Don’t Just Migrate Data Centers—Evolve to a Future-Proof Platform

When it’s time for infrastructure change, choose an approach that helps you build for the future

Nicholas Hollings
Don’t Just Migrate Data Centers—Evolve to a Future-Proof Platform

Picture this: The CIO of a major airline has a vision for making some big changes to her organization’s IT infrastructure. After decades of running a private, on-premises data center at company headquarters, it’s time to evolve their infrastructure strategy. The company is eager to elevate customer experiences and improve operational efficiency, and they know that legacy infrastructure and technical debt are holding them back. The CIO is passionate about getting out of the data center business and migrating the airline’s digital infrastructure to a global colocation provider that can help them connect with key clouds, network services, SaaS providers and business partners in the right locations. AI is also a pressing concern for them, and it’s not going to be possible to address that with existing infrastructure and hosting environments. But where to begin?

Moving essential IT assets and equipment can be stressful and complex. Whether you’re relocating physical equipment or moving workloads virtually, data center migrations require detailed planning to minimize disruptions. And they’re not without risks.

Customers regularly come to Equinix seeking help with their migration strategies. In many cases, they’re focused on the immediate problem at hand. Maybe they have legacy infrastructure that’s no longer supported or no longer meets their needs. Or perhaps they’re looking to reduce costs or improve performance. Whatever motivates the migration, Equinix can facilitate it and make sure it goes as smoothly as possible. However, sometimes the best migration strategy is a long-term one—a big picture approach that helps organizations truly transform their IT to build for the future.

Prepare for tomorrow by changing how you operate

A lot of organizations like the airline in our story ultimately want to change how they do things in IT. Today, many companies are strategically trying to get out of operating on-premises data centers: 55% of enterprise IT workloads are now hosted off-premises—up from 42% in 2020—and that number is rising every year.[1] Organizations need to improve agility and facilitate better connectivity to partners and service providers—all in the interest of driving better business outcomes. They’re modernizing their software and application stack, which requires an array of tools and the right foundational infrastructure.

More than half of workloads (55%) are now off-premises.” —Uptime Institute Global Data Center Survey Results 2024

When it’s time to make a change, you can move one workload or system at a time through physical or virtual migration. While these micro-level changes may solve today’s problems, they won’t necessarily prepare you for the future. You need a longer-term strategy.

The airline’s CIO knew they needed to evolve to a future-proof platform that would better position the business for what’s ahead. The future comes with uncertainties, so it will no doubt require a lot of flexibility. Rather than lift and shift a few IT systems today, the company is adopting a forward-thinking whole-platform approach that will allow them to prepare for both the expected and unexpected down the line.

IT agility is the way of the future

Hybrid multicloud has become the predominant IT model for a reason. An IT platform for the future employs physical and virtual IT solutions, both public and private, to provide the highest level of infrastructure flexibility possible. That’s because business agility is crucial if you want to be ready for the future.

Let’s explore what the journey to a future-proof platform might look like. Let’s assume that, like the airline above, you’re starting with on-premises infrastructure in multiple locations. If you’re like most companies today, you already have applications and data in multiple clouds—and perhaps you want to migrate more of them. Here’s a step-by-step look at how you might do that:

  1. For connectivity between your private infrastructure and public clouds, you can start by building a physical or virtual network hub inside a colocation data center that connects you to clouds, networks and SaaS providers. This network hub might use physical routers, firewalls and SD-WAN devices, or it could use virtual network functions to serve the same purpose without upfront hardware investments.
  2. From there, you can create a private cloud with a full stack of compute, storage and networking for workloads that require low latency, are core to who you are as a business, or simply require more dedicated compute than what would otherwise be available as a service. Deploying that private cloud in the same colocation facility enables seamless connectivity to public clouds and other providers in the digital ecosystem.
  3. Now, you’re ready to deploy your applications. Having built your platform, you can target the right application workload to the right location: your own private cloud, service or SaaS providers from the ecosystem, or one or more of the large hyperscale clouds.
  4. Next, you can start evaluating how AI can transform your business and get AI ready. This involves centralizing your data storage and flows where they can be used to leverage all your AI platforms, be they SaaS, cloud-based, self-hosted or custom built. Once your consolidated, centralized data platform is in place, you can begin working with partners on your AI initiatives, no matter where they need to be deployed.
  5. At this point, all that remains in your private data center is your legacy IT systems that cannot be re-platformed or transformed and must be moved in their entirety. You can migrate legacy infrastructure to the colocation data center and close your on-premises data center by lifting and shifting the equipment.

By following this process, you can move away from managing on-premises data centers yourself and entrust your infrastructure to data center experts. This approach helps you address the costs and inefficiencies of technical debt while giving you the best of colocation, private cloud, dense ecosystems of service providers and partners, as well as all the public cloud providers.

You can do all this on Platform Equinix®, leveraging our global colocation data centers and digital services, such as:

  • Equinix Fabric® for low-latency, software-defined connectivity across your infrastructure—to your partners, service providers, clouds and locations
  • Equinix Network Edge virtual networking services to create a network hub on demand in minutes
  • Equinix Metal® high-performance bare metal for deploying private clouds and complex applications on demand

The perks don’t end there. Deploying in Equinix data centers can be more sustainable, thanks to our investments in renewable energy and data center efficiency, and more scalable, since your infrastructure can be easily replicated in new locations. Taking a step-by-step approach to migration enables you to evolve to a platform that better prepares you for the future.

Infrastructure continues to evolve

The airline introduced earlier decided to follow an incremental approach to migrating to Equinix and closing their data centers. The phased approach minimizes the risks often associated with migrations and allows them to adjust as needed along the way. Already, they’re seeing the benefits:

  • Improved performance and better uptime compared to legacy infrastructure
  • Greater operational efficiency
  • Improved security and regulatory compliance
  • Access to data center support services
  • Better environmental sustainability
  • Scalability and global reach

With this transformation, the airline can focus more on their core business and deliver exceptional customer experiences that set them apart from the competition.

Ready to change your approach to IT infrastructure? Learn more about designing a digital infrastructure for the future in our Leaders guide to digital infrastructure. Or see how Equinix can help by downloading the Platform Equinix vision paper.

 

[1] Uptime Institute Global Data Center Survey Results 2024, Uptime Institute, July 2024.

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