Digitalization has enabled enterprises to grow at lightning speed!
While digitization has many advantages, it also has its downsides, including the significant increase of unstructured data and uncontrolled data sprawls. Security, risk, and compliance concerns have turned data into a liability rather than an asset.
Thankfully, technology has given us a magic wand in the form of cloud computing!
By proactively utilizing cloud storage, enterprises can prevent data lakes from turning into data swamps, prevent data loss, and secure data. Cloud computing often requires organizations to undergo a long, complicated, and stressful migration process. Among the top three challenges of cloud computing, for instance, are security (83 percent), managing cloud computing spending (82 percent), and governance (79 percent).
There is one crucial question that every enterprise has been pondering – What’s the best way for enterprises to migrate enterprise data to the cloud while reducing risks and costs in the face of so much data?
Well, we’ve found the answer. A solution that’s Simple, Smart, and Secure. Data Dynamics collaborated with Microsoft for its recent webinar ‘Migrate your data into Azure like a boss at Zero Cost!” Yes, you read it right – it’s 0 costs! Cloud Computing experts from Microsoft and Data Dynamics came together on February 24th, 2022, to provided insights regarding cloud adoption trends, common migration challenges, and best practices for planning efficient cloud migration strategies and, of course, talking about the revolutionary program – The Azure File Migration Program – zero cost migrations into Azure with Data Dynamics.
The webinar featured Karl Rautenstrauch, Principal Program Manager, Storage Partners at Microsoft; David McMath, Head of Product Management; and Chris Cochran, Vice President of Cloud Strategy and Alliances at Data Dynamics.
The following are some key insights from the webinar.
A crucial statistic led the discussion in the webinar’s beginning-
According to IDC, nearly 40% of companies aren’t confident that they have the competency to make the switch.
What are the top challenges that organizations face while migrating to the cloud?
- Data Classification – unstructured & structured, cold, and hot
- What data to move
- Downtime impacting customer experience
- Recognition of PII & PHI data thus leading to data breaches
- Data security & compliance
Talking about the top and most common challenges faced by enterprise customers while migrating to the cloud, Karl Rautenstrauch stated, “Over nine years of working closely with partners and customers in the field of migrating datasets and applications to Azure, we see a consistent thing of every enterprise in every industry being a little overburdened today – too much to do, too little time and too few people, hence most of these enterprises are seeking automation. They want to make sure that they can engage in complex activities like moving an application comprising of virtual machines and databases repositories in the simplest way possible with at least risk possible.” He further highlighted that this is the most consistent requirement for all customers of all sizes that he works with.
David McMath further added that customers seek automation in their cloud migration journey. They look for the big green button that they can press to migrate data from A to B location in just one click. Enterprises need specialists and experts like Data Dynamics to determine best practices and settings for their migration journey. To simplify and streamline their cloud migration journey, they want their migration product to be integrated with all their plug-ins and other technologies like ServiceNow that they already have, which Data Dynamics can smoothly integrate through its REST API.
Enterprises face another major concern when migrating to the cloud: scalability! David highlighted that scalability is a crucial aspect every enterprise needs to consider when migrating their data to the cloud since they must run thousands of policies at once to meet timelines.
In addition, he noted that data discovery is another challenge he sees when he speaks with customers daily. Finding data to copy is the easy part, but finding out who owns the data, who can grant permission to migrate the data, and who can share the data knowledge is the most challenging part.
How is Microsoft helping organizations seamlessly migrate to the cloud?
Microsoft has simplified the cloud data migration process by sponsoring Data Dynamics’ StorageX for data migration through the Azure File Migration Program. This program complements Azure Migrate, allowing users to migrate workloads and applications that contain large numbers of files, unstructured data, and object storage data into Azure without incurring StorageX licensing fees.
During the webinar, Karl spoke about the program, “We have built a platform of services called Azure Migrate which is freely available, and they have capabilities that are cloud-driven. Services that help customers move virtual machines easily, databases, and now even containerized applications in an automated, risk-free fashion. One area that is neglected is unstructured data, so what we are going to do is address it in the Azure File Migration Program.”
Five ways how the Azure File Migration Program simplifies your journey to the cloud:
- A zero-license cost migration that includes migrating all your unstructured files, Hadoop, and object storage data into Azure
- Automated, policy-based file data migration from heterogeneous storage resources into Microsoft Azure storage
- Comprehensive Azure file storage endpoint support
- Automated access control and file security management
- Customers’ data growth in Azure applies to their Microsoft Azure Commit to Consume (MACC)
Click here to check out how Data Dynamics utilized the Azure File Migration Program to help one of the world’s seven multinational energy “supermajors” Fortune 50 companies accelerate its net zero emission goals while driving digital transformation.
How does Data Dynamics fit into the picture?
Microsoft is sponsoring the use of Data Dynamics’ StorageX as a part of the Azure File Migration Program. Organizations can now migrate their unstructured files, Hadoop, and object storage data into Azure at zero additional cost to the customer and no separate migration licensing. StorageX, Data Dynamics’ award-winning solution for managing unstructured data, provides policy-based data management without vendor lock-in. It includes data location optimization and enterprise data migration. The platform uses automated, policy-based file data migration from heterogeneous storage into Azure storage and ensures minimum to no risk with automatic access control and file security management.
Talking about what makes StorageX a differentiator, David highlights that the automation, the choice, the capabilities to migrate data to the right place and at the right price performance, and with that the flexibility that Data Dynamic’s StorageX brings to the table truly makes it a game-changer in the cloud migration process! One of the most crucial factors, which is the preservations of all critical security attributes that ensure that your data is moved and not exposed to groups that should not have access to your data because of the platform change, is the capability that StorageX smoothly enables. In addition, having an API for every single parameter that is available to integrate it into customers’ business processes, automation, and engineering standards on a proven scale is a luxury that StorageX provides!
Read this use case for more information on how StorageX enables seamless cloud data migration without worrying about the massive terabytes of data and keeping all the security features in place. Also, here’s a detailed comparison of StorageX Vs. Traditional migration tools.
To get all the answers for the questions like:
- Is this a limited offer?
- The critical differentiator that Data Dynamics brings compared to other products that Microsoft supports for file migrations
- Is the migration process completely automated?
Tune in to the webinar.
Embark on your cloud migration journey now!
Intelligent. Efficient. Secure.
Leverage intelligent, compliant, policy-based, zero-cost migrations into Azure with StorageX. Click to register for the program or email us azure@datdyn.com or click here to book a meeting.
