Building a Winning Business Case for Your Data Center Relocation

Interested in relocating your data center? In this blog, Align’s data center experts weigh in on the key factors to consider as you shape your business case.

Why Should You Consider Moving Your Data Center?

First, let’s level-set on the critical factors driving migrations. Most common motivations include the need for additional capacity to supplement existing facilities, the need to reduce operating costs, or the consolidation of multiple facilities into a single larger space. Organizations may also seek better geographical diversity for risk reduction or face challenges with their current provider that necessitate a change.

The Big Opportunity

A data center migration is a strategic inflection point. So, when building your business case, this is your chance to align the relocation with broader business goals. These can include modernizing infrastructure, implementing long-overdue standards, consolidating workloads for efficiency, or strengthening disaster recovery capabilities.

“We tell clients to treat a migration like a once-in-a-decade opportunity.  It’s the perfect time to address lingering technical debt, adopt more resilient architectures, and future-proof the environment for the next 5–10 years.” — Art Dooling, Managing Director, Align Assessments & Modernization

By framing the relocation as a platform for transformation rather than just a move, you can make a much more compelling business case that resonates with decision-makers and secures the investment you need.

Including Your Migration Approach in the Business Case

A key tip when building your business case is to clearly describe which type of migration approach you plan to take. This clarity helps stakeholders understand the expected scope, complexity, cost, and potential benefits of the move. Including this upfront makes your case more transparent and credible and helps secure the necessary buy-in and funding.

When working with clients, we typically see requirements fall into three main categories:

• Like-for-Like transitions, which minimize transformational changes
• Cloud Transformation, involving re-architecting applications to be cloud-native
• Hybrid approaches, which our experience shows is the most commonly chosen path

Defining the migration approach early on sets the stage for all subsequent planning decisions and cost estimates. This leads to a stronger, more actionable case.

Low Risk or High Risk?

Once you’ve decided on your overall migration approach, the next critical decision is determining how much risk you’re willing to take during the cutover itself.

When planning your data center move, you'll need to choose between two main approaches, each with its own balance of risk and cost. The first option is having a safety net: you build out your new data center while keeping your old one running. This gives you the flexibility to move systems gradually and test thoroughly, but it requires investing in new network hardware upfront. The second option is more of a high-wire act: you shut down your existing data center, physically move the equipment, and bring everything back online at the new location. While this approach saves money by reusing your current hardware, it leaves no room for error.

"Data center migration is a 'break the glass' scenario — once you start shutting down and moving equipment, there's no going back. Your team might handle one or two migrations in their entire career. Our team executes these moves every single day.” – Art Dooling

Hard and Soft Costs

With your strategy and execution model defined, you can now build a complete financial picture. That means identifying both the hard costs you can clearly measure and the soft costs that can quietly erode ROI if left unaccounted for.

Understanding your total costs is crucial for building an accurate business case. These fall into two categories: hard costs that you can clearly quantify, and soft costs that impact your business in less obvious ways.

"One of the biggest mistakes we see is companies underestimating the full scope of costs. They'll budget for the obvious expenses like new hardware, but forget about things  like temporary circuit requirements, an overlap period where they're running two data centers, and the internal resource soft dollar expense to provide institutional knowledge. That's where having an experienced partner really pays off. We help you catch these hidden costs before they surprise you."
- Art Dooling

Hard Costs:

• New construction: Preparing your space with cabling, racks, and PDUs to support your technology assets
• New hardware: Requirements vary based on your chosen migration strategy
• Network infrastructure:
  • LAN Switches
  • Routers
  • Storage (SAN/NAS)
  • Replication systems
• Installation & commissioning of new hardware
• Project management
• Interconnections (temporary circuits, etc.)
• Double operating expenses during transition period
• Additional insurance
• Staff overtime
• Physical move costs (if relocating existing equipment)

Soft Costs:

• Team impact and distraction
• Reduced bandwidth for other initiatives
• Potential need to defer other high-value projects

The Bottom Line

Your business case ultimately needs to demonstrate a compelling return on investment. Frame it in terms your CFO will appreciate, whether that's Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), or other relevant metrics. "We always encourage clients to think about it in relatable terms," says Art Dooling. "If you scale the numbers down to a personal budget level, would the investment make sense? That's often a helpful way to gut-check your decision."

The success of your data center relocation project depends heavily on thorough planning and expert execution. With decades of experience in managing complex migrations, Align's team stands ready to help you build and execute a winning strategy.

Want to learn more? Contact us today to speak to an expert and get started.