Want to show your appreciation for SysAdmins and help make their migration efforts stress-free? Carl D’Halluin, Chief Technology Officer, Datadobi explores some great ideas such as providing them the tools to minimize firefighting, and automating important but otherwise mundane tasks so they can focus on more strategic activities aligned with the bottom-line.
In the wake of COVID-19, SysAdmins played a vital role in mobilizing remote workforces and keeping critical operations up and running. With companies worldwide working remotely, the role of SysAdmins has become even more complex. Dubbed as ‘forgotten heroes’, the often-underappreciated members of our teams work behind the scenes to keep systems running smoothly. In this article, we discuss the tools that can help them do their job even better.Â
Their role is nuanced, often highly detailed but also requires some ‘heavy lifting’, particularly around in-depth processes such as data migration. This can be a long and tedious exercise, but it’s vital that it be approached with focus and precision.
Any SysAdmin who has planned or implemented a Network-Attached Storage (NAS) platform migration at the enterprise level will be aware of how daunting a project can become. The complexities of moving unstructured data have been compounded by its proliferation over the last decade, with IDC estimating that by 2025, approximately 80% of data will be unstructured. And with these larger and more complex datasets growing within many organizations, a more modern, reliable approach to migrations is critical.Â
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Given that, according to Gartner, more than 80% of data migration projects either fail or exceed their budgets and schedules, SysAdmins need the right tools that will help them minimize firefighting and automate this important but tedious task. Get it right, and organizations can move data according to their changing migration requirements. Get it wrong, however, and the result can be catastrophic data loss, as perhaps most graphically illustrated in March 2019 when Myspace lost 12 years of dataOpens a new window in a failed server migration.
For a SysAdmin involved in a NAS platform migration, the many and varied tasks that need to be performed can be mired in complexity and risk. And, without the aid of the right dedicated migration software, a NAS platform migration can potentially create an array of issues. Not only do these processes require the time and attention (and cost) of experienced internal and external personnel assigned to the migration project, but choosing the wrong tool leads to increased risk across all aspects of the project, from data integrity to reputation of the migration team.
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The list of pitfalls associated with using the wrong migration tools is considerable and can potentially lead to problems such as an increased number of cutover events with extended outage durations, causing disruption to the business. SysAdmins must often navigate these issues without the benefit of proper reporting and governance, and as a result of all these challenges, skilled staff are distracted by migrations instead of working on strategic initiatives.
The ability to move unstructured data whenever needed allows organizations to continually optimize their storage deployments and data layout. This keeps data on the optimal accessible medium needed at any moment, enables the decommissioning of aging hardware, and offers the freedom to reconsider which data belongs on premises and which data better lives in cloud services.
From the SysAdmin perspective, automation enables them to rededicate their time to more strategic activities that tie more closely to the bottom line.
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