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Technical difficulties
Packing up and moving an IT infrastructure during a relocation is a masterwork of precision -- or at least, it should be
June 17, 2005
Boston Business Journal - IN DEPTH: CORPORATE RELOCATION
by Alexander Soule
Journal Staff
For the time being, Kristen Ellis pretty much has one item on her to-do list. And she must do it quickly and flawlessly.
In the space of a weekend, she must shut down ScanSoft Inc.'s Peabody headquarters and move hundreds of workstations to ScanSoft's new Burlington building, ensuring the systems come online without a hitch on Monday morning.
Ellis, who was hired last October as ScanSoft's new facilities manager, is in the midst of managing the company's move into Divine Inc.'s former office visible from Route 128, which began last weekend and continues through next.
It's a process that requires to-the-letter planning and precision -- and a case study in the how-to's and headaches involved with dismantling, transporting and re-establishing an IT infrastructure.
A common occurrence
Relocation: It is a drill that occurs every week in Boston office buildings and the corporate campuses ringing the city, mostly without incident. But few companies attempt it while working to complete four acquisitions, as is ScanSoft at present -- not to mention altering its entire corporate identity, as is ScanSoft, which plans to change its name to Nuance Communications Inc. later this year following the acquisition of its largest rival. As such, ScanSoft faces special challenges.
"We are changing the tires while going 75 miles per hour down a winding road," says Peter Mahoney, ScanSoft's marketing head who has been involved with the planning. "There are three companies we are integrating right now, and we are heading for a significant integration with Nuance."
Communication and documentation are the two keys to transporting an information technology infrastructure successfully, experts say. Extensive use and sharing of checklists will ensure not only that an employee will be able to find his desk's new location -- but that the computer sitting on top of that desk will tap into the corporate network without incident.
In reality, most companies keep two checklists handy: what needs to get moved and where, and what could go wrong.
"There are a lot of worries -- from the availability of our IT systems, to potential disruption of services to our customers, to the impact on R&D, to loss of productivity," Mahoney says.
ICorps Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Michael Hadley's firm handles the IT requirements for more than a dozen moves each year.
"Anytime you shut down all your equipment or move it, there can be only two possible outcomes -- success or misery," Hadley says. "You need to handle a move as if it is a controlled disaster-recovery project."
But since the IT staff is pulling the plugs anyway, he adds, moves represent both a risk and an opportunity.
"It is a great time for companies to upgrade their systems, and for new purchases," he says. "You need to make sure that your technical needs are thought through for both current and emerging technologies like VoIP, video and wireless."
Ellis has managed facilities and moves for 18 years, most recently with Cambridge-based Aspen Technology Inc. She says that for her, the worst move moments come when everything is so closely orchestrated that there is no wiggle room to deal with problems that come up.
"Things tend to go awry," she says. "On one move there was no room for mishaps with a UPS delivery for our data center, and the truck driver went to Florida instead of Houston. We had to 'hot shot' the equipment -- hire three drivers that could rotate the shifts of driving and get it to us within 24 hours."
Emerging technologies are easing the transition of moves on IT staffs, by automating how workstations and peripherals are mapped to a network, and reducing the physical grunt work needed to physically pull cabling to cubicles.
Corporations pulled off complicated moves without a flaw a decade ago, but it was more arduous, says Eric Hjerpe, a onetime chief information officer at Digital Equipment Corp. who today is a financier at Atlas Venture in Waltham.
He recalls a weekend in 1996 when DEC created a 300-person sales call center in Littleton by moving two facilities in Marlborough and Merrimack, N.H.
"Friday night was the packing, overnight was the physical move of materials, Saturday was set-up, and Sunday was end-to-end testing," Hjerpe says. "It was an all-hands-on-deck situation. We had employees sign up for slots over the weekend to come in and help, as well as for testing on Sunday. On the Saturday, we had senior executives on hands and knees connecting cables on (personal computers) to screens, plugging in equipment, connecting keyboards, etc. We brought food in and blasted music to try to make it fun."
While local-area network problems can create headaches, Hadley says the worst-case scenario lies in the telephone company failing to connect a company by the move date.
"That is probably the worst-case scenario -- in one case we had to delay the move itself," Hadley said. "For most companies, if you can't pick up the phone and get a dial tone, you can't do business period."
Another nightmare would be a slew of disgruntled workers descending en masse on the IT department. A successful move means targeted and extended communication with each work group, not only on office and technology preferences, but also larger lifestyle issues.
For instance, ScanSoft's move involves not only its Peabody headquarters, but its SpeechWorks division in Boston with 150 employees; its Waltham Dragon unit with 60 workers; and its Phonetic Systems office in Billerica with some 30 people. The Boston work force is largely accustomed to taking public transportation to work. The company considered running shuttle buses from downtown, but instead trusts that MBTA buses running from Alewife Station in Cambridge will do the trick.
Ellis anticipates no problems, and once the move is completed, she can turn her attention to other facilities-management duties. And the good news is that with ScanSoft inking a 10-year lease, she likely won't have to worry about such a big move for at least another decade.
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