File migration isn’t just about moving data. It’s a crucial aspect of managing digital assets efficiently to strategically support your organization’s growth. With the right planning and execution, you can reap long-term benefits and simplify complicated management overhead when migrating to the Pure Storage platform.
We’ve pulled together best practices around file migration and will walk you through the process.
Discovery Phase: The Foundation of Successful Migration
When scoping a file-based migration to a new network attached storage (NAS) platform, it’s crucial to have a comprehensive discovery phase to ensure a smooth transition and avoid surprises.
During discovery, run through these 10 key steps:
1. Conduct a Comprehensive Data Audit
Unveil the full scope of your data landscape with a data classification and metadata analysis tool like Varonis. These tools use advanced file system crawlers to catalog file metadata, including size, type, creation/modification dates, ownership, and access patterns. This includes:
- Types of files: Identify the various types of files you’re dealing with, such as documents, images, videos, or application data.
- Namespaces: Determine where these files reside. Are they stored on local servers, cloud platforms, or a combination of both? And, can they be consolidated?
- Total size of data to be migrated: You’ll need to assess the size of the uncompressed and deduplicated files to be migrated since they’ll be rehydrated as they egress the source.
The more you understand what comprises your unstructured data, the clearer the migration process will be.
2. Access Patterns: Analyzing Data Flow
Analyze how frequently files are accessed and modified. This knowledge can be invaluable for optimizing your migration strategy. For instance, you might prioritize frequently accessed data for migration last due to operational criticality and leverage lower priority file migrations to optimize the migration process.
3. Permissions and Security: Fortifying Data Security
Employ data classification tools to identify sensitive or regulated data that may require special handling during migration. Understand who has access to these files and what levels of permissions are in place. Document all file and directory permissions, including:
- User/group permissions
- Access control lists (ACLs)
- Any special security protocols or software in use
4. Data Integrity Checks and Fallback Planning: Guarding against Data Corruption
Ensure there are measures in place to validate that data is transferred without any corruption or loss. Have a clear failback plan if there are issues. Data integrity is paramount.
5. Application Dependencies and Integrations: Uncovering Interconnections
Use application dependency mapping tools to identify interdependencies between files and applications. Identify any applications, workflows, or systems that rely on the data in the current NAS. Document API integrations and custom scripts that interact with the current file system. Are there files with dependencies that must be moved together to maintain functionality? Ensuring they’re supported and will work seamlessly post-migration is critical.
6. Storage Infrastructure Assessment
Evaluate network topology and bandwidth to determine optimal migration paths and potential bottlenecks. Your migration will only go as fast as your file shares’ slowest network connection.
7. Downtime Tolerance: Minimizing Disruption and Accurate Migration Window Predictions
Analyze current storage performance metrics (IOPS, throughput, latency) to benchmark against target storage. Identify how much downtime is acceptable during the migration. Some migrations can occur in the background with minimal disruption, while others might require some system unavailability, especially if namespaces for the data are being changed. One other important factor to consider: Data that is deduplicated or compressed and copied to a dissimilar system will be rehydrated; this will add time and overhead to the migration process. For instance, a file on the source that is 100MB after a 5:1 deduplication and compression becomes 500MB in the transfer process.
8. Backup and Recovery: Safeguarding Data
Ensure there’s a robust backup strategy to continue to cover the source and expand to the targets before the migration begins. Understand the recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) requirements of your unstructured data.
9. End-user Training and Communication: Preparing Your Users
Determine if there will be any changes from an end-user perspective post-migration, such as different access methods or paths. If so, plan for necessary training and communications.
10. Post-migration Validation: Ensuring Success
Plan for procedures to validate the success of the migration. This includes ensuring data integrity, checking permissions, validating application integrations, and more.
Addressing these 10 critical areas will greatly contribute to the smoothness and success of your migration project.
Scaling for Success: Executing Large-scale Migrations
As your organization grows, so does your data. Scaling your file migration process is crucial for maintaining efficiency and reducing downtime. Here are key considerations:
- Parallel processing: Look for migration tools that support parallel processing, enabling you to migrate multiple files simultaneously. This significantly accelerates the migration process.
- Bandwidth optimization: Optimize your network bandwidth to expedite data transfers. This might involve scheduling migrations during off-peak hours or implementing network optimization solutions. A completely separate and temporary migration network can be considered in some extreme cases.
- Monitoring and reporting: Implement robust monitoring and reporting mechanisms to track the progress of your migration. Proactive identification of issues and prompt resolution are vital for a successful migration.
For large-scale migrations, consider these additional technical aspects:
- Incremental migration: Use change block tracking or file system journaling to identify and transfer only modified data since the last migration pass. Implement continuous replication for near-real-time data synchronization during extended migration periods.
- Automated workflow orchestration: Develop migration pipelines using tools like Ansible or Terraform for repeatable, scalable processes. Implement error handling and retry mechanisms for resilient migration workflows.
Maximizing Time to Value: What to Look Out For
Efficiency is paramount when it comes to file migration. Here are three steps to maximize your time to value:
- Prioritize data: Start by migrating the least critical data first. This minimizes disruption to essential business processes and ensures that your migration processes and technical configuration are ready and refined when the critical data needs to be moved.
- Testing and validation: Conduct thorough testing and validation before migrating large data sets. Identify and resolve any potential issues in a controlled environment to prevent surprises during the actual migration.
- Data cleansing: Take this opportunity to clean up your data. Eliminate duplicate or obsolete files to reduce storage costs and improve data organization.
The Pure Storage Approach to File Migrations
It’s easier than ever to move your file data from legacy storage onto a modern data platform. The Pure Storage approach to file migrations combines advanced technology with a comprehensive methodology, leveraging AI-driven analytics, high-performance hardware, and robust data protection features.
While Pure Storage also offers block migrations, here’s a look at our comprehensive and technically advanced approach to file migrations that’s efficient, secure, and minimally disruptive:
Assessment and Planning
Pure Storage utilizes AI-driven analytics to assess data characteristics and predict migration complexity. Machine learning algorithms optimize migration scheduling based on access patterns and business priorities.
Migration Execution
Pure Storage® DirectFlash® technology enables high-speed, low-latency data transfers, while ActiveCluster™, stretched clusters, or sync replication create seamless failover and zero-downtime migrations between storage arrays for live migrations.
Data Reduction and Efficiency
Inline deduplication and compression reduce data footprint during and after migration. Adaptive metadata acceleration enhances small file performance post-migration.
Continuous Data Protection
SafeMode™ Snapshots create immutable backups during the migration process, while Purity CloudSnap™ enables efficient, incremental cloud-based backups of migrated data.
Automation and Orchestration
Pure Storage leverages REST API and Python SDK for custom migration workflow development. Integrations with Pure1 Meta® deliver AI-driven capacity and performance forecasting of migrated workloads.
Remember, file migration isn’t just about moving data; it’s about optimizing your data management strategy to support your organization’s growth and efficiency.
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