Data Migration Strategy: Five Steps to Solve Data Migration Challenges

Data Migration Projects

When your organization is ready to bring new storage online or to begin using the cloud, you will find yourself facing a data migration project. It seems like it should be straightforward to move any data or applications onto the new technology, but you’ll quickly find any data migration project will be littered with exceptions.

Exceptions come from every angle and can make planning a move to Azure or AWS, for example, a real headache. You might think that moving from a storage vendor’s legacy storage array to its latest product would be simple. The unfortunate truth is that even in the best-case scenario, there are likely exceptions that will cause delays and force you to spend extra resources to adequately address and remediate everything.

Data Migration Challenges

There are a few data migration challenges that remain consistent regardless of the storage environment:

1. More applications equate to more timelines to consider.

   • Applications typically have varying periods when they are busy and idle. Trying to align these with a migration project can feel like a logistical nightmare.

2. Older hosts and servers that send I/O to a volume on a storage array often have difficulty interoperating with new storage arrays.

   • If the host isn’t able to talk to the new array, you’ve got trouble. There aren’t always tools readily available to solve this challenge, and the result is a lot of brute-force work needed and extra resources used (time and money).

3. Host-based tools consume critical resources.

   • You need a non-disruptive solution, not an answer that will end up causing further issues with additional usage of the host memory, CPU, network I/O and storage I/O.

4. Non-disruptive tools require the Multipath I/O (MPIO) software, the correct drivers, and the right host bus adapter (HBA).

   • If you don’t have those resources available, it is unlikely that the vendors would include the remediation necessary to install those OS drivers and HBAs.

5. Risk. It’s a four-letter word for most businesses, and one nobody wants risk attached to their data.

   • You need to test and ensure everything is accurate before you complete the cutover. It can seem impossible unless you have the old and new environments running at once.

The good news is that there is now a solution for all these data migration planning challenges. It is now possible to meet each of the problems outlined using an innovative technology solution. You will no longer have to wait months and spend countless resources planning for your data migration. Whether you are going to the public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, or just expanding your data center, the new DMSv5 has a proven answer that also reduces risk.

Watch our latest on-demand webinar to learn how this is now possible.