Background

When a globally recognised architecture practice needed to modernise part of its IT infrastructure, the objective was clear: improve performance, reduce operational risk, and create a cleaner, more manageable environment for future growth.

The organisation was operating a legacy on-premise infrastructure environment hosted within its office estate. As the environment expanded over time, increasing cable density, ageing connectivity layouts, and limited infrastructure scalability began to impact operational efficiency and ongoing supportability. To support improved application responsiveness and long-term resilience, the decision was made to migrate critical systems into a London colocation facility while simultaneously remediating the physical cabling infrastructure.

Sunspeed was engaged to deliver the migration and infrastructure remediation programme end-to-end, covering audit, planning, pre-cabling, relocation, power remediation, and final connect-and-dress activities.

The CHALLENGE

The migration involved a live production environment consisting of 40 physical devices hosted within the customer’s on-premise office infrastructure. The estate included 80 live power connections, 176 production and network cables, and a mixture of copper, fibre, and proprietary connectivity that required full end-to-end tracing and validation before migration planning could begin.

Existing infrastructure documentation was incomplete, requiring Sunspeed to undertake a detailed hardware and cable audit to establish accurate rack elevations, patching schedules, and dependency mapping ahead of the migration. The customer also wanted to use the project as an opportunity to improve the overall presentation and maintainability of the environment by remediating legacy cabling and standardising power connectivity within the new data centre deployment.

Alongside the migration itself, Sunspeed was tasked with delivering a substantial cabling remediation programme involving:

• Installation and management of 763 Cat6 patch cables
• Replacement of 416 C13-C14 power cables
• Deployment of new intelligent PDUs and power distribution hardware
• Full redressing and optimisation of rack power and network cabling

OUR Solution

Sunspeed delivered a phased migration approach designed to minimise downtime and improve delivery efficiency.

Initial auditing works captured the full infrastructure estate, including hardware inventories, rack layouts, and end-to-end cable mapping. Using this data, Sunspeed created detailed destination rack elevations and patching schedules to support the migration and remediation programme.

To accelerate migration activities and reduce risk during the live cutover, extensive pre-cabling works were completed ahead of the migration window. This included:

• Installation of 763 Cat6 patch leads in line with the revised patching schedule
• Deployment of 416 replacement C13-C14 power cables
• Installation of new intelligent PDUs and power distribution hardware
• Full redressing and remediation of rack cabling to improve airflow, accessibility, and maintainability

The migration itself involved the relocation of production infrastructure into the new London data centre environment, including de-racking, transport, reinstallation, and full cable connect-and-dress services.

All swap-over activities were completed during a controlled weekend migration window following extensive preparation during normal working hours.

OUTCOMES

The migration was delivered within the planned window, with no unplanned disruption to critical services.

The organisation moved from a fragmented and partially understood environment to one underpinned by accurate, centralised data. The new data centre layout improved clarity at both a physical and operational level, with cabling and defined rack configurations replacing legacy complexity.