Critical Office Relocation without Documentation

The problem: A company with 45 employees had to physically relocate to a new space over a weekend. The problem: the network topology, switch configurations and VLAN mapping were nowhere documented. The previous IT person had left 6 months earlier and had left nothing behind. The equipment was a mix of devices of different ages and manufacturers, some without labelling.

The client came to us two weeks before the move, after realising they didn't know what they were dealing with. The deadline was fixed — the contract at the old premises expired Monday morning.

How we approached it: We started with a full audit of the existing infrastructure. Over three days we mapped every cable, every port, every connected device. We manually reconstructed the network topology and documented everything — what goes where, what depends on what, which equipment needed replacing and what could be reused.

We identified that 8 out of 11 switches were configurable and had active VLAN settings, but undocumented. We exported their configurations, analysed them and recreated them for the new space, adapted to the new physical topology.

In the new premises we installed the passive infrastructure two days before the move: patch panels, network outlets, the main rack. Friday evening, after business hours, we began the active equipment relocation. Saturday morning at 08:00 everything was operational. Sunday we ran stress tests and complete checks. Monday, employees came to work at the new office without any issues.

Results:

• Complete relocation accomplished within 5 days from audit
• 45 workstations configured and operational
• Complete documentation created from scratch and handed over to the client
• The first IT documentation the company had ever had
• Zero incidents in the first operational week
• The client now knows exactly what they have in their infrastructure — a huge advantage for any future intervention