A small distance, but a big move…

Our Customer

West Sussex County Council is the biggest employer in the County, employing over 20,000 people.

The Brief

The Council had a requirement to migrate the entire contents of their data centre, approximately one mile, to their brand new centre at Chichester. Although a very short distance, the equipment numbered hundreds of Servers and peripheral equipment, such as Tape Archives, Printers and a Safe. Once again this was a requirement for weekend working, which Sunspeed regularly undertake as standard and would also include out-of-hours and overnight working.

The Project

Following a request from the customer for three bona-fide references for similar projects that we had undertaken, Sunspeed was awarded the contract for this project. There followed a full and comprehensive site survey of both sites to ensure that the transit route, albeit short, was not going to present problems. Once the route had been approved and after project meetings with the customer, we were then requested to demonstrate exactly how the IT equipment would be packed, loaded and transported and then placed into position at the final destination.

Method statements and risk assessments required

This we achieved with a pilot move. We were also required to provide method statements and risk assessments. All the equipment was either packed in our custom-built, anti-static flight cases or, in the case of the racks, wheeled over previously laid protective flooring provided by Sunspeed. Any racks not on wheels had to be emptied and re-assembled at the new destination. Two 18-ton, air-ride vehicles with tail lifts were used and Sunspeed provided all the packaging which was removed from the customer site on completion.

The project was successfully completed on schedule and within budget with the minimum of disruption to the Council's business.

May 2009