Moves, Adds, & Changes (MAC)
From relocating servers to upgrading cables, our team handles physical changes with speed and precision. We support ongoing infrastructure evolution — whether it’s one device or a full row migration. We follow documented procedures and can build SOPs for repeatability. PYLON DC manages the full lifecycle of physical infrastructure changes in your data center, ensuring every move, addition, and modification is planned, executed, and documented to minimize risk and downtime.
Why Moves and Changes Go Wrong
A MAC is a small piece of work with an outsized blast radius, and the failures are predictable.
The usual one is an undocumented dependency: a cable that turns out to carry something nobody recorded, discovered at the moment it is unplugged. Close behind is the change window that was scoped against the documentation rather than the rack — the work takes ninety minutes instead of thirty because reality differs from the diagram. Then there is the reused patch cable that was fine in its old run and marginal in its new one, and the change with no defined rollback, where “put it back” turns out to be harder than expected once four things have already moved.
Every one of those is a planning failure rather than a technical one.
What We Do
- Project Planning & Scoping: Every MAC engagement begins with a detailed plan — including scope of work, timeline, resource requirements, risk assessment, and rollback procedures — ensuring all stakeholders are aligned before any physical work begins.
- Documented Procedures & SOPs: We develop and follow Standard Operating Procedures for every type of change, ensuring consistency and repeatability whether it’s performed once or hundreds of times across your environment.
- Server & Equipment Relocation: We safely decommission, disconnect, transport, and reinstall equipment — from individual devices to full cabinet migrations — with proper handling, labeling, and verification at every step.
- Row & Pod Migrations: For large-scale moves, we plan and execute multi-rack, multi-row migrations with phased cutover schedules that maintain service continuity throughout the transition.
- Zero-Downtime Approach: Where possible, we design migration plans that maintain service availability using parallel infrastructure, staged cutovers, and coordinated failover procedures to eliminate or minimize production impact.
- Cable Adds & Changes: We install new cabling, re-patch existing connections, and upgrade infrastructure — including copper-to-fiber transitions, bandwidth upgrades, and cross-connect provisioning.
- Infrastructure Evolution Support: As your environment grows and changes, we provide ongoing MAC support that adapts to your evolving architecture — scaling up, consolidating, or reconfiguring infrastructure as business needs change.
- Change Documentation & Closeout: Every completed change is documented with updated rack diagrams, cable schedules, and port maps. We provide closeout reports that confirm work completed, test results, and any follow-up items.
How We Run a Change Window
- Survey the rack, not the drawing. We verify what is physically there and trace what is actually connected before writing the plan. Discrepancies against your documentation get raised before the window, not during it.
- A written, sequenced plan. Ordered steps with expected duration and a defined point of no return, agreed in advance so nobody is improvising at 1am.
- A rollback that has been thought through. For each step, what undoing it requires and how long that takes. Labeled and photographed before disconnection so the original state is reproducible.
- Facility coordination up front. Access, escort, and any provider notification arranged ahead of the window rather than discovered at the door.
- New cable for new runs. Reused patch cable is a false economy when a marginal link costs an outage.
- Documentation updated as part of the work. Elevations, port maps, and labels corrected before we leave. A change that leaves the documentation stale has created the next problem.
Why Choose PYLON DC
Physical changes in a live data center carry inherent risk — wrong cable pulled, wrong device powered down, wrong rack accessed. PYLON DC mitigates that risk through rigorous planning, documented procedures, and experienced technicians who understand the consequences of every action. We don’t rush through changes; we execute them methodically with verification checkpoints built into every step. Whether you’re migrating to new cabinets, adding capacity, or consolidating after a merger, our MAC team handles the physical work so your engineers can focus on the logical side. We’ve supported infrastructure transitions of every scale, from single-device swaps to full data center relocations.
Service Coverage
We provide moves, adds, and changes services across Northern Virginia including Ashburn, Reston, Tysons Corner, Sterling, Herndon, Crystal City, Manassas, and the greater DMV region. Based in Falls Church, VA, we’re just 20 minutes from Data Center Alley.