Go to the "Data Center"

In the direction of the hosting provider, the Russian business (not only Internet companies) began to peek somewhere in 2012. What is the popularity of solutions? Very simple - this is the price. Indeed, when opening a new business, you should not think about building a private data center, especially about the purchase of excess capacity. If your project is a startup and the state has one system administrator, at worst, paired with the 1C programmer, then you definitely do not need your own data center. Money can be spent on more necessary things.

Another thing is the companies that took place, in the best “borel-years” transferred by eminent companies to equipment of even more eminent companies. When the cost of maintaining a private data center costs 700-1500 thousand rubles. per month. Optimization is needed here, I won't discover anything new, but IT is the very article that I constantly want to optimize. With this desire, you can divide the project into several stages:

- Audit of the existing infrastructure (if CIO is present in the state, then the company can seriously save)
Duration: 0.5-3 months.
The importance of the stage will probably not be explained, companies that have a thorough description of the IT infrastructure can be counted on the fingers and they think about the optimization of IT costs last.
It is at this stage that an understanding of what exactly is wrong and what prevents simple relocation appears. In cases with complex infrastructure and the presence of high-loaded servers in it, the idea of ​​moving ends at this stage. But here it is important to take into account a competent financial justification, this can radically change the situation.
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- Development of a plan for the idealization of the data center and the destruction of SPOF (potential points of failure)
Duration: 1 month.
The development of such a plan requires a successful audit, this is how to start building on a bad foundation, there is no audit documentation, there is no work plan. He should take into account first of all getting rid of secondary services (“crutches”) and the result should be an architecturally correct infrastructure with a minimum number of elements. The plan should take into account everything from internal addressing to freeing up disk space for test systems.

- Plan implementation
Duration: Depends on the size and complexity (neglect) of the infrastructure, from about 1-6 months.
The implementation of the plan should be carried out in stages, without interruption in the financing of the project, without replacing participants in the process and under the watchful eye of the business. It is advisable to devote to the stages of managing the management of the company and conduct weekly scheduling.
The solution should be an ideal infrastructure ready for migration to the data center.

- Prohibition of changes
Duration: The whole project
If your business has already gone through the first 3 stages, then the most important thing is not to spoil everything at this stage. The infrastructure must be in conservation mode for change. Reports of course you can add, but you can not add services, especially fully connected. A business must take this time into account in its development strategy and the need for change requests. But business is business and critical projects cannot wait, so all changes should be carried out under the strict control of the project team.

- Replenishment of the project team by the staff of the hosting provider
Duration: Depends on the professionalism of the specialists from the host, usually these are highly professional guys.
At this stage ALL documentation is transferred to the host (non-disclosure agreement is obligatory), so that there will be no surprises in the future. There is also a direct and constant communication with the Osting provider, and other regulatory documents are agreed. All moments of further operation and availability of services are discussed, after which you can proceed to the next stage.

- Plan your move
Duration: 1-2 months.
Here it is important to take into account everything, your experience in operating systems, knowledge gained during an audit, business requirements for the availability of services, deadlines and downtime.
Yes, you already have a plan for the idealization of infrastructure. In no case should you drag it into this work, this is a past stage. Your infrastructure is perfect, hosters are aware of everything in the world, you just need to plan dates. Underpin these dates with the necessary specialists of different qualifications, work out possible failures, roll back plans and secure additional finances just in case. People are the most important thing at the planning stage, everyone should be in his place at a certain time of work. If the programmer is in Thailand, then he should not sleep or work on his site should be carried out at night. In general, take into account everything, everything, everything.

- Preliminary moving.
Duration: 0.5-2 months.
It is important that you transfer your phantom infrastructure and run it. To work in it for several weeks, to carry out all business processes identified at the planning stage. For example, if you have lifted a report with 100 checks for the entire life of a company, then remove it with 5000 checks. Model any business need and accordingly create stressful situations, the more the better. During the testing period, fate can take you back to the first stage, but this will only benefit the business. In general, you got a mirror of your infrastructure with working IP, and it's great! We can move on ...

- Moving
Duration: 1-5 days.
There are a lot of options for moving (switching) to using a hosting provider, ranging from transferring backups, synchronizing data networks, integrating virtual environments, and finally just transferring configs and data.

The cost of migrating the infrastructure to the hosting depends on many factors and cannot be named to you by the manager at the first meeting. Often, the verbal statements are empty, and an understanding of the real value of the project appears only after a full audit.

The timing of the project according to my estimates, for the average infrastructure, is 1 year. I repeat, the infrastructures are all different and the specialists with budgets, too, so feel free to consider each case as individual.