In the past years, I worked on several migration projects, mostly for global financial services organisations, such as Commerzbank, Santander and METLIFE.
Working for such large and complex organisations can be truly challenging, however it offered me great learning opportunities, as well as much pride seeing these projects delivered successfully.
So, what makes me so excited about migrations?
- The Challenge
Where can we start? consolidating and confirming the scope (servers and applications inventory), producing a sensible migration plan (and its rollback, Plan B, if ever needed!), coordinating multiple resources and global teams of SME! You name it! - People
You get to know and work with different teams, eventually meet them in person in their local offices. Build relationships and take them by their hand to completion. - Travel
Business travel can be really pleasant when you get to see new cities and countries, try local food, although after doing long night shifts we don’t have many hours and energy left for sightseeing. - Breaking the routine
As just mentioned, migrating critical applications often means working unsocial hours, such as Friday and Saturday nights. I personally enjoy such shifts, they break the routine of the Monday to Friday, 9-to-5, job and it just feels different to work at night, even remotely from your home. - Implementing Significant Changes
Migrations means consolidation and cost savings. It will impact corporate strategy, jobs for employees and vendors. It is serious business and cannot be taken lightly. A major change that I am responsible to deliver. - Physical and Virtual come together
Migration are not just copying some virtual boxes and sending data down the wire! I like the idea of moving physical kits from A to B, take part in the logistic planning, arranging the lorries with the 3rd party company. The thrill of re-racking and finding out nothing works, troubleshoot it just to find out that your cable engineer connected the wrong cables! - Migrations are never the same
Hence you will never get bored!
and what about you? what do you enjoy about migrations?
