Softek Survey Finds Data Migrations Risky, Unpredictable & Frequent

Migrating data is a risky, unpredictable and frequent manual activity that impacts an enterprise’s application availability, according to findings from a survey of more than 250 large and medium-sized businesses in Europe conducted by Softek, a leading provider of storage management software for multi-vendor and multi-domain environments. The study was presented today at the opening of the CeBIT trade show in Hanover, Germany, where Softek is exhibiting in conjunction with Fujitsu Siemens Computers in Hall 1, Stand 4H4.

Key conclusions of the survey indicate that data migrations are extremely risky activities that negatively impact enterprise data availability levels. More than 80 percent of respondents reported problems during data migrations. Nearly 30 percent of companies stated they have delayed storage purchases due to data migration issues. Specific data migration problems reported by respondents include:

Extended or unexpected downtime (46 percent of respondents)
Technical compatibility issues (39 percent)
Data corruption (32 percent)
Missed data or data loss (27 percent)
Application performance issues (27 percent)
“Almost all data centers perform data migrations on a frequent basis, yet we found little available research that explored the impact to data availability when moving data for technology refreshes, server and storage relocations and for load balancing activities,” said Amena Ali, senior vice president of worldwide marketing and product strategy. “The goal of the survey was to better understand the data migration challenges of our customers, as well as to provide unbiased information to CeBIT attendees that will enable them to benchmark their planned downtime, costs and data migration practices, compared with their IT peers.”

The study also found that data migrations are unpredictable, with a majority of respondents stating that data migrations frequently exceed originally planned staff time (83 percent), exceed originally planned downtime (61 percent) and exceed originally planned budget projections (54 percent).

Data migrations also consume precious staff resources, are not performed during normal business hours and require lengthy planning periods, according to survey respondents. Approximately 40 percent of companies stated that data migrations involve more than five people, with 60 percent stating that data is migrated weekly, monthly or at the end of the lease period. Eighty-nine percent of companies reported that migrations are performed by internal staff and 82 percent stated that migrations are performed at night or on weekends to avoid risks and application downtime. More than 60 percent of companies reported spending more than two weeks planning a data migration.

Significant inhibitors to data migration cited by survey respondents included limited staff resources (48 percent); cost (37 percent); technical compatibility issues, such as moving to a larger volume size (30 percent); and inability to take applications off-line (28 percent).

Data migrations are also costly, according to the survey results. More than 70 percent of respondents include provisions for additional equipment, with more than half citing needs for additional software and staff overtime. Other additional items included in the data migration budget included network bandwidth (32 percent) and external services (24 percent).

“With an overwhelming majority of respondents stating that they experience extended or unexpected downtime levels, we were surprised that nearly a third of respondents were unaware of solutions that enable on-line data movement,” stated Ali. “At CeBIT and other marketing activities, we are emphasizing the benefits of on-line data migration solutions, such as Softek TDMF and Softek Replicator, that enable companies to move data in mainframe and open systems environments without causing outages to applications or access to data. These on-line solutions eliminate downtime and enable data migrations to be performed during normal business hours.”