IT Briefcase Exclusive Interview: Data Migration with Globanet

Over the years, driven by new requirements, the data migration industry has matured with Enterprise Class offerings developed. Now that data migration space has reached its maturity phase, client mindsets have changed as they have become more familiar with the industry offerings. Clients are no longer trying to grasp the concept of data migration; they are now trying to find the right technology to meet their requirements now and for years to come.

Recently we sat down with Globanet, a leader in data migration, and asked these 10 questions:

• Q. What are a few reasons why businesses must migrate their data?

A. Early adopters of archiving technologies are finding that their current systems no longer meet their needs, so they choose to migrate. There are several factors that might drive an organization to migrate its data:

– Mergers & acquisitions often necessitate the integration of incompatible archiving applications.

– Write One Read Many (“WORM”) devices have become a costly, inefficient way to archive data, so they are being replaced by faster, more flexible and less expensive technologies.

– Enterprise Class Cloud-based storage offers scalability, data redundancy and disaster recovery support, while reducing hardware and personnel costs.

– The desire to retire legacy systems and retain old data.

– Adopting New Cutting Edge Software

– Moving to the Cloud

• Q. What are some popular on-premise & cloud archive formats and destinations Globanet™ migrates data to?

A. PST/MSG/EML, Veritas Enterprise Vault, Veritas Enterprise Vault.cloud, Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange.

• Q. What does Globanet see as the essential components to planning a successful data migration?

A. Project Planning. Consider three factors in the planning process:

* Dependencies: Is the data migration dependent on any other efforts or are other efforts dependent on the data migration?

* Retention: Have the current retention parameters been maintained?

* Pre-requisites: Were any dependencies identified and explored?

– Communication Plan. Determine how you will inform stakeholders of the migration, its temporary impact and long term benefits.

– Testing Plan. It is vital to develop a testing plan to validate reports, message meta-data integrity, and time frames.

– Special Circumstances. Find out from folks in Legal and Compliance how to handle special circumstances such as items on legal hold, items belonging to terminated users, and items that cannot be migrated.

– Legacy Archive Health Check. If possible, conduct a health check on the existing archive system to identify problems with the source.

– Cut-Over. Define a cutover date, after which the legacy systems will no longer receive data & then perform a full backup of the environment to protect against system failure.

• Q. Does Globanet have its own products that facilitate data migrations?

A. We have two:

Globanet Migrate™ (patent-pending) is an archive migration software solution for enterprise data.  It seamlessly moves large data sets in various formats to different archive or mail platforms. Many organizations are unhappy with their legacy archives, but are concerned with the potential data loss associated with a data migration. Globanet Migrate is a software application that eliminates those risks by enabling administrators to migrate data while safely maintaining chain of custody. It allows organizations to migrate archived data from a variety of disparate platforms to the archive solution of choice, whether it be on-premise or in the cloud.

Globanet Centera Migrate™ is a data migration software application that was developed to address many of the challenges associated with migrating Centera based data. Its average speed is 10x faster than a typical Centera archive migration, and the whole process is completed with real-time transparency. Centera is a legacy system that is costly to maintain and are not supported by EMC. Globanet Centera Migrate takes advantage of the parallelism of the EMC Centera architecture to increase the performance and speed of the migration while avoiding challenges.

• Q. What is the largest data migration Globanet has done?

A. Our largest recent data migration was 30TB for a large insurance company. We seamlessly moved their data with full chain of custody.

• Q. What are some key benefits an organization will realize from a data migration?

A. Beyond the obvious benefits of standardizing on a state-of-the-art platform that will be around for many years, clients most frequently cite streamlined management of just one system instead of several and an enhanced ability to perform efficient searches against for all archived data simultaneously as the main benefits. Large-scale data migrations can be challenging but with the appropriate planning and careful execution, organizations can greatly reduce the risks and costs associated with these projects. The rewards of having all your archives on one platform outweigh the cost.

• Q. What data migration services does Globanet provide?

A. At Globanet, we offer data migration services that give you the ability to transfer archived emails to your choice of various platforms either on-premise or in the cloud. As your data migration service provider, we make it possible for you to have the options you need to manage your data whether you are looking for ways to move current archives into Office 365 or Enterprise Vault, bring data in-house from your hosted provider services, or move Enterprise Vault or Office 365 data across your hardware, Globanet brings the data migration expertise to deliver you with peace of mind around your data. By partnering with Globanet, clients gain the flexibility and power of moving to new platforms, while avoiding data loss and maintaining a full chain of custody.

• Q. Tell us about data migration best practices.

A. Regardless of the reason for migration, to ensure a successful process, an organization must follow industry best practices. Migration of data archives requires a significant amount of planning and expertise to ensure it is done accurately, with data integrity (chain-of-custody) and quickly. There are steps that an organization can take before, during and after a migration to reduce risk, lower costs and shorten the time frame. We use a ‘staggered deployment model’.  By breaking the migration into phases, and keeping multiple environments live simultaneously, Globanet enables its clients to have continuous access to their emails.

• Q. Can you provide us some more information on Globanet Migrate?

A. Globanet Migrate’s cryptographic hashing ensures an accurate and complete chain of custody (integrity of messages remain intact) for each organization.  It will dynamically reassign retention categories based on various criteria. The solution allows organizations to retire old hardware systems, such as EMC Centera, and avoid paying unnecessary maintenance fees. Plus, Globanet Migrate’s rich functionality provides validation, error and performance reporting to allow administrators to make sound decisions during a data migration project. By partnering with Globanet for their data migrations, clients gain the flexibility and power of moving to new platforms, while avoiding data loss and maintaining a full chain of custody. Globanet Migrate is typically priced on a per terabyte basis, regardless of the number of archives.

• Q. What is Globanet’s take on the evolution of the data migration marketplace?

A. Over the last decade, we have witnessed the inception and evolution of the migration industry. The year 1999 marked the unofficial start of the migration industry, when just a few software companies began competing to provide these solutions. The development of the migration industry was spurred by some notable events: compliance regulations that required organizations to keep electronic data for mandatory durations; explosive growth in electronic data; the need for controlled and predictable storage costs, and the need to accurately discover against electronically stored data.

Conclusion

The rewards of migrating and having all your archives on one platform outweigh the cost. Beyond the obvious benefits of standardizing on a state-of-the-art platform that will be around for many years, clients most frequently cite streamlined management of just one system instead of several and an enhanced ability to perform efficient searches against for all archived data simultaneously as the main benefits.

Globanet is a leading provider of email archive migration, compliance and eDiscovery solutions. Founded in 1996, the company is a pioneer in email archive migration and intelligent information governance and has developed a portfolio of enterprise software products to help organizations manage data from creation to expiry. Globanet’s proprietary solutions include the Globanet Merge1 message capture platform and Globanet Migrate data migration software. Globanet also provides a broad range of professional services including policy and solution design, installation, configuration, email archive migrations, custom add-ons and project-based eDiscovery consulting.  Globanet is a multi-level certified partner of leading archive providers including Veritas and Microsoft.

Click here to request additional information about Globanet’s data migration offering or here to request a quote. We look forward to hearing from you.