Belfast to Dublin in a Day: Moving a Server Room into a Colocation Facility

Alex MacColl

Project Manager – EMEA – DataMove

In November we moved an IT services company’s equipment out of its office server room in Belfast and into a colocation facility in Dublin. Collection, the drive south, racking and sign-off were all done in one working day, from 09:00 to 15:00.

This is how the Belfast to Dublin move ran, and the one thing on the day that didn’t match the plan.

What moved

An HPE BladeSystem c7000 chassis with 16 blades
Storage arrays
Switches and network equipment

Belfast to Dublin move: office server room in Belfast before the uplift — The office server room in Belfast, before the uplift

From an office to a data centre

The client was consolidating out of an office-based server room and into a proper colocation facility, with the power, cooling and security an office can’t match. That meant a full uplift: everything powered down and de-racked in Belfast, moved in a single run to Dublin, and re-racked the same afternoon.

The blade chassis travelled in one of our rack-format flight cases, so it was never carried loose or stacked.

Rack-format flight cases in the Dublin colocation hall — Rack-format flight cases on the floor in Dublin

Every unit had a place before we arrived

Before the day, each device was given a position in the destination rack. On site we worked from the client’s rack drawings and from our own rack-planning tool on a tablet, which shows where every unit is going by U position and lets the crew scan a unit to find its slot.

Rack drawings and rack-planning tool on a tablet — Rack drawings on the laptop, our rack-planning tool on the tablet (details blurred)

The one surprise: U2

The plan had the blade chassis starting at U2. In Dublin, the rack’s rail adjustment brackets sat right beside the U2 position, so nothing could be mounted there. We raised everything to start from U3. There was room in the rack to absorb it, so the plan held and the day finished on time.

When you plan a move, check the first few units of the destination rack, not just the total space.

Belfast to Dublin: crossing the border

Belfast to Dublin is a cross-border move, but a simpler one than most. Under the Windsor Framework, Northern Ireland follows EU rules for goods, so there are no customs declarations between Belfast and Dublin, unlike a move from Great Britain into Ireland. VAT is a separate question: equipment moving from Northern Ireland to Ireland falls under the EU’s VAT rules, and the owner may need to report the movement, so check with your accountant before the day.