The challenge
About 1,000U is a lot of rack space. Spread across a lab and a comms room, it all has to leave one place, travel together and go back in the right order at the other end.
That meant one project from the first rack coming out to the last one going back in, with the kit, the vehicles and the insurance all arranged to match.
Our approach
A team of 8 from Secure Transportation de-racked, packed, transported and re-racked the equipment. We brought trucks, vans and all the specialist handling equipment, including flight cases, so everything arrived in one piece. The project was managed from start to finish.
For the value of the kit, we arranged £4.5m of cover under our marine cargo and engineers insurance policies.
Here is how we normally run a rack move of this kind:
- We trace and audit the cabling first, then agree a patching schedule so the racks go back the way they came out.
- We photograph and label each rack and each cable before anything is disconnected.
- We write RAMS for both buildings and agree access, lift and loading bay details.
- Kit travels in flight cases on tracked vehicles.
- At the other end we re-rack and cable to the plan. The client's engineers power up and test.
We don't move data or configure systems. That stays with your engineers, and it keeps responsibility clear on the day. If something doesn't power up, you know it is a configuration question and not a handling one.
The result
About 1,000U de-racked, packed, transported and re-racked for one client, by 8 of our team, with £4.5m of insurance in place and the project managed from start to finish.
