Server Migration to Data Center

A data centre migration of 14 physical servers and 60+ virtual machines from an aging on-premise environment to Hetzner dedicated servers in Frankfurt — with zero data loss and minimal downtime.

Challenge

The client had 14 years of accumulated technical debt. Some servers were running EOL operating systems. The migration had to happen during a weekend maintenance window with under 4 hours total downtime.

Solution

We used Proxmox for virtualisation at the destination. Ansible playbooks automated the OS configuration. rsync pre-seeded data over 5 days before the cutover. DNS TTL was reduced 48 hours in advance. Final cutover completed in 3h 20min.

Results

• All 14 servers migrated with zero data loss
• Actual downtime: 3h 20min (within the 4h window)
• Infrastructure costs reduced by 40%
• All servers now running supported LTS OS versions