Challenge Faced by Mid-Size Organizations in Upgrading Legacy iSCSI Systems

RELDATA, Inc. highlighted the challenge faced by mid-size organizations in upgrading legacy iSCSI storage systems and the difficulties associated with migrating data to newer iSCSI storage systems. A recently published report by analyst firm DCIG details the issues resulting from rapid adoption of networked iSCSI storage systems deployed between 2006-2008, which were very popular among mid-size organizations.

The DCIG report points out that first-generation iSCSI storage systems are now starting to show their age, and as a result, manufacturer warranties are expiring, resulting in expensive support and maintenance contracts.

"This is prompting more mid-size organizations to start product refresh cycles for their existing iSCSI storage systems to get newer systems," said Jerome Wendt, president of DCIG. "But as they do, the costs and disruption associated with this transition to a new system start to rear their ugly head."

According to DCIG, the cost and disruption may occur in one of two possible ways: If mid-size companies decide to remain with their existing storage solutions such as Dell EqualLogic or HP LeftHand, they can leverage the migration software that may be available for their existing hardware to migrate data from the old to the new hardware so disruption generally is minimal. But there is a catch – companies are required to purchase all of their new storage from those providers to take advantage of the data migration features, leaving them with little flexibility or negotiating power when it comes to acquiring new storage since they can only buy storage from these providers in whatever storage configurations and prices they make available.

The second scenario involves switching to another storage provider, which can be "just as bad if not worse." While organizations are always free to buy from any iSCSI storage provider, migrating their data from an older system to a new one becomes a costly and disruptive proposition.

Some of the data migration difficulties may include:

• Purchasing data migration software for each application server attached to the iSCSI array
• Installing and configuring the data migration software on each application server, possibly requiring a server reboot — Configuring the application server to discover its assigned storage on the new iSCSI storage array
• Using the application’s processing resources to copy the application data from the old system to the new system
• Stopping the application to start using the new storage system

In addition, there are often hidden costs associated with data migrations, such as continuing to pay maintenance on the old storage system should the data migration take longer than expected or not go as planned, or the need to obtain the vendor’s professional services to successfully complete the migration of data from one system to another.

DCIG points out that new options available give users more flexibility to perform data migrations without locking them into a specific solution or making the selection of other solutions impractical to implement. One example is the RELDATA unified storage solution which includes its own data migration software that can migrate data from any iSCSI storage system to the RELDATA system. This can be accomplished without requiring third party software or contracting for expensive professional services to perform the data migration. And because RELDATA can migrate data while the application is still operating, disruption is minimal and only needs to occur during the final stages when the application switches from its current storage system to the storage presented to it by the RELDATA system.

The report concludes that storage system refreshes and data migrations are a natural part of the life cycle of any networked storage solution and beginning in 2010, more mid-size organizations are going to face this reality. However, they can avoid this expense and disruption by looking for new and innovative solutions that offer both flexibility and choice when making a selection of an iSCSI storage system.