Migration Workbook and Runbook Development

A migration workbook is the single document that turns a data center move plan into executable steps: every device, its source and destination rack position, its move group, the order of work, who owns each step and how success is confirmed. DataTech Logistics builds and runs the physical sections. Your IT team supplies and owns the system steps.

What goes into a migration workbook?

A migration plan is only as good as the workbook that translates it into executable steps. Ours starts with the asset inventory: every device by serial number, make, model, source rack position and destination rack position. Around that we add the details each move day depends on.

Workbook section	Owner
Asset inventory, rack elevations and port maps	DataTech Logistics
Move groups and wave schedule	Your IT team, with our physical input
Packing method, truck load plans and custody records	DataTech Logistics
Shutdown and startup order	Your IT team
Contacts, escalation paths and go/no-go criteria	Shared

Each device row links to its move group, its truck and its custody record, so anyone can trace where a server is at any point in the move. Our article on the migration workbook as a single source of truth explains why one shared document beats a folder of spreadsheets.

What is the difference between a migration workbook and a runbook?

The workbook is the data: what is moving, from where, to where and in which group. The runbook is the sequence: the timed, step-by-step procedure for each move window, built from the workbook. A runbook entry reads like an instruction. De-install rack A12 after IT confirms shutdown of group 3, scan each device, pack in foam set B, load truck 2. Every engineer and crew member involved knows exactly what to do, when to do it and what success looks like. We build runbooks collaboratively with your technical teams, so institutional knowledge is captured rather than left in someone’s head. Your IT team’s steps, such as shutting down applications or confirming services after power-on, appear as hold points with a named owner, and our crew does not proceed past a hold point until it is cleared. On move day, the runbook drives the move-day command center, where progress against each step is tracked and called out.

How should a workbook handle rollback?

Every migration wave needs a documented fallback before it starts, with clear decision criteria, a named person who makes the call, and time-boxed steps. The physical part of a rollback is ours to plan: which racks stay powered and cabled at the source until the wave is confirmed, how long hardware can be held on the truck or at the destination before it has to return, and how many crew hours a return trip takes. The decision to roll back belongs to your IT team, based on their own system checks, and the workbook records the latest time that decision can be made while there is still enough window left to execute it. Many IT teams align these criteria with their existing contingency planning, often built on NIST SP 800-34. A rollback that has never been written down rarely works under pressure. See our guide to the move-day rollback plan for a template.

How do you keep a migration workbook accurate?

Give it one owner and one copy. The workbook goes wrong when several teams keep their own versions, or when changes on the floor never make it back into the document. We assign a workbook owner, version every change, and lock each wave’s section before its move window. Accuracy starts with the inventory. Before the first wave, crews walk the source room and reconcile what is physically in each rack against the workbook and your configuration records, flagging devices that are missing, unlisted or in the wrong position. Inventory control of this kind maps to the system component inventory control (CM-8) in NIST SP 800-53, which many compliance teams already follow. After each wave, actual destination positions and any exceptions are written back, so the workbook ends the project as an accurate record of the new site. Read reconciling your CMDB against physical inventory for the audit method.