Wait, wait, wait…you are probably reacting in one of two ways to that title: Either, “well, sure, Infinidat has already had a great capability for migrating in-family, so why is this news? Tell me how you are doing this when you are not migrating between your own systems.” Or are you saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it”?
Great! Exactly what we wanted to hear! Because, as many of you know, enterprises face huge challenges when it comes to data migration across their storage environment. One of the biggest challenges is planned downtime! When doing heterogeneous data migration from product X to product Y, there has always been a requirement to perform a server-side action, typically a reboot, for the remapping of all volumes, data paths, etc., to be configured correctly and recognized by the host(s). Infinidat said it was time to fix that problem for good, and we have. I want to bring this up because we do it day in and day out with just about every competitive storage array you can imagine, so we are pretty darn good at it, but we still had to deal with that planned outage that no one wanted.
Let’s get the easy one out of the way. Our in-family migration is second to none! It leverages our built-in features, not just for replication but also for enterprise availability when needed and delivers in-family seamless data migration on-the-fly in the background while the systems are active with no downtime. And yes, like almost all our features, this is built in at no additional charge. Our process for in-family data migration is called AADM (Active/Active Data Migration). AADM leverages our Active/Active replication built into our InfuzeOS™. If you are not familiar with that, it is enabled at no additional cost, with the setup of two systems in a fully active/active pair. Now take that to the next level. When a new InfiniBoxⓇ arrives, it is easily configured using an existing InfiniBox and is basically ready to go. Our teams work with you to get everything ready. We have built all the necessary orchestration components and coordinated the moves accordingly. We, then, push the button, and the data moves while the host sees no difference. When the time comes, the original array is shut down, but because the host sees the same path regardless of one or two arrays, and what do you know, voila, it’s done! It really is that easy. Customers save hundreds to thousands of person-hours because it's so easy. We show them the first couple of migrations, and they typically take it from there, but we are always there to help if they don’t want to push the button or monitor the process.
The second option, which presents the biggest challenge, is migration between different storage systems from different vendors – heterogeneous data migration. There are numerous reasons why that is the case, but nonetheless, it poses technical challenges and requires planned outages, though not major ones. These challenges make the process much more difficult to manage and increase the overall migration timelines to accommodate maintenance windows. What could take days, or weeks, stretches into months, typically driven by maintenance windows to cut over hosts to the new storage targets. In our world, we do everything we can to minimize downtime of any kind, since we guarantee 100% availability in our storage solutions. Although outages are planned and can be handled appropriately, why have them at all when the need for them can be eliminated? At Infinidat, we address this by creating our “Secret Sauce,” which now completely eliminates the need to cut over a host (usually involving a reboot) during a migration to the new 3rd-party storage system. As part of this process, we seamlessly insert an appliance into your fabric that is part of this architecture. It is augmented with all the orchestration that our native tools provide. This is a game-changer - it really is. We estimate this can reduce migration project timelines by 8X-10X! Companies have avoided moving to new platforms of any kind because of the complexity and the time and effort required, even if doing so would deliver better value. We set out to make heterogeneous array data migration seamless by leveraging our native, in-family capabilities. The result? A fully orchestrated process built on just three basic operational pillars. It’s that simple. The pillars are:
- Complete Path Protection
- Repeatable and Idempotent
- Transparent and Orchestrated
In case you are wondering what “idempotent” means, according to a Wikipedia definition, an idempotent operation is one that can be executed multiple times without changing the result or the system state beyond the very first application. Whether you do it once or a hundred times, the final outcome remains exactly the same.
So yes, we have extended these functions to encompass seamless heterogeneous data migration from any competitive platform. Infinidat is a white glove services company, so you are never left to fend for yourself. There are other aspects to heterogeneous data migration from competitive arrays, and our services and support organizations are right there with you before, during, and after the migration. That is just what we do and what enterprise trust is all about.
Given the current storage market, this is EXTREMELY important today. We are driving economic value past just the solutions we provide, which, on their own, create an overwhelming set of cost savings for our customers. See our IDC Business Value Study HERE. This study, based on interviews with Global Fortune 500 and large enterprise Infinidat customers showed a payback on investment in 8.7 months, 140% three-year return on investment, and a 58% reduction in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) from our customers’ previous vendors - those are just a few of the cost savings pointed out in the IDC study. These results are even stronger, factoring in the current unprecedented rise in the cost of silicon storage components and our ability to drive value with both all-flash ultra-high-performance and high-performance hybrid enterprise storage systems. Infinidat has the right tool for the job. Providing industry-leading solutions that maximize your budget and provide you with the support and services to make your Infinidat choice even more valuable to your business.
Bill Basinas is Senior Director of Product Marketing at Infinidat, a Lenovo company, and has been in the storage industry since 1994. Experienced and deeply knowledgeable in all aspects of primary and secondary storage platforms and associated data protection and cyber storage protection technologies. Having worked for EMC, HPE, Legato and Avamar (both acquired by EMC) and a number of other startup companies in technical/engineering, sales and marketing, in manager and individual contributor roles, he brings a unique understanding of technology and marketing to the storage industry.