such transformations bring with them and establishing processes that ensure success. Often data center transformations, and BOCA projects, are triggered by business, not IT, decisions that may not allow sufficient planning or accommodation for either existing IT infrastructure priorities or the opportunity to improve the final outcome using the right IT tools and processes. Key questions to ask include the following:
_ Does the senior business management team understand what they are asking of the IT department?
_ Does the business realize that IT transformation logistics planning are critical in order to maintain IT services?
_ Are key interdependencies identified and rationalized between the business and IT?
_ Have the risks been assessed and contingency plans been developed?
Implementing an effective BOCA project progresses through five basic stages: assess, plan, build, stabilize and optimize. This paper will discuss each of the five stages and how the right remote access and IT infrastructure management tools, deployed early and monitored throughout the process, will dramatically improve overall efficiency. By installing robust out-of-band KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) switches and serial console servers early on, the BOCA team gets the benefits of detailed network information and remote access early in the project. Beyond a traditional IT equipment focus, intelligent power distribution tools that optimize the consumption and distribution of power can dramatically improve the total operational efficiency.
Data Center Transformations
Today, data centers are being transformed for a variety of reasons - the need to support additional capacity, consolidate IT facilities and operations, gain access to more reliable sources of electrical power and many other reasons. Some transformations are the result of an IT operations initiative such as cutting IT costs or implementing a new business continuity/disaster recovery (BCDR) plan. In many cases other departments drive data center changes such as requiring new IT services, incorporating the IT assets of an acquired company or relocating IT infrastructure to a new facility.
Duane Morris, LLP, a Philadelphia law firm, moved its data center across the street but that move provided many important opportunities for the IT department.
"It was an opportunity to implement a whole new data center design," said Michael Carpinella, the Duane Morris technical services director. "It was a chance to improve security; to streamline operations, administration and maintenance; to lower total cost of ownership; and maximize application availability for an international, round-the-clock operation."
Whatever the impetus for the transformation, the IT department is usually the one made responsible for implementing the changes. Unfortunately, these tasks come on top of the IT department's day-to-day duties and involve skills that go well beyond installing a few Windows® patches. Add to this the fact that the IT infrastructure and the applications and services it supports must keep functioning 24/7/365 despite the transformation. The expression "changing the tires while the car is moving" comes to mind.
The BOCA Process - Assess
This stage involves understanding what you have and what you hope to accomplish. To pull off a tire change at 65 miles per hour requires world-class project management skills and the information necessary to make the most of those skills.
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