Get to the Cloud Faster: Data Migration with IOblend
In this blog, we explore one of the most transformative trends of recent years – the migration of data to the cloud. Moving data to the cloud unlocks vast benefits to the organisations seeking to modernise their data estates and accelerate their digital transformation.
However, this is by no means an easy task. It generally takes a long time to execute and involves many pitfalls.
Understanding cloud data migration
At its core, cloud data migration is about transporting an organisation’s digital assets, from on-prem data centres to cloud-based storage or between various cloud services.
Why Migrate? Our company has done well so far…
There are multiple factors organisations consider when deciding to undertake a data migration project.
Infrastructure modernization: As legacy systems age, they become more expensive and challenging to maintain. Nothing lasts forever, not even your trusty AS/400. And hardly anyone can still code in COBOL (we know a few experts if you ever need one!).
Operational efficiency: Cloud platforms often streamline operational processes, reducing redundancies and inefficiencies. You can spin up infra on demand rather than constantly running and maintaining dedicated servers.
Digital transformation: For many, moving to the cloud is a cornerstone of broader digital transformation initiatives. Want to break those departmental siloes or launch a cutting-edge app?
As your company tries to compete against more agile and data-savvy companies, staying still puts you at risk of losing market share and revenues. When the competition makes real-time, data-driven decisions when you are stuck with manually updating weekly spreadsheets and physical paper invoices, it is only a matter of time before your margins start to deteriorate.
Key cloud data migration considerations
But if there are so many benefits to migrating, why are companies hesitating to jump in? Well, there are quite significant pitfalls to consider there.
Cost: Number one is often cost. Cloud migration tend to be quite significant, especially as the size of the enterprise increases. Large Cloud providers try to make it easier on their side, but unpicking legacy siloes is rarely cheap.
Business buy-in: Raise your hand if you’ve ever been a part of a failed digital transformation initiative! We guarantee you there are still scars among your employees from the past failures. And those memories stay. Getting people excited about a data migration project can be an undertaking on its own.
Integration with existing systems: How will cloud data work with the currently deployed systems? How do we access the data and systems? Where does everything reside? How much of our data is still on the SMEs desktops? What are the business rules that need to be preserved? Integration work is always complex and poses challenges that need addressing upfront.
Business disruption: Poorly executed data migration projects can cause significant disruption to the business operations, especially in the early stages of adoption. People who have originally built the legacy systems are long gone, so the migration team may have misinterpreted the business logic. The business will still be learning new capabilities for a long while, potentially slowing down the benefits further.
Data governance: Establishing clear policies on data usage, access, and management post-migration is crucial. Someone will have to develop a whole new ruleset while also bringing in the best-practice of the existing policies.
Vendor lock-in: Dependence on a particular cloud service provider can be a double-edged sword. It’s essential to understand the exit strategy and costs involved if a move away becomes necessary in the future.
Data migration projects tend to put the fear of God into senior management because of the above issues. Microsoft have recently estimated that over 75% of their existing enterprise customers are still on-prem.
Time and Cost – deeper dive
Cost and time, along with business disruption, strongly influence the adoption of the cloud strategies. These factors can easily scupper the intent, forcing the executives to kick the can down the road as far as possible.
The time it takes to migrate an enterprise’s data to the cloud varies widely based on numerous factors. Let’s delve into the factors that data migration projects have to consider.
The volume of data: Larger datasets naturally take longer to migrate. Most established organisations will have treasure-troves of data going back decades. Not all of it is useful, however, but sifting through the vast amounts to determine what’s what can take a significant effort.
Complexity of data: The more complex the data architecture, the longer the migration will likely take.
Assessment and planning: A thorough initial assessment and detailed planning are crucial and can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months.
Training: Ensuring that your team is well-versed with the new cloud technologies might require additional time.
Actual data transfer: This could take from a few days to several months depending on the volume of data, and the internet bandwidth available.
Configuration and setup: Setting up the cloud environment to mirror or improve upon the on-prem setup is time-consuming and costly. You suddenly need to maintain two separate infras.
Testing and Validation: Ensuring that the data has migrated correctly and that all systems are operational can add additional weeks or months to the project. You may need to run two mission-critical systems in parallel for quite a while post-migration to ensure the new one is properly embedded.
Optimisation: Post-migration, there might be a period of optimisation where processes are tweaked for the new cloud environment.
Given the aforementioned factors, a rough timeline for an average enterprise data migration to the cloud could range from 6 to 18 months.
Smaller enterprises with straightforward data architectures and lower data volumes might complete the migration in a shorter time frame, such as 3 to 6 months. Larger enterprises with highly complex systems and large data volumes might see migration projects extending beyond 18 months.
We don’t need to tell you that these timescales push data migration costs well into the seven figures (or more!) and put significant stress on the business operations.
It’s highly advisable for businesses to consult with cloud migration experts and tool vendors very early in the data migration consideration phases to ensure you get the best value. This will be the money well spent indeed.
How IOblend makes data migration super-fast and efficient
IOblend was developed with data migration projects in mind. We are one of those experts and vendors you absolutely must talk to if you are planning cloud migration. Our team has many years of doing data migration projects and we’ve seen all kinds of horror stories out there. We are ISV partners with Microsoft Azure and Snowflake and have experience with all other major cloud providers.
Our product is especially good at making data movement easy. We know that every use case is different, so we do not force you into a rigid methodology because of the tool architecture. We offer the full flexibility of designing your data migration architecture as fits your organisation best.
With IOblend, you can do whatever is required: lift-and-shift, clean up, transforms, apply governance, rebuild DWs, aggregate data from multiple disparate systems, etc – all within the scope of the same migration project. If you wish to mirror systems, use staging layers and transform data in-flight, we cater to it all in one tool. This flexibility and ease of use will greatly accelerate your cloud migration initiative (by several months) and reduce your project costs.
- Enablement of efficient and flexible architecture designs – build whatever suits your organisational needs best, IOblend will cater to any design.
- Ability to securely connect to any data source (ESB/API/DB/Flat files, even physical docs) – no matter how many siloes you have or how fragmented your data estates are, IOblend will help you get it sorted.
- Efficient data pipeline development with low-code / no code interface, reducing the dev burden and accelerating delivery times by 10x.
- Technical data governance and data quality are managed automatically as part of the IOblend’s in-built capabilities, removing the need for constant manual data monitoring and management.
- Massively parallel processing that enables transformation and movement of huge amounts of data fast (>10m transactions per sec).
- No limitations on number of pipelines or bytes of data – IOblend runs inside your infrastructure, allowing you to separate compute and storage most efficiently.
No matter how complex your data migration projects may be, get in touch with us. We have many years of data migration expertise across all tech stacks and our solution is unparalleled in terms of cost and efficiency. We will save you money and time!
Resolving the complexities of data migration projects, particularly those involving cloud data migration, is a multifaceted challenge that IOblend addresses effectively. Cloud data migration involves transferring digital assets from on-prem data centers to cloud-based storage or between cloud services. This process, essential for infrastructure modernization and digital transformation, is often hindered by cost considerations, integration complexities with existing systems, business disruptions, and data governance issues. Enterprises face significant challenges in navigating these aspects, especially considering the varied timeframes required based on data volume and complexity.
IOblend, specifically developed for data migration projects, provides a comprehensive solution. Its platform allows for flexible architecture designs and securely connects to any data source, overcoming fragmentation and siloes. Its low-code/no-code interface streamlines data pipeline development, significantly reducing development burden and accelerating project timelines. IOblend’s capabilities in technical data governance and data quality management, along with its massively parallel processing, enable the fast and efficient movement of large data volumes. This approach significantly accelerates cloud migration initiatives and reduces costs, offering a unified solution to the numerous challenges of data migration projects
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