This post is co-authored by Chris Richings, Senior Director of Professional Services at Pure – Global Services Engineering
Think of Q and James Bond 007, or Shuri and the Black Panther. Many action heroes have a technical genius working in a secret lab who comes up with cool and amazing tech that helps save the day. While Bond and the Black Panther definitely have their own strengths, their geniuses back in the lab certainly make their jobs a lot easier.
When it comes to moving your valuable data from legacy storage to Pure Storage®, you can tap into the expertise of the technical geniuses within the Pure Migration Center of Excellence. Rather than helping defeat evil villains bent on world domination, the Services Lab team makes sure that you’re ready to overcome any challenges that could cause delays, add extra costs, or create downtime in your data-migration project. Their goal is to design cool and amazing methods and tools that will make your migration to Pure your last migration, ever.
Your migration to Pure will likely involve complex legacy data-storage systems, on-premises and cloud-based interfaces, and a variety of data applications. Those legacy systems store, protect, and deliver the data that is critical to running your business. The goal is to get from that costly, complex legacy environment to Pure’s simpler, smarter, and more cost-effective environment. And to do it with minimal business impact. Getting it done right shortens your time to benefit and increases the value of your new storage implementation.
Starting in the Services Lab
Our Services Lab team is ready to help. Although not based in a secret cave, you still may not have heard much about this team. After all, they’re busy working on data migrations around the globe. When you engage with us, the team develops processes, interfaces, methods, and tools customized for your data environment. They build this cool tech by testing and documenting how your new Pure Storage systems will interoperate in your existing environment before your migration project ever starts. If challenges arise during the migration, the lab team can develop fixes and workarounds in the test environment without affecting your live data systems. As a result, migrations are faster with minimal—even zero—downtime. But what else would you expect from the storage leader that pioneered and consistently delivers non-disruptive upgrades within its own technology?
Right after the thrilling opening sequence of your migration project (the one where you decide to choose Pure Storage), our Services Lab team gets to work. The team tests Pure products, interfaces, and processes with your environment to ensure that everything interoperates with your existing data systems. They investigate, analyze, and validate the process and methodology that your specific project requires. They utilize their knowledge base, built from thousands of migrations, as a starting point. The lab hosts Pure products including FlashArray™ and FlashBlade®, plus industry-standard migration tools and third-party data applications. Leveraging this knowledge base and test environment, the team develops, tests, and delivers an implementation and migration plan customized to your data environment—just like Shuri delivers a bespoke Vibranium suit for the Black Panther.
Hand-off to the Delivery Pros
The Delivery team takes the customized plans in runbooks to perform your migration. Runbooks are critical to the success of any migration and define the detailed processes, methodologies, and tools required for your specific configuration. The runbooks and processes are based on comprehensive integration and testing completed in the Services Lab environment. For block migrations, the runbooks define the hardware appliance and software application needed to move the data by block. For file migrations, the runbooks will define whether to use a command-line utility or software application to move the data. The Service Lab team works with the Delivery team and your own data-system team to create and validate all the plans and runbooks.
Migration Villain Avoidance
Any migration project from legacy storage has the potential to have its own exciting challenges. Those challenges may not involve evil villains, but they could impose extra costs or delays to your project. As you and the Pure Delivery team face down and overcome those migration challenges together, isn’t it reassuring to know that the geniuses in the Services Lab and the Pure Migration Center of Excellence are supporting you? And when the credits roll on your migration project, you’ll know that you’ve accomplished your last migration, ever.
Ready to make the move to Pure Storage? Call us now at 1-800-379-7873.
Ready to make your next migration your last? Listen to the Podcast:
