Data Dynamics, Inc

Are you facing a large petabyte scale migration?

Here’s how one Fortune 100 company used StorageX to successfully manage a ten-petabyte migration, in 20% the time compared to traditional tools.

Client Requirements:

• Eliminate origin storage issues
• Address unstructured data growth
• Scale to accommodate 100s of cutovers weekly
• Move both CIFS & NFS in a mixed environment
• Maintain security
• Attain buy-in from business units

Project Details

• CIFS and Mixed Mode shares
• 4,000-5,000 total shares
• Up to 40 TB per share
• Up to 180 million files per share

Results

• 10 years’ of work done in 2 years (2PBs in first four months).
• 10 PBs optimized total
• 50% cost savings realized

How StorageX Completed the Project Successfully and Under-Budget

• Phased migration: Using GUI interface, it was easy for the customer to configure migration policies (baseline, incremental, and final copy). This reduced the downtime window required to migrate the NAS data.

• Security permissions and file attributes: StorageX copied security permissions (in Windows) and mode bits and file attributes (in Unix). No manual intervention or correction was needed.

• Migration summary: Detailed summary report of the migration, with migration start-time, end-time stamps, bytes copied, number files and folders copied, skipped or deleted files, and error logs.

Customer Story

Data growth, equipment end-of-life (EOL), and increasing support costs are leading organizations to consolidate and eliminate older and more expensive storage systems. Using traditional “free” tools, the cost of these data migration is significant and can present substantial business and technical challenges.

The Drawbacks of Typical Approaches 

A variety of tools are typically required to move data between arrays from different vendors or to newer equipment, and traditional migration solutions do little to simplify the process.

Host-based tools can consume CPU cycles and I/O bandwidth, reducing the performance of other business applications. Array-based solutions either do not support heterogeneous storage environments, or offer a one-way transfer that locks customers into a single-vendor solution. Appliance-based solutions require a service technician to enter the data center, install the appliance in the data path between the host and the storage device, and then remove the appliance after performing the migration. The result is expensive, intrusive, not readily scalable, and requires downtime before and after the migration. To efficiently meet ongoing migration needs, storage administrators needed a simpler, less disruptive, and more cost-effective way to migrate data between heterogeneous storage arrays.

Why StorageX File Management?

StorageX is a software-based solution which facilitates file-based storage management. Its simple, yet powerful GUI based tool simplifies the migration, consolidation, and archiving of file data in large, complex, heterogeneous file storage environments. StorageX is fully automated and uses policy-driven approach to data management.

StorageX supports various NAS devices (EMC VNX/VNX OE for File and Isilon/OneFS, NetApp/Data ONTAP 7-Mode and Cluster Mode, Windows, and Linux) as both sources and destinations, as well as stand-alone CIFS and NFS file storage resources. StorageX software can be installed on virtual or physical servers. Installation is a simple and straightforward process. We migrated more than 3,000 NAS between variety of source and destinations storage systems/servers. Some of the major benefits of StorageX are explained below.

Benefits of StorageX:

1. GUI interface:
   The graphical user interface makes it very easy to handle bulk NAS migrations. With the GUI, we can add storage resources (source and destination) and create data movement policies for NFS/CIFS share by specifying the replication and migration options.
2. Migration Policies:
   Migration policies define the data movement between source and destinations. For CIFS shared folders and NFS exports, there are several configuration options available. Carefully input the data in the migration template as it is the base for deciding the migration options. Options are available to copy directories only, delete orphaned file/folder on destination, copy security settings, choose file attributes, filter files by age, exclude files/folders, etc.  After the initial baseline data copy phase, continuous incremental copies ensure replication of new, locked, or recently modified files on the source to the destination.In the final cut-over phase, StorageX options allow you to remove user access to the source, perform a short, final sync to copy any new files recently added or updated, and then share the new destination with users.This phased migration (baseline, incremental and final copy) approach reduces the overall downtime window required to migrate the NAS data.
3. Migration Schedule:
   Once the baseline copy is completed, subsequent incremental copies can be automated through migration schedules. Migrations can be scheduled every minute, hourly, daily, weekly, etc.
4. Automated Emails:
   Email notifications can be configured for effective monitoring. We did not need to login to the tool to check the migration status, emails alerted us under different conditions (completed successfully, completed with errors/warnings or cancelled).
5. Migration Summary Report:
   Summary reports give a detailed status of the migration with migration start, end time stamps, bytes copied, number files and folder copied. If the migration is cancelled with error or if it is unsuccessful, the error logs clearly indicate the cause so we can troubleshoot to fix the issue and retry the data copy. If certain files are skipped or deleted, that is also indicated in the summary.
6. Security Permissions and File Attributes:
   A major challenge in NAS data migration is copying the security permission (in Windows) and mode bits and file attributes (in Unix). StorageX is able to copy security permissions and file attributes over smoothly from source to destination based on the options specified in the migration template.  No manual intervention or correction is needed after the final data copy.

Have you been putting off the need to update or replace thousands of aging NAS volumes containing millions of old files?

If so, you need StorageX.

StorageX is the ONLY file management solution proven capable of managing massive petabyte migrations.  It is not wonder that six of twelve world’s largest banks rely on StorageX.