SAN Migration
We've seen it with many of our customers, as a Storage Area Network (SAN) gets older, the costs can escalate rapidly. Vendors often create large financial cliffs which their clients inadvertently fall off after a set amount of time (usually 3-5 years after purchase). In order to mitigate the cost and upgrade technologies, a SAN migration is often needed.
During a SAN migration, the most common method of data movement is using host-based tools integrated at the OS layer. You will be happy to have PARSEC's extensive experience on your side for these types of host-based migrations resulting in a smooth and successful completion.
- We help plan and develop your migration strategy. Do you need host-based migrations? Perhaps you need to make your host cope with a block-based migration at the SAN level. We do that, too.
- We have custom tools and scripts for many operating systems that can radically speed up host-based migrations.
- We can consult on a complete migration solution, including the migration itself.
- SAN Migrations usually involve critical company data that must be preserved, and operational jobs which are too critical to risk mistakes on. Why not choose someone who has already done a countless number of successful migrations?
Methodologies
We can use any of the following methods to migrate your storage from an old to new SAN, or even from old local storage into a new SAN. These techniques usually don’t require any downtime, and perform host-based migrations with only the operating system software. This eliminates the cost of things like expensive SAN migration appliances. You also avoid the complexities and confusion of SAN virtualization, which often is an operational burden or unneeded cost after deployment. Lastly, there is no need to license expensive special-purpose migration software for your new SAN.
OpenVMS
OpenVMS has a feature known as "volume shadowing". This allows block storage devices to be mirrored and treated as resilient pairs similar to RAID-1. This feature can be used to create a mirror on your new storage, and allows seamless migration of ODS file systems without downtime. The feature is included with many OpenVMS bundles such as EOE, MCOE, and HAOE, and called "volshad" by the license manager (LMF).
AIX, HP-UX, and Linux
AIX, HP-UX, and Linux all use the Logical Volume Manager. LVM is a set of storage features that allows mirroring synthetic block devices. LVM is minimally licensed, and in most cases you already have the software installed for the migration. Linux has the additional option of using it’s metaraid subsystem, or BTRFS for migrations where that makes sense.
Oracle Solaris
Some older Solaris systems can be migrated using Solstice Disk Suite (SDS), later renamed to be Solstice Volume Manager (SVM). This is a custom volume manager for Solaris found on versions up until Solaris 10, which replaced SVM with ZFS. ZFS based systems are quite easily migrated using mirroring techniques. Lastly, we do see many Solaris systems which have Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) installed on them. This is also an option for a seamless migration, but it does require someone with experience.
Tru64 UNIX
Tru64 has two options for host-based SAN migrations. The first is to use AdvFS to create additional mirrors of AdvFS file sets within AdvFS file domains. This is a fast, seamless, no-downtime option. Another is to use the Logical Storage Manager subsystem, which is functionally the same as VxVM. The latter is only recommended for clients already using LSM.
SGI IRIX
IRIX systems with XLV volume manager can be migrated easily, but not all systems use this feature. Sometimes the CXFS subsystem can also be utilized for migrations. In any case, we are able to help you move from old to new storage with the least amount of operational impact.
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