Innovative SANpulse technology, a centralized team and consistent processes ease the pain of storage refreshes

Technology refreshes are painful and dreaded by technology professionals and business units alike. In addition, these refreshes are an annual perpetual activity, with some subset of the environment being refreshed every year. The global engineering standards created to drive consistency are difficult to implement due to the geo-centric nature of most refresh executions. Armies of consultants are brought in to manage each geography tied to specific vendor refresh and become a costly affair. The domain knowledge gained during a refresh resides within the individuals performing the migrations and rarely gets extracted into a centralized system for future use. Despite spending millions of dollars the migrations are painful and customers are demanding alternatives.

As the hardware cost per terabyte continues to decrease, the proportional cost of services to implement the new hardware continues to increase.

In some cases services has increased 30% making it financially prohibitive to justify the technology refresh.

In an ideal scenario, migrations would be easy to manage, done from a centralized low cost location, driving global standards into implementation and upon completion, the domain knowledge would be encapsulated into a centralized database for future use.

SANpulse Migration Practice

The SANpulse Migration Practice, a software-led solution, leverages the proprietary SANeaseTM Methodology, a service driven through the SANlogicsTM software platform, executed by a dedicated team to deliver a consistent, risk-free migration that thrives on consistency, quality and scalability. A true combination of people, process and technology allows SANpulse to provide a unique solution to the marketplace.

Key Capabilities

The Migration Practice is comprised of:

• The use of SANlogics software installed locally, centrally or from a SANpulse cloud-based model
• Implementation of the SANease Methodology, a service to drive consistency in processes from data collection and correlation to generation and execution of migration work files
• A dedicated team comprised of a local storage architect and project manager, supported by a best-shore implementation team

Migration Practice Methodology

The SANpulse SANease Methodology consists of a process-driven service through SANlogics, a software-led technology, for practice implementation, repetitive migration event executions and knowledge transfer. It includes data discovery and correlation, storage analytics and reporting for auditing/planning, and quality assurance.

Each Migration Practice service engagement begins with an assessment of the targeted environment(s), including collection of various components of the infrastructure; Host/Server, Fabric/Switch and Array configuration. The data collection allows SANpulse to provide the creation of remediation analysis correlated to an internal or vendor-based support matrix while enabling SANpulse or your team to perform host remediation. An experienced SANpulse storage architect, assigned and dedicated to the project, works with the client on the design and planning of the migration implementation process and remains with the project for the duration of the engagement. The storage architect is supported by a dedicated best-shore implementation expert. The same team conducts discovery, analysis and the data migration.

A typical deployment begins with face-to-face meetings and staff allocation followed by process education and information discovery collection. As part of the migration planning process, the created knowledge base of information is leveraged to enable a smart migration with informed decisions on standardization of processes and other key migration decisions. For example, should all data be migrated in a traditional bulk move or in a selective process based on application, usage, retiering, archiving or other criteria.

Leveraging the SANlogics software platform SANpulse automates command line creation, conforming to client specific standards. Working in conjunction with the internal Storage Operations team, the SANpulse personnel finalizes task lists and process acceptance of the target environments.

Unlike traditional data migration service approaches these processes will be integrated into your Migration Practice and SANlogics software to allow for proper enforcement automation of standard policy and procedures for repeatable successful migration activities.

With the SANpulse Migration Practice solution, once the project is complete, the knowledge base is transferred and available along with associated tools. SANpulse utilizes the SANlogics technology to provide multiple audits throughout the project lifecycle to proactively identify issues that may arise or do not conform to internal or industry-based best practices.

Pricing Structure

• Creation of Migration Practice and SANlogics software license
• License based on size of the environment, team construct and scope of the practice
• Environment sized per number of servers and number of sites
• Maintenance for ongoing practice after end of engagement

Leverage the integration of people, process and technology to drive storage refresh and consolidation initiatives with the SANpulse Migration Practice.

The software-led solution delivers consistency and scalability across geographies, provides heterogeneous supportability and mitigates risk while reducing costs. The solution provides a better quality of life for the customer's storage operations team while ensuring greater customer satisfaction within the business units.

• Data Sheet: Migration Practice
• StorageIO Brief: SANpulse Technologies Migration Practice Solution