Data Dynamics recently hosted a live webinar in association with Microsoft. The webinar featured Vamshi Kommineni, Group Product Manager, Azure Storage – Microsoft; Cuong Le, Chief Strategy Officer and Chris Cochran, Vice President of Cloud Strategy & Alliances from Data Dynamics. The webinar circled the importance of data-driven cloud migration instead of the longstanding lift-and-shift approach.
Vamshi from Microsoft is a 15+yr IT veteran and has worked for Fortune 500 companies. Representing Data Dynamics will be Chris Cochran, an industry veteran with 30+ years of experience in IT infrastructure and cloud computing, and Cuong Le, with 20+ years of experience specializing in storage, server, and systems management.
This article presents an overview of the webinar, including expert speakers’ perspectives on data analytics-driven cloud migration and how it helps enterprises gain maximum intelligence from unstructured data.
Massive sprawl of unstructured data is like a black hole.
According to the Forbes report, 2500 petabytes of data are generated every day, out of which 90% are unstructured. Chris started the session by highlighting the data migration struggles enterprises face due to sprawls of unstructured data. He added that moving this unstructured data to the Cloud is like creating a black hole of unknown costs and risks. In a recent report by Mckinsey, 100 billion of wasted migration spend is expected over the next three years. Data Dynamics and Microsoft have teamed up to help organizations with the timely Azure data migrations and at a zero cost with the Azure File Migration Program.
Vamshi and Cuong were then asked to share their expert perspective on cloud data migration and shed light on the program.
What are some of the common challenges you see in cloud adoption?
Vamshi: Our customers often faced challenges in moving their workloads to the Cloud and found it a very daunting task regardless of the size of an organization. We have seen customers taking months and years to consolidate their data centers while moving their workloads to the Cloud. We have observed that moving data to the cloud comes with its challenges, but moving unstructured data to the Cloud has different challenges.
We have now pretty much worked on our customer’s needs while migrating their VMs and structured data from on-premises to the Cloud. And we are addressing unstructured data migration to Azure by partnering with Data Dynamics for the Azure File Migration Program.
Cuong: The real big challenge that I have observed with our customers is a lack of understanding of their data sprawl. A lot of data has been lying in their infrastructure for many years. The data owners are unknown, the data is unstructured, the origin of data is unknown, and a lot of that data has PII and sensitive data. So, this lack of data understanding is becoming a massive challenge for enterprises in adopting and migrating to the Cloud.
How is Microsoft helping clients seamlessly transition into Azure?
Vamshi: The primary goal for us was to enable our customers with a tool to migrate their unstructured data supporting their file, object, and block storage. And step one for that was helping them understand their data by discovering it efficiently by scanning, classifying, categorizing, and tagging. The second step was to move that data efficiently to the Azure Cloud, which required metadata level information and retaining this metadata while moving files from source to destination, all with zero downtime. Post-migration, we also help validate that the data is migrated in the right manner and at the right place. Some other considerations were looking at the cost and speed of the first migration.
After analyzing these requirements by our customers and delivering the solution, we introduced Azure File Migration Program. For this program, Data Dynamics is one of our chosen partners where we are sponsoring the use of Data Dynamics’ StorageX to migrate data into Microsoft Azure. Organizations can now migrate their data into Azure at zero additional cost to the customer without separate migration licensing. StorageX is Data Dynamics’ leading unstructured data migration software that delivers automated petabyte-scale migration across heterogeneous environments, intelligent data Placement, and automated cutover.
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 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)
How is Data Dynamics partnering with Microsoft to help clients reimagine, reorganize, and reinforce cloud adoption?
Cuong: Customers have very complex environments, so as the first step, we help them understand their data environment and then enrich their data. Our technology is proven in the market to help enterprises in data discovery and mobilizing the petabytes of data in heterogeneous environments while maintaining its fidelity. Our dedicated customer success team provides constant support throughout the migration process and even after that. This makes us one of the preferred partners for enterprise-class migration capabilities. In fact, we recently helped a Fortune 100 Energy company migrate 600 TBs of data into Azure in 20 days and cost savings of millions of dollars in data center closure.
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.
Click here and watch the replay to know how exactly StorageX is helping organizations migrate their data into Azure at a 3X faster speed and 10X higher productivity. Learn more about Azure File Migration Program and get answers to questions such as:
- Is this a limited period offer?
- How is Azure File Migration Program helping Azure customers?
- How soon can we start the migration process?
Click here to read more about the Azure File Migration Program or email us at azure@datdyn.com or click here to book a meeting.
