In the storage industry, we hear the term «migration» all the time – almost every day. One of the first visuals that comes to my mind whenever I hear that word is a neatly formed «V»-formation of geese or ducks flying south for the winter. The «V» formation is a very efficient way to fly long distances. One bird’s wing-flapping causing a vortex, giving the bird directly behind effortless lift. The group works together in this way to migrate vast distances in a short amount of time while expending as little effort as possible.
Just as bird migration is inevitable, so to is data migration – no matter what form it’s in. In the storage world, this might mean you need to migrate older tape formats to a more current one to support the new tape drive you’ve just bought, or migrate data from an older storage array to a new one.
Too often, storage strategies are developed without migration in mind. The reality is that regardless of the storage solution you’ve deployed, migration is a normal part of the lifecycle, and you need to design and incorporate a migration strategy into your storage environment.