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Your boss walks in Monday morning and says, “Show me your plan to get the 3rd generation storage system on to the latest and greatest, faster, better, cheaper 4th generation storage system” Ugh! Many IT administrators have a similar reaction every three or so years when it’s time for a storage refresh. That’s because refreshing your old system has usually meant having to deal with data migration; a daunting and disruptive process that always seems to keep you distracted for weeks, or even months on end! EMC decided it was time to modernize data migration, and we set out on a mission to drive a better experience for our customers. What we developed was an approach called Intelligent Data Mobility (IDM). Now, most people tend to think of migration as a services engagement, and historically that’s pretty accurate. But, we believe that modernizing to “Intelligent Data Mobility” means changing the fundamental approach. It means thinking about how to standardize the services process across platforms AND simplifying, automating and even embedding data migration as one of the “data mobility” capabilities within the array. On the services end, to standardize the process and experience, EMC developed a true factory approach to data migration. It’s a highly repeatable standardized and proven methodology that is both platform and vendor agnostic. It was built on the knowledge and best practices we gained by migrating more than an Exabyte of data every year (the most in the industry). And, very importantly, we are able to tailor this process to specific customer requirements using Intelligent Data Mobility Blueprints. These are essentially highly standardized, best practices driven sub-methodologies for implementing specific use cases. So, let’s say a customer wants to migrate from Platform/Vendor A to EMC’s VMAX All Flash array, but has restricted upgrade windows, and specific validation procedures; EMC is able to satisfy this requirement using a standardized blueprint designed on the best practices and knowledge achieved through thousands of customer engagements. Although this IDM approach simplifies the process and reduces the disruption, cost and time to execute a migration, it is only part of the equation. The real magic happens when we meld this service standardization with technical innovation in the product, giving customers more power and control via self-service capabilities built right into the array. EMC’s Global Services organization is supported by more than 2,500 experts who specifically address migration projects. EMC continues to remain committed to service innovation that’s been recognized with industry awards. And, EMC continues to use its E-lab (interoperability lab) tests and validations to ensure we successfully meet our customer’s migration requirements. To learn more about EMC’s IDM capabilities, stop in to our related sessions at EMC World, including Data Migration: Faster, Cheaper, Easier. The post Modernizing Mobility and Migrations, oh My! appeared first on InFocus. |
