possible . “ We are a risk-averse organization , as suits people who are in the business of saving lives ,” says Grant . “ So , we adopted the colocation approach and went looking for a partner who could provide facilities in locations that were geographically diverse .” Canadian Blood Services eventually settled on Rogers Communications , which now provides data center services in Calgary and near to Toronto ( both locations are near one of the organization ’ s major manufacturing sites ). A veteran of more than a few migration strategies , Grant is well aware that each has its own unique challenges . “ We ’ re regulated by Health Canada , so there are a lot of protocols around testing and validation , which all had to be embedded into our strategy ,” he explains . “ We broke it down into a series of overlapping waves based around business capabilities : our blood management system , our donor management system , etc . Then , we further subdivided those into our non-production and production-based systems .” The process saw a huge number of careful , methodical tests , warranty periods and planned outages , that allowed the migration to be carried
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