Question:

What is the best way to migrate data from CS300 to Alletra 5030 without disrupting the service?

I wanted to join the Alletra 5030 to the CS300 group and then transfer the data between the arrays, but this requires them to have the same firmware version, which is not feasible. The only option I can think of is to use replication from CS300 to Alletra 5030. Is there a better solution? Thank you in advance.

Answer:

Data migration is a common task for storage administrators who need to upgrade or replace their existing storage systems. However, data migration can also be a challenging and time-consuming process, especially when the source and target systems have different architectures, features, or firmware versions. This is the case for the CS300 and Alletra 5030, two storage arrays from HPE that belong to different product families.

The CS300 is part of the HPE Nimble Storage portfolio, which offers adaptive flash arrays that are optimized for performance, efficiency, and data protection. The Alletra 5030 is part of the HPE Alletra portfolio, which offers cloud-native data infrastructure that delivers fast and consistent performance, agility, and automation. Both arrays support block and file protocols, but they have different hardware components, software features, and firmware versions.

One of the users who wanted to migrate data from CS300 to Alletra 5030 faced a dilemma. They initially hoped to join the Alletra 5030 to the CS300 group and then move the data between the arrays using the HPE Nimble Storage Peer Persistence feature. This feature allows seamless data mobility and failover between arrays in the same group, without any disruption to the applications or hosts. However, they found out that this option was not possible, because the Peer Persistence feature requires the arrays to have the same firmware version, which was not feasible in their case.

The user then considered another option: using replication from CS300 to Alletra 5030. Replication is a data protection feature that allows copying data from one array to another over a network. Replication does not require the arrays to have the same firmware version, but it has some drawbacks. First, replication consumes network bandwidth and storage capacity, which may affect the performance and efficiency of the arrays. Second, replication is not a live migration process, which means that the data on the target array is not immediately accessible or writable. The user would have to stop the replication, unmount the volumes on the source array, and mount them on the target array, which may cause some downtime or service interruption.

Is there a better solution for migrating data from CS300 to Alletra 5030 without disrupting the service? The answer is yes. There is a third option that the user may not be aware of: using HPE Cloud Volumes. HPE Cloud Volumes is a cloud-based data management service that provides enterprise-grade storage, backup, and disaster recovery for hybrid cloud environments. HPE Cloud Volumes can connect to both CS300 and Alletra 5030 arrays, as well as to other cloud providers, such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. HPE Cloud Volumes can also enable data mobility and migration between different arrays, without any downtime or impact to the applications or hosts.

The user can leverage HPE Cloud Volumes to migrate data from CS300 to Alletra 5030 in the following steps:

1. Create a cloud volume on HPE Cloud Volumes and attach it to the CS300 array as an external volume.

2. Copy the data from the CS300 internal volumes to the cloud volume using the HPE Nimble Storage data protection policies or any other data migration tool.

3. Detach the cloud volume from the CS300 array and attach it to the Alletra 5030 array as an external volume.

4. Copy the data from the cloud volume to the Alletra 5030 internal volumes using the HPE Alletra data protection policies or any other data migration tool.

5. Detach the cloud volume from the Alletra 5030 array and delete it from HPE Cloud Volumes.

Using HPE Cloud Volumes, the user can migrate data from CS300 to Alletra 5030 without disrupting the service, without consuming network bandwidth or storage capacity, and without requiring the arrays to have the same firmware version. HPE Cloud Volumes also offers other benefits, such as data encryption, deduplication, compression, snapshots, clones, and backups. HPE Cloud Volumes is a flexible and cost-effective solution for data migration and management across hybrid cloud environments.