Introduction
Whether it's a change in geography, consolidation of existing resources and services, or expansion of cloud services to enhance business continuity, data center migration is ubiquitous. Data center migrations are complex, risky and costly, and are often disrupted by unexpected challenges. This article will delve into the hidden set of challenges during a data center migration, with the aim of helping organizations better understand and cope with this complex task, and ensure a successful and smooth implementation of the migration process.
Unplanned Downtime
Unplanned downtime is one of the major concerns for organizations migrating their data centers, which can impact customer usage while increasing business losses. To avoid service disruptions, you should take the time to develop a plan to migrate data and applications in phases and ensure that problems can be quickly corrected and rolled back if they occur.
Migrating data is divided into three parts:
Extract. Finding out what needs to be migrated (including physical hardware), from which source and in which format, and then extracting it to a temporary storage area, often known as an extraction tier (Staging Area).
Transform. The process of making structural and content changes to extracted data. This may include operations such as cleaning, filtering, normalizing, renaming columns, calculating new fields, and so on, to ensure that the data is adapted to the structure and requirements of the target system. Through transformations, the data is prepared in a format suitable for loading into the target system and to ensure consistency, quality, and conformity of the data.
Load. If new hardware is to be deployed, processed data is effectively injected into the target system to ensure data accuracy and availability.
Additionally, adopt a step-by-step migration approach, migrate part of the system to the new data center first to verify its stability and performance, and then gradually migrate other systems.
Loss of Data
If there is a worst case scenario for data center migration, then losing critical data is it. Data can be corrupted during migration: due to lack of network security policies and safeguards; due to hardware failure; due to inadvertent data-handling operations, etc.
It's important to make sure you back up all your data before you migrate. Back up your backups and then back up again. You cannot move your data without a backup version. Data can be backed up in a number of ways, such as in the cloud or on an isolated local server that is not involved in the migration. For most organizations, the cloud is probably the easiest option because the data center team can request backup storage from the cloud provider prior to the migration.
The use of redundant storage and fault-tolerance mechanisms helps to safeguard data.
Server Latency
Latency is one of the most underestimated data center migration challenges. Latency is especially important for IoT devices, e-commerce sites, video streaming solutions, and cloud gaming, as these platforms rely on customer experience. If your application requires an immediate response, a few seconds of latency can cause serious damage to your business, as well as your brand's reputation.
Ensure that your new data center network architecture is optimized to deliver low latency and high bandwidth. Using specialized network equipment and technologies, such as content delivery networks (CDNs) and WAN optimization, can help reduce server latency.
In a data center migration, choose a location as close as possible to users or critical operations. By deploying in close proximity, you can reduce the physical distance over which data is transferred, thereby reducing latency.
During migration, choose business valleys or non-business-critical times for migration to minimize the impact on users.
Security
Migrating data and applications to a new data center involves significant security risks. Organizations need to make decisions on a case-by-case basis, selectively investigate these issues and put in place security measures to protect security facilities to ensure the long-term security of data and applications at the new destination. Here are some common risks and their responses:
Data center migration involves the movement of large amounts of sensitive data, which can be at risk of data breaches. Proper data encryption, access control and monitoring measures are key to prevent unauthorized data access.
During the relocation process, physical devices and storage media may be exposed to risk. Take appropriate physical security measures, such as locking down equipment and monitoring the moving process, to avoid equipment theft or damage.
Data center relocation often involves changes in network connectivity, which can introduce network security risks. Ensure that the new network architecture has been reviewed for security and measures such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, etc. are used to protect the data transfer process after migration.
Data center migration may involve compliance challenges such as data privacy regulations, industry standards, etc. Ensure that the new data center meets relevant regulations and standards to prevent compliance risks.
Conclusion
Migrating to a new data center or cloud can have many pitfalls. However, collectively, careful planning, strong technical support and close teamwork are key factors in ensuring a successful, efficient and secure data center migration. By overcoming these challenges, organizations can achieve a smooth migration that ensures business continuity and reliability.
OPTICO's MTP/MPO high-density cabling solution is the ideal choice for the next generation of 100G/200G/400G/800G data centers. MTP/MPO trunk cables, MTP/MPO conversion cables, and MTP/MPO to LC fan-out cables are all factory terminated and completely tested, offering plug-and-play compatibility with OPTICO MTP/MPO fiber cassettes. The precision-manufactured US Conec MTP/OPTICO MPO connectors in the fiber optic cables ensure outstanding reliability and ultra-low insertion loss of 0.25dB. All our products are RoHS/ISO/CE/CPR/FCC compliant.
Our solution not only simplifies cable management but also achieve a structured cabling system in data centers through high-density fiber patch panels and enclosuress. We also provide support for custom solutions and OEM services for greater flexibility and scalability to meet your various cabling requirements.