One of our UK customers, Tata Consultancy, needed a solution to enable them to migrate between dissimilar environments without data loss or system downtime.
When migrating a large data centre, you need reassurance that both system downtime and the potential for data loss will be minimised.
Here’s how Cristie software helped them to migrate their machines without data loss or system downtime.
Use Case
Our customer needed to migrate six hundred machines without data loss or system downtime. We were dealing with a mixture of Linux and Windows with many applications running on them including SQL databases. These machines were based primarily in their UK data centres.
Many of the servers to be migrated were running on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) into VMware, a dissimilar environment. They approached Cristie, knowing of our expertise both in migrating to and from physical, virtual and cloud environments, and our work with migrating machines between dissimilar environments.
Challenges
Our customer had two main challenges. Firstly, migrating across dissimilar environments is a complex process. Secondly, they needed to migrate a huge amount of data without shutting down the source machines or losing any of that data during the migration process.
At this stage they had already tested other solutions; solutions which sat at hypervisor level. Here’s why they chose CloneManager for the system migration of this data centre.
Flexible replication targets.
CloneManager can replicate to a range of system targets, including physical, virtual, and cloud environments, reinstating vital systems in a matter of minutes. Given that our customer was migrating between RHEV and VMware, their choices were limited. CloneManager was able to give them the flexibility and control they needed.
Live replication and periodic syncs.
CloneManager provides real-time replication of live systems and fully automated scheduled periodic syncs between the source and target system, meaning critical workloads and systems are resilient to system disruption.
Avoiding time offline.
Many of the solutions that enable migration from RHEV are based around a one-time, one-off migration; not suitable for running and migrating a big data centre such as this. A one-off switch between source and target would have caused them to have been offline during data transfer, potentially causing huge issues within a large data warehouse. CloneManager enabled them to keep everything running as smoothly as possible.
Because CloneManager performs an initial sync between the source and target machines followed by fully automated scheduled periodic syncs, there’s less potential for downtime and data loss.
Replicated system is identical.
CloneManager can replicate entire workloads including OS, applications, data and configuration information, giving assurance that the replicated machine is identical to the original.
It was clear that the migration needed to be done in stages in this case, in order to avoid data loss from a system that would be constantly updating, across geos, during the transfer period.
We were able to give our customer reassurance that, due to the way in which the migration was managed – with an initial data dump followed by periodic syncs – the target machines would be identical to the source machines.
Key results
- 600 machines migrated
- Zero downtime and data loss
- Smooth transition between dissimilar environments
- Full customer support prior, during and post migration
If you’d like to learn more about how CloneManager could help your company, click here to take a tour of our products and book a free trial. Read how CloneManager helped a large US healthcare company stay operational here.
‘ CloneManager is the best product I have found for server disaster recovery, by keeping the DR side up-to-date with the production servers.’
Senior Systems Administrator, Global supplier to automotive industry
