Make Data Migration Part of Your Storage Refresh Plan

Make Data Migration Part of Your Storage Refresh Plan

Every year, enterprises around the globe spend billions on new data storage solutions. Gartner estimated that enterprises spent nearly $22.7 billion in 2022 on external-controller-based (ECB) storage, fueled by continued storage infrastructure modernization and strategic storage refresh efforts. There is no quenching the global thirst for more data and faster access. The use of AI and GenAI, along with cloud operating models, only increases the pressure on IT operations and requires more advanced, cost-effective storage solutions. Enterprises are constantly racing to keep pace with the industry and use technology to get ahead of their competitors. As discussed in a previous post, data modernization can deliver a significant competitive advantage that organizations can’t overlook.

Storage Refresh Compatibility Challenges and Interoperability Issues

It is a big task to modernize your existing storage infrastructure without bringing the organization to a standstill. It takes tremendous IT resources and increasing budgets to keep pace with the annual data growth required to support the business. The challenges are compounded when an organization wants to upgrade its storage technology without disrupting operations.

Even as consumers, we have become accustomed to upgrading our technology periodically to access new features, improve functionality, and reduce power usage. The same is true for data center storage technology.  Over time, components may degrade, increasing the risk of failures, data loss, and system downtime. At the same time, the cost of supporting out-of-date technology continues to increase. Refreshing storage solutions every few years allows organizations to proactively manage costs while addressing reliability concerns, ensuring optimal data availability and business continuity.

Unfortunately, migrating your database to a newer storage array is much more complicated and riskier than upgrading your iPhone. When integrating new storage devices with existing infrastructure, compatibility challenges often arise. Differences in data services, firmware versions, volume types, and proprietary interfaces between vendors’ solutions can hinder system mobility, functionality, and performance. You might assume you can avoid these issues by staying with the same storage vendor, but that isn’t always true. Often, as storage systems advance, it becomes increasingly difficult to make them backward compatible. There is also the issue of how far backward any compatibility extends. The maze of requirements and considerations is typically daunting for even the most experienced storage experts.

Data Migration Complexities 

Data migration is a critical component of a storage hardware refresh. Traditionally, transferring data from legacy systems to a new storage environment is disruptive, slow, and risky. The typical process involves freezing updates to prevent data corruption, followed by hundreds of manual tasks, rebooting, and manually surveying, identifying, and verifying all source logical unit numbers (LUNs). As our CTO described in a previous blog post, the process becomes even more tedious in a fibre channel environment. In that environment, the path comprises the initiator world wide port name (WWPN), the target WWPN, the logical unit number of the LUN, and the WWPN (a 64-bit entity normally represented by a 16-digit hex number). If your eyes glazed over reading that description – you aren’t alone. Traditional data migrations require attention to minute details and repetitive manual tasks to be perfectly executed every time.

Additionally, IT departments feel tremendous pressure to bring applications back online as quickly as possible. With employees unable to access critical data being migrated, productivity suffers. The larger the dataset, the greater the disruptive impact. Given the complexities of data migrations and the potential impact on the business, it isn’t uncommon for organizations to delay their data migrations as long as possible.

This year alone, we helped multiple global enterprises migrate their databases from old or failing storage onto new systems. We call these “emergency rescues” because oftentimes, we are called in when the storage is failing, and the enterprise is rightly nervous about the loss of critical customer data.

Risk to Business Operations

It isn’t uncommon for enterprises to assume they can complete the data migration themselves. Larger enterprises often have IT experts on staff who are savvy with data modernization. With enough time and brute force effort, these technology experts can sometimes do the migration. Often, DIY migrations use tools not designed for data migration, which can increase the chances of data loss or extended downtime. Businesses need to ask if doing their own data migrations is a good use of their time and talents. The thousands of manual steps needed to move a large dataset can now be completely automated, eliminating the risk of human error. Instead of an IT expert spending weeks preparing for a migration, sophisticated software can non-disruptively complete the entire migration with a few clicks.

There are other risks and considerations that extend beyond the IT team. Most businesses lose revenue when they are offline. Extended periods of downtime are often unacceptable, which causes the business to make a choice between asking IT teams to work nights and weekends or risk losing customers with downtime. Thankfully, there is another option here too. You can now migrate live data without impacting operations. The software monitors the data usage and throttles the migration speed depending on the user preferences and data usage. The data migration can now be done without the user knowing it is happening. It is a huge asset for businesses that need to keep their applications online and want the migration done quickly without impacting the underlying application.

Best Practices for a Successful Storage Refresh

When planning to buy new storage, it is critical that you decide on your data migration approach beforehand. Don’t leave the conversation about migrating the data until the new storage arrives. We always recommend that storage purchases include Appendix A, which essentially outlines the data migration plan. With that agreed to before the storage sale is complete, you can start realizing value on the new storage acquisition immediately.

1.  Assess Your Data: Cirrus Data offers a Migration Assessment Service as part of the Cirrus Migrate Cloud technology. The service provides a detailed performance analysis of your current storage environment based on live data. It will then accurately predict your data’s thin provisioning potential for additional cost-saving analysis.

2. Plan Meticulously: Consider data migration strategies, application dependencies, and potential disruptions. Decide on your tolerance for applications being impacted and downtime. You’ll also need to realistically assess your ability to dedicate time to the manual processes required to fully execute the migration. With Cirrus Data, downtime is minimal, and if required, it is only briefly at the final cutover. Depending on your storage environment, there are situations when no application downtime is required.

3. Leverage Automation Technology Whenever Possible: New storage infrastructure aims to protect your data, reduce costs, and increase productivity. The right data migration (or data mobility) solution can help you accelerate achieving that same goal with a purpose-built data migration solution. The Cirrus Data suite of data mobility solutions enables you to move data sets locally, to the cloud, or into a hybrid cloud environment with a fully automated data mobility solution without disruption or risk. Additionally, with our MigrateOpsÔ (data-mobility-as-code) functionality, your team of IT experts can complete the entire migration with just one click.

By carefully considering your data migration goals and examining the potential challenges faced during a storage refresh, while you are still in the planning stages, you can ensure a seamless transition onto your new storage. You can now control the decisions regarding downtime, productivity, and how long you want the migration period to extend.

Ready to learn more about modern data mobility solutions? Click here.

[1] Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage Published 18 September 2023 • ID G00780941