Z-Man...When do you move to Atlanta?

[john70t]

Originally Posted by Scuba Steve

We took about a 5 day trip to go play tourist and scope out the region, along with a few different parts of town.

+1. Having a better daily grind will make a difference for the long run sanity.
20hrs/wk spent in the car is literally a part time job.
Go for a combo of side street routes to work, quiet neighborhood, parks, shopping(food/auto/building), library, pools, schools, mass transit, etc.

[legion]

Unfortunately, around here, the side streets are just as conjested as the main arteries. There just plain isn't enough capacity for the vehicles on the road.

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by Scuba Steve

I'll second the advice - it's what we did before considering following the company to Charleston. We took about a 5 day trip to go play tourist and scope out the region, along with a few different parts of town. Long story short, it was totally worthwhile and was the motivation I needed to start putting in for job openings at this site.

They are including a visit to Georgia as an option to help determine if an employee wants to move there or not (part of the relocation package). They will also offer a retention package if an employee decides not to move to GA, but stays on until a set date.

There are two main 'waves' of migrations to GA planned: most of the employees will need to make a decision to move by April 15 of this year, and will be expected to be in GA by July 31st. They will move into temporary office space until the new building is built.

Several critical operations areas will remain in Montvale NJ until the new Mercedes building is built in GA. These include the Call center, training center, and IT. (I am in IT). It is estimated that these groups will migrate to GA in about two and a half years, and the same type of packages will be offered (relocation package / retention package).

A lot of media is reporting that part of the decision had to do with moving closer to our assembly plant in Alabama. Actually, the Alabama plant is a completely separate business entity (Mercedes-Benz, US International vs. Mercedes-Benz, USA). While we certainly do business with them, that really was not a huge influential factor. Money was the motivating factor.

The mood is very somber here to say the least.

-Z-man.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Z-man

Yeah, but we have lower gas prices!

True - the cost of living is high here -- but I think it is safe to say that government and union corruption is not limited to New Jersey alone: we just seem to air our dirty laundry more than most states!

I've lived in NJ all my life - I have no problem living here - yeah - parts are a bit crowded, but there is lots of greenspace, tons of high end communities (Mendham, Franklin Lakes, Saddle River, Alpine, Cloister...etc), and lots of opportunities.

-Z

And it is the garden state.

I ain't never been there, but any place called the garden state must be nice

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Z-man

I've lived in NJ all my life - I have no problem living here - yeah - parts are a bit crowded, but there is lots of greenspace, tons of high end communities (Mendham, Franklin Lakes, Saddle River, Alpine, Cloister...etc), and lots of opportunities.

-Z

And Jughandles

[Z-man]

Lots of folks NOT getting relocation packages...

-Z

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Z-man

Lots of folks NOT getting relocation packages...

-Z

That sucks.

Thinking positive thoughts for you.

[stealthn]

Good luck - hoping for no outsource deal.

[porsche4life]

Good luck Z. You haven't bought another house yet have you? That may turn out to be a blessing...

[Jim Richards]

I hope this all works out great for you, Z. If you do relocate to Atlanta, I think you'll enjoy it. Atlanta's one of the nicer places we've lived in over the years. When we were there, we lived in Peachtree Corners and I worked in Duluth. The commute was easy. Other areas around town were probably not as convenient. We loved going into the north GA mountains, sailing on Lake Lanier, and (mild) whitewater canoeing on the Chattahoochee River. Good luck, Z.

[Scuba Steve]

Originally Posted by Z-man

Lots of folks NOT getting relocation packages...

-Z

Wow, bad times. I thought it was the norm when a company decided to relocate.

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by porsche4life

Good luck Z. You haven't bought another house yet have you? That may turn out to be a blessing...

No house yet - living in a rental apartment and all of my furniture and stuff is in storage...

I find out today which option I get:
1. Relocate - need to decide by April 15, and move by July, 2015.
2. Retention package - stay on board in Montvale until June 30, 2015
3. Option C: stay in Montvale continue with 'normal' datacenter planning and operations, and migrate to new datacenters when they are built, sometime around Q3, 2017. Then, option 1 & 2 will be presented to me closer to the datacenter move date.

Since I am part of the ITI group (IT infrastructure), Option C is the most logical fit for me. Will find out by noon.

-Z

[Z-man]

Option C. We stay put until they figure out what to do with our datacenter environment. So for the next couple of years, I'll keep satisfying the business needs, as well as plan and execute a datacenter move. Gonna be a busy year...

-Z

[stomachmonkey]

Nice.

[arcsine]

Kinda a stupid question I am sure but how does one move a large data center when downtime is not allowed? Do you buy new hardware and install in Atlanta, get everything mirrored there and flip a switch? Outsource all the data temporarily and physically move the hardware and rebuild? Or some combination of the above?

[Paul_Heery]

It is not really a stupid question. But, the flip answer would be "it depends".

I have been doing data center migrations for over a decade now and no two have ever been the same. It is a matter of cost, tolerance & timing. But, they are always very high risk.

The easiest ones that I have done are for clients that have a hot failover site, or sites. Test, test, test then switch over. Move then switch back. There is some big risk here as not all failovers go as planned. A couple of the clients that I have worked with have used this approach multiple times as it gives them an opportunity to periodic refreshes of entire environments. But, this is far from the norm.

All data center migration plans involve discovery, analysis, assessment, design, testing, then cutover. But, from experience most clients perform wave migrations based on applications tied to certain infrastructure components.

Take a look at this article from Data Center Dynamics. It will give you a feel for some of the approaches. Data center relocation

[Z-man]

Paul is right - there are many different ways to do this. Currently, we have a dual datacenter environment - but it is a local setup - the two sites are 1km apart. This allows us to have dedicated dark fiber (single-mode long wave fiber connections) between the two sites. Many of our critical systems are mirrored between the sites - dual servers, dual storage, dual network setup.

There are several types of dual setups: active/active, active/passive, auto failover, manual failover...etc. Depending on the business requirement, the system is setup accordingly. The higher level of redundancy, failover, and automation, the higher the cost.

So we can add a tertiary global mirror to our metro mirrored environment in Atlanta. (Metro is synchronous replication, global is asynchronous). The global connection would leverage the Telco infrastructure (ATT, Verizon...etc). Faster speeds and more bandwidth can be achieved at a higher price. Once this third site is setup, we could duplicate our environment, and as Paul explained above so well - we would synchronize, test, cutover, failover, lather, rise, repeat until we are satisfied with the results.

We have not even begun to plan out the actual migration, but that should give you a bird's eye perspective on how it can be done.

-Z-man.

[arcsine]

I have no problem with quantum mechanics or cellular biochemistry but computing at this level is complete voodoo to me. Thanks for the edification.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by Z-man

Paul is right - there are many different ways to do this. Currently, we have a dual datacenter environment - but it is a local setup - the two sites are 1km apart. This allows us to have dedicated dark fiber (single-mode long wave fiber connections) between the two sites. Many of our critical systems are mirrored between the sites - dual servers, dual storage, dual network setup.

There are several types of dual setups: active/active, active/passive, auto failover, manual failover...etc. Depending on the business requirement, the system is setup accordingly. The higher level of redundancy, failover, and automation, the higher the cost.

So we can add a tertiary global mirror to our metro mirrored environment in Atlanta. (Metro is synchronous replication, global is asynchronous). The global connection would leverage the Telco infrastructure (ATT, Verizon...etc). Faster speeds and more bandwidth can be achieved at a higher price. Once this third site is setup, we could duplicate our environment, and as Paul explained above so well - we would synchronize, test, cutover, failover, lather, rise, repeat until we are satisfied with the results.

We have not even begun to plan out the actual migration, but that should give you a bird's eye perspective on how it can be done.

-Z-man.

Been out of the game 6 years now Z, but for 25 years, this is what I did as a communications systems programmer/networking guy. Moving/mirroring large data centers either locally or thousands of miles away supporting megabanks, large corporate IT infrastructures, etc. Most folks I know "still in the game" have been working from home (telecommuting) for many years...is that an option for you? I never lost my job in this fashion but I watched many, many, coworkers go through it....it sucks. Invariably, everyone comes out the "other side" just fine though....seems to happen to "good people" . Best of luck Z....

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by Z-man

Paul is right - there are many different ways to do this. Currently, we have a dual datacenter environment - but it is a local setup - the two sites are 1km apart. This allows us to have dedicated dark fiber (single-mode long wave fiber connections) between the two sites. Many of our critical systems are mirrored between the sites - dual servers, dual storage, dual network setup.

There are several types of dual setups: active/active, active/passive, auto failover, manual failover...etc. Depending on the business requirement, the system is setup accordingly. The higher level of redundancy, failover, and automation, the higher the cost.

So we can add a tertiary global mirror to our metro mirrored environment in Atlanta. (Metro is synchronous replication, global is asynchronous). The global connection would leverage the Telco infrastructure (ATT, Verizon...etc). Faster speeds and more bandwidth can be achieved at a higher price. Once this third site is setup, we could duplicate our environment, and as Paul explained above so well - we would synchronize, test, cutover, failover, lather, rise, repeat until we are satisfied with the results.

We have not even begun to plan out the actual migration, but that should give you a bird's eye perspective on how it can be done.

-Z-man.

Been out of the game 6 years now Z, but for 25 years, this is what I did as a communications systems programmer/networking guy. Moving/mirroring large data centers either locally or thousands of miles away supporting megabanks, large corporate IT infrastructures, etc. Most folks I know "still in the game" have been working from home (telecommuting) for many years...is that an option for you? I never lost my job in this fashion but I watched many, many, coworkers go through it....it sucks. Invariably, everyone comes out the "other side" just fine though....seems to happen to "good people" . Best of luck Z....