Creative Commons

This dissertation was written as a part of the MSc in ICT Systems at the International Hellenic University. The study was conducted in close collaboration with representative staff from SAGA D.O.O Company in the office located in Skopje. The increasing criticality, business’ growing dependency on digital information and explosive generation of data are leading to larger and more complex information storage environments that are increasingly challenging to manage. In these environments, whether performance improvement, technical refresh, server or storage consolidation, data center relocation have to be made, it is inevitable for businesses to deal with data migration. Migration, as moving data from one device to another and then redirecting all I/O to the new device, is an inherently disruptive process due to the different hardware and software environments that exist. Multiple storage vendors have unique requirements for migration and different migration techniques, adding complexity to the process itself. The requirement for information continuous availability, a widening storage technology knowledge gap across the industry and resources demands are making data migration even more intricate mission-critical task. This dissertation studies the complexity of data migration and identifies all of the factors that may influence the selection of an ideal migration solution. By examining the concept of data migration, its methodology and strategies, a tool that addresses the issues for selecting ideal migration solution in a given heterogeneous storage environment is proposed. This application is specifically designed to be used as a starting point in any undertaken migration project, having in mind product and services from the top storage vendors currently in the market EMC, NetApp and IBM. The main goal of this study is to enable readers to utilize this selection application coupled with the theory presented here in order to find the best solutions for their own migration challenges.