From the beginning, Komprise has focused on delivering an analytics-driven SaaS platform to manage and mobilize file and object data. With its distributed, scale-out architecture, transparent tiering, and Global File Index, Komprise enables enterprise IT teams to easily analyze, tag and mobilize unstructured data across storage silos to gain insights, optimize costs and deliver greater value. With our Fall 2023 update, we introduced Storage Insights to unify data storage and storage management. Today we’re excited to announce major updates to Komprise Elastic Data Migration, which is available both as a standalone solution for analytics-driven data migrations and included in the Komprise Intelligent Data Management platform.
Evolving Unstructured Data Management Requirements
Data migration solutions have historically been designed for “like-to-like” migrations of similar sources and destinations with a prescribed cutover that requires some amount of downtime for end users and applications. In today’s hybrid cloud environments, there are several scenarios that do not fit neatly into this model, especially in healthcare and IoT sensor data use cases where instruments are continuously generating new data into your storage and quiescing for a cutover can cause unacceptable downtime. In our Elastic Data Migration 5.0 announcement, we highlighted three specific use cases that Komprise now supports:
- Pre-loaded migrations: Also known as a “jumpstarted migration” or “bootstrapped migration”, this is a type of migration where an organization has performed the first iteration (the “baseline copy” of all the data) using a tool or mechanism other than Komprise (e.g., NetApp SnapMirror, Dell PowerScale SyncIQ). They then want to use Komprise to perform the ongoing synchronization of the source (which is a live file system, where users are adding, modifying, and deleting data) with the destination, and then finally perform cutover. The goal of a pre-loaded migration is the same as a standard migration, i.e., to “make the destination an exact copy of the source”, except the destination will initially be non-empty.
- “Zero downtime” or “warm cutover” migrations: A warm cutover migration will minimize the downtime experienced by end users and applications at the end of a migration, when the source is set to read-only to allow Komprise to copy over the last changes made on the source. By allowing end users and applications to use the destination (especially to add data) even while the final iteration is running, Komprise enables a “warm cutover” or “zero downtime” migration, providing the least impact to end users and applications.
- Consolidation migrations: Consolidation migrations enable multiple sources migrating onto one destination (e.g., to consolidate hardware, sites or data, due to acquisition, merger or to re-organize existing data). A simple consolidation migration may consolidate data into different subdirectories on the destination. Users can configure and run multiple standard or pre-loaded migrations into subdirectories, in parallel, as needed.
In the general consolidation migration use case, multiple sources are migrated onto a single destination, merging their directory structures. The first source’s migration may start with an empty destination but could also start with a non-empty destination that already has existing data on it. For the second and subsequent migrations, the destination will always be non-empty. In a consolidation migration, Komprise will never delete data from the destination: Komprise will not propagate deletes from the source to the destination and will not delete files from the destination that do not have a match on the source.
Next-Generation Unstructured Data Migration
Komprise is focused on delivering the next-generation unstructured data migration solution. Komprise Elastic Data Migration includes valuable analytics that enables you to proactively plan migrations, understand before you migrate what potential issues may slowdown migrations, and prepare so the migrations run fast.
We provide analysis so customers know how much data they have, how many are small files, how many per directory and other key data insights that help you plan your migration and determine how long it can take before you embark. And it’s not just data insights.
Since migrations depend not only on the profile of the data but also the network availability, Komprise includes a non-intrusive environment assessment called ACE (Assessment of Customer Environment) to help understand the expected performance and potential bottlenecks given the infrastructure and environment outside of Komprise, which could adversely impact a migration project. Those contingencies include security and network configurations, asymmetric routes, saturated routers, firewalls and security appliances, older, higher-latency storage systems and more. This knowledge helps iron out critical performance issues to speed up migrations before you begin. And it reduces the number of experts you need to diagnose environmental and performance issues.
With every release, we’re expanding the core capabilities of the platform. Additional updates with Komprise Elastic Data Migration include:
- SMB Migration without Windows Proxies: With Hypertransfer, Komprise optimized WAN performance, especially for small file server message block (SMB) protocol migrations. With this release we’ve continued to optimize and simplify SMB deployments by eliminating the need for a Windows Proxy, which will simplify customer deployments and ongoing maintenance, as well as reduce Windows licensing costs for customers.
- Object-to-Object Migration: Similar to what Komprise supports for cloud data migrations, we now enable S3-to-S3 migration for objects between on-prem or cloud-based storage.
Know First. Move Smart. Take Control.
The benefits of an analytics-first approach that provides visibility into your network and your data are clear (know first). The ability to address more use cases with a proven, unified platform (move smart) and deliver greater ongoing data value (take control) continues to be our goal. Komprise Elastic Data Migration 5.0 has already received positive customer response and our partners continue to provide valuable feedback to ensure we’re reducing migration time and accelerating customer value.
