# Cloud, Data Center and Virtualization > Servers, storage, virtualization, backup and the data center around them. Trybus Solutions assesses, designs, supplies and migrates infrastructure, nationwide. *Source: https://trybussolutions.com/cloud-and-infrastructure/ · Trybus Solutions · Chattanooga, TN · 423-633-1817 · info@trybussolutions.com* ## What We Do Trybus Solutions designs, supplies and builds the infrastructure business applications run on: servers and virtualization, storage, backup and recovery, the racks, power and cooling around them, and which workloads belong in a data center and which belong in the cloud. Most of our work starts for one of a few reasons. Hardware is coming off support. A licensing renewal has arrived with a different number on it. A colocation contract is ending. A backup has never been restored under real conditions. Or an application team needs capacity the estate cannot give them. Our clients usually have their own IT team. We are there for the parts that need people who have built this before, and to take the load off a team that already has an estate to run. ## Why Clients Bring Us In [Start a conversation](https://trybussolutions.com/contact-us/?service_solution=cloud-and-infrastructure) - **We are not tied to one manufacturer.** We carry a range of technology partners, so what we recommend is not decided by what we happen to sell. If what you have still has life in it, we will say so. - **The hardware comes with the advice attached.** We supply the equipment and the licensing, and the engineers who sized the workload are the ones who build the bill of materials. - **Procurement can run inside your purchasing system.** Our procurement team can work through your existing purchasing process and approval chain instead of sitting outside it, so quotes, part numbers and lead times arrive in a form your finance team can process. - **One team looks at the whole stack.** Compute, storage, backup, the network underneath and the power around it constrain each other. One team across them avoids the gap that opens when the servers arrive and the circuits will not carry them. - **We look at the parts that usually get missed.** Circuit capacity and power draw, heat, floor loading, firmware levels, warranty end dates and license core counts. These tend to hold up a refresh, so we go through them during discovery. - **We are still there after go-live.** Day-to-day administration and support is available as a separate agreement. Plenty of clients keep their own team and use us only for the project. ## What You Get Scope varies. A pair of hosts does not need the documentation a three-site consolidation does. Below is what we produce on a typical mid-size project, and we agree during scoping which of it you need. Everything we produce is yours. If you take the design elsewhere to be built, it will be complete enough for somebody else to build it. - **Assessment of the current environment:** Hosts, storage, capacity and performance data pulled from the live estate, alongside whatever documentation exists. - **Recommendation and options:** What we suggest, what else was considered and the reasoning, including the option of keeping what you have. Written to go to a board without a translator. - **Sizing and capacity model:** Compute, memory, capacity and throughput sized against measured load and a growth assumption we write down, so you can argue with the assumption. - **Design documentation:** A high-level design on most projects, and a detailed low-level design where the build warrants one. - **Rack, power and cooling layout:** Rack elevations, circuit and outlet allocation, heat load and weight, checked against what the room or the colocation contract allows. - **Backup and recovery plan:** What is protected, how often, where the copies live, and how long a restore takes. - **Bill of materials:** Hardware, licensing, support contracts and services itemized with lead times, so procurement works from real numbers. - **Project plan and migration schedule:** Stages, dependencies, outage windows, acceptance criteria and who is responsible for what, agreed at the start. - **As-built documentation and handover pack:** What was built, how it is configured, and what your team needs to run it. ## The Systems We Work On Six areas. A refresh usually touches at least three of them, which is why they get scoped together. ### Servers and Virtualization Hosts sized against measured load rather than the specification of what is being replaced, and which virtualization platform the estate runs on next. That second question is live again, because licensing models have moved and a renewal now feeds into whether the hardware gets replaced at the same time. ### Storage Capacity is the easy part. What decides the design is throughput and latency for the few workloads sensitive to it, how much of the estate can sit on a cheaper tier, and what replication between sites has to look like. ### Backup and Recovery Most organizations have backups. Fewer have a restore somebody has actually run, and fewer still have a recovery time the business has agreed to in writing. We work backwards from those targets: what comes back first, how long that is allowed to take, and how many copies sit out of reach of stolen administrative credentials. ### Where Workloads Run Some workloads are cheaper and simpler in the cloud. Some cost more there than on equipment you already own. Some cannot move until the application behind them changes. We look at each group on its own, against cost, data gravity, latency and regulation, and a fair number stay where they are. ### Racks, Power and Cooling The facility layer decides more refreshes than people expect. Current hardware draws more per rack unit than the generation before it, and a room laid out years ago may not have the circuits, the cooling or the floor loading for what replaces it. We check that early. ### Out-of-Band Access Anything you cannot reach when the network is down turns into a site visit. Console and power access on a separate path, with a connection of its own, lets an engineer recover a failed change at two in the morning. It matters most at sites with no technical staff. ## How a Project Runs Broadly the same shape whether it is a pair of hosts or a data center move. Timescales depend on the size of the estate, hardware lead times and how much of your team is available. - **Scoping and kickoff:** Agree what is in scope, what the deliverables are, who is involved and how decisions get made. This is where we set the change process, so a surprise later has a route through it. - **Discovery:** Sessions with the people who run the estate now, plus capacity and performance data from the live environment. Discovery usually turns something up, and when it changes the scope we price it and you decide before we carry on. - **Design and review:** Design documented, then walked through with your team. Better to argue about it on paper than during a maintenance window. Sign-off here is what the build gets measured against. - **Procurement and staging:** Hardware, licensing and support contracts ordered, configured and staged before anything goes on site. Lead times are the usual reason a date moves, so we order as early as the design allows. - **Build and pilot:** The new platform is built and a first group of workloads moves onto it, with a way back if it does not behave. On a small refresh this stage often is not worth the time, and we will say so. - **Migration:** Workload group by workload group, inside agreed outage windows. Application owners are told what is moving and when, because the people who find out on the day are the people who escalate. - **Handover and decommissioning:** A period of closer support while the snags come out, then documentation, training, and a decision about the old equipment: what stays as spares, what gets wiped and what leaves the site. ## What Is Quoted Separately Most of what is below is work we do. It is not part of an infrastructure project by default, because each piece carries its own scope, its own schedule and its own cost. If you want any of it included, say so at scoping and we will quote it in. - [Structured cabling and pathways. We do not pull cable ourselves. We survey what is there, specify the pathways, containment and links the design needs, and bring in the cabling partners we work with to install it against that specification. It is quoted on its own because it runs to a different schedule from the platform work, and in occupied buildings it usually happens in the evenings.](https://trybussolutions.com/networking-connectivity/) - [Custom development and application integration. Automation, integration and application changes that go past what the platform does out of the box get their own scope and their own testing, rather than sitting hidden inside a refresh estimate.](https://trybussolutions.com/architecture-solution-design/) - [Ongoing operation and support. Day-to-day administration, patching, monitoring and the service levels that come with them are a separate agreement. Some clients run the new estate themselves after handover and some hand it to us.](https://trybussolutions.com/managed-services-and-support/) - [Security policy and hardening work. Segmentation policy, identity, endpoint and detection work are engagements our security team runs on their own terms. On an infrastructure project we build to whatever requirements are already set.](https://trybussolutions.com/cybersecurity/) - [Retention schedules and audit evidence. How long data has to be kept, who signs that off and what an auditor gets shown are governance questions with a workstream of their own. We build the backup platform to meet the schedule.](https://trybussolutions.com/governance-risk-compliance/) - [End-user device refresh and rollout. Laptops, desktops and the image on them are a separate program with a different schedule, even when the hardware arrives on the same purchase order.](https://trybussolutions.com/digital-workplace/) [Start a conversation](https://trybussolutions.com/contact-us/?service_solution=cloud-and-infrastructure) ## Industries We Work In The equipment is much the same between sectors. What changes is what the estate is allowed to do and when it is allowed to be down. ### [Healthcare →](https://trybussolutions.com/healthcare/) Clinical systems that cannot be interrupted during the day, retention rules on patient records, and change windows set by the hospital. ### [Public Sector →](https://trybussolutions.com/public-sector/) Procurement rules and bid processes, budget committed inside a fiscal year, and services the public depends on staying up. ### [Tribal Government and Enterprises →](https://trybussolutions.com/tribal-organization/) Sovereignty over where data physically sits, funding cycles that do not follow a commercial year, and estates carrying government, health, education and gaming operations at once. ### [Financial Services →](https://trybussolutions.com/financial-services/) Data residency and retention rules, recovery objectives written into regulation, and evidence that a restore has been tested. ### [Education →](https://trybussolutions.com/education/) Work scheduled around the academic calendar, research storage that grows faster than anything else, and grant funding with rules of its own. ### [Retail →](https://trybussolutions.com/retail/) A lot of small sites with no local IT, a build that has to run unattended, and a change freeze over the trading season. ### [Enterprise →](https://trybussolutions.com/enterprise/) Several data centers at different stages of refresh, often still carrying two of everything after an acquisition. ## Technology We Work With We hold partner relationships across the technology industry, and our engineers also work in platforms we do not sell. A refresh starts on whatever you are running now, whoever supplied it. We do not publish comparisons between manufacturers. Which platform suits an organization is something an assessment works out, not something a website should decide. [See all technology partners →](https://trybussolutions.com/partners/) ## Talk to Us About an Infrastructure Project Tell us what you are running, where it sits today, and what date is driving the timeline. We will tell you what we think needs replacing and what can wait, and put a scope and a number against it. [Start a conversation](https://trybussolutions.com/contact-us/?service_solution=cloud-and-infrastructure) [Insights and guides](https://trybussolutions.com/resources/) ## Related guides - [What a network refresh actually involves](https://trybussolutions.com/what-a-network-refresh-involves/)