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I havent shipped a server per say but I have shipped very large items, a motorcycle. <br />
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What you would need to do is rack everything, and then double triple secure them to the rack. Your gonna need a pretty hefty pallet similar to the ones they ship concrete blocks/bricks on. Then you bolt the rack down to that and if I were you I would shrinkwrape the hell out of the rack and then put a platic tarp over it and then reshrinkwrap. After thats done build a solid case of plywood and 2x4 that surround the entire thing. <br />
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Then you will need to hire a moving/rigging company to pick it up. Youll probably need to ship it with fedex freight or forward air with LOTS and LOTS of insurance. 
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Maybe im just a worrier but why are all of you reccomending cardboard? If something heavy falls or crashes into the rack it will surely break through the cardboard? 
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Boom Detection Operator

Ranger

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The cardboard will help keep the rack safe from low speed impacts such as those common when loading and unloading equipment from a truck or factory.<br />
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Well, weight is a big concern since such is shipped by weight and by size. Very spendy!<br />
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Hopefully the item will be insured. Cardboard is just for cosmetic protection. When I have received loaded racks, the rack was the only item in the semi truck trailer! <br />
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If something heavy crashes into the rack with or without cardboard or even plywood covering, the shock sensors &quot;should&quot; change and signal the receiver that there might be a problem.<br />
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John<br />
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andyyalder, I ordered a rack from Dell recently and it did come with ramps to easily roll the rack off. However I would not ship a fully loaded rack on this pallet because it looks like it can only hold the weight of the rack itself.
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I shouldn't have mentioned the ramps - non shock-pallet racks come with ramps as well. There's a small picture of a shock pallet on page 27 of <a href="http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00883424/c00883424.pdf" rel="ugc nofollow">http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00883424/c00883424.pdf</a>&nbsp;- the main difference from a normal pallet is that in between two sheets of plywood there's shock absorbing foam instead of wooden blocks. I can't find a better picture of one and anyway I presume it's a Dell rack so what HP sell doesn't really matter anyway.
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Holy Moly... It seems this is going to be as painful and potentially disastrous as I thought it would be. &nbsp;I'll keep this question open a bit longer and then spread points across the board. &nbsp;Thanks for the input, everyone.
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Just to add to dannlh's comment - put sensors on the outside as well as inside. Then the shipping company know they are there and treat the kit gentler.
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Thanks everyone for your input. &nbsp;I distributed points around to all. &nbsp;We went with a combination of most of the advice you gave.<br />
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We're having a local carpenter create custom plywood and 2x4 crates, with the front of the crate doubling as a ramp.<br />
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For the shipper, we went with Fedex Custom Critical White Glove service. &nbsp;They weren't the cheapest (that would have been us driving a Penske truck) and they weren't the most expensive (that would have been CRATING.NET, which rephello warned us about). &nbsp;Fedex will ship it all in an exclusive truck with a driving team that will make the 1500 mile trip in 33 hours.<br />
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For insurance, Fedex covers up to $50k worth of damage to new equipment, which won't cover everything in the shipment but that plus our business insurance should do the trick if the worst case scenario happens.<br />
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Thanks again for all of your input!
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I need to build several server racks, install all of the UPS/Switch/KVM/Servers that will go in them, and then SHIP the fully configured and installed rack as a single unit to the destination data center.<br />
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Any ideas on how to go about this? &nbsp;I'm guessing it will take a custom shipper that specializes in this kind of thing. &nbsp;Along with a ton of insurance...<br />
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Has anyone done this before that might be able to lend some advice from the school of hard knocks?
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I need to build several server racks, install all of the UPS/Switch/KVM/Servers that will go in them, and then SHIP the fully configured and installed rack as a single unit to the destination data center.

Any ideas on how to go about this?  I'm guessing it will take a custom shipper that specializes in this kind of thing.  Along with a ton of insurance...

Has anyone done this before that might be able to lend some advice from the school of hard knocks?

Looking for suggestions on how to ship fully configured server racks.

Servers are computing devices that are similar to desktop computers in that they have the same basic components, but are significantly different in size, configuration and purpose. Servers are usually accessed over a network, and many run unattended, without a computer monitor, input device, audio hardware or USB interfaces. Many servers do not have a graphical user interface (GUI), and are configured and managed remotely. Servers typically include hardware redundancy such as dual power supplies, RAID disk systems, and ECC memory, along with extensive pre-boot memory testing and verification. Critical components might be hot swappable, and to guard against overheating, servers might have more powerful fans or use water cooling.

Server Hardware

Networking hardware includes the physical devices facilitating the use of a computer network. Typically, networking hardware includes gateways, routers, network bridges, modems, wireless access points, networking cables, line drivers, switches, hubs, and repeaters. But it also includes hybrid network devices such as multilayer switches, protocol converters, bridge routers, proxy servers, firewalls, network address translators, multiplexers, network interface controllers, wireless network interface controllers, ISDN terminal adapters and other related hardware.