CBX’s data storage platform had reached end-of-life. Don Piraino, IT Manager, CBX, explains CBX’s journey with Datadobi and how they assisted in migrating CBX’s data.
The challenge
Recently, the NetApp data storage platform and associated software on which CBX had long relied on was end-of-life.
This meant that no additional firmware, patches, or upgrades would be made available. In addition, warranty support would soon come to an end. While CBX had the option of extending the life of its equipment via third-party maintenance, it decided that this strategy might not only introduce data availability, protection and security vulnerabilities, but would also likely end up costing even more in the long run.
As a longtime customer of NetApp, it decided that its best option would be to remain with NetApp and upgrade to the vendor’s newest platform. In doing so, it would not only remain with a brand it trusted but CBX would also benefit from increased capabilities and heightened security.
With this decision made, the next critical consideration was how best to migrate the Network Attached Storage (NAS) data from its existing data storage environments to the new.
The data migration would involve the entirety of CBX’s client and internal business production data housed across two geographically dispersed locations in Minneapolis and New York City.
The solution
CBX reached out to its technology vendor SHI, for a recommendation on how best to proceed. SHI highly recommended Datadobi and its DobiMigrate enterprise-class migration software for NAS and object data.
“SHI assured us that DobiMigrate could be trusted to deliver in the most complex and demanding environments, while ensuring that we meet our data security and integrity objectives for migration to our new storage,” said Don Piraino, IT Manager, CBX.
“The fact that Datadobi is also vendor agnostic and has the ability to move data from any vendor’s platform to another heterogeneous platform on prem, remote, or in the cloud added to my comfort level. It is nice knowing that I am not locked into any one vendor.
“But more importantly for me, this spoke to Datadobi’s industry unique experience managing diverse migrations across many different platforms and environments.”
CBX then engaged with Datadobi to develop the migration plan, deploy DobiMigrate and provide end-to-end management.
“We couldn’t allow even a moment of downtime or loss of data availability of any kind. The migration involved every single piece of CBX data – from client to CBX business data, spread across two geographically dispersed locations,” Piraino said.
“Typically, we use NetApp SnapMirror, but we knew it wasn’t the answer for this level of a migration. With DobiMigrate, we finished in weeks, rather than in months, with not even one hiccup.”
By migrating the data to the new hardware, CBX can enjoy greatly expanded features and functionality. Topping the list is data security and support for cloud tiering via NetApp’s ONTAP data management software.
When asked what advice Piraino would offer others contemplating an enterprise class data migration, he said: “Here was the big thing for us… We purchased the DobiMigrate licensing and management services, meaning we had a Datadobi Implementation Specialist dedicated to ensuring the success of our migration initiative.
“Honestly, it was such a small portion of the total cost of the migration – and I would say the best money we spent,” added Piraino. “We have what I view as an uncommon enterprise IT environment – starting with the VMs we are running and the fact that we are a MAC centric company from the front to the back office.
“There could have been some really significant hurdles in getting this project off the ground. For instance, we certainly didn’t want to have to go out and buy all new hardware and set up VM proxies for users to provide them with access during the migration. Also, we didn’t want to have to call NetApp every time we had a NetApp-specific head-scratcher.
“But with Datadobi helping us to manage the initial configuration with its deep NetApp expertise, we avoided all these potential issues and it was smooth sailing from there,” Piraino said. “Having that level of expertise was invaluable. Nothing happened without Datadobi making sure it was being done correctly. It was such a load off my mind.
“The final cutover was really smooth – with absolutely zero impact on any of our team’s work. We completed it on a Friday evening. And on Saturday morning, everything was up and running. When you, your internal users and your boss feel zero pain, that’s always a good thing.”
