Intelligent Data Migration: What It Is and Why You Need It [VIDEO]

File migrations are common but complex projects that IT departments face as companies change and unstructured data grows. Traditional data migration typically involves a “lift and shift” of the files from the existing system to the new storage system as-is, with organizations often planning to cleanse and organize their data after the big move. But with data volumes growing rapidly – more than 50 percent, year over year – many quickly realize this is an impossible task. In this article, we define intelligent migration and make the case for why this new migration methodology should be considered before moving to a new storage system.

What is Intelligent Migration?

Intelligent migration is a data migration methodology that uses AI-driven unstructured data discovery and classification to analyze and organize files before, after, or while transferring them to a new storage platform. This can be done to eliminate stale and redundant, trivial or obsolete (ROT) data, reduce storage costs, enhance security, and improve data quality. This ability to discover, classify, migrate, and manage data from a single system is a core function of modern unstructured data management platforms.

When data discovery and classification are integrated into the migration process, the platform scans the existing storage repository, identifies the type of information within the unstructured data, and provides key insights as to the data’s overall volume and makeup, age, classification and sensitivity, how it’s being accessed and/or shared, and other important aspects. The organization can use those insights to make informed migration decisions, and even leverage built-in automation to easily migrate the data based on this analysis.

More simply put, intelligent migration involves surfacing deep insights from your unstructured data to execute a more efficient and lower-risk migration.

Benefits of Intelligent Migration

It’s crucial to truly understand unstructured data prior to any large migration project. Intelligent migration is something every company embarking on a migration project can benefit from. According to Splunk, 55% of an organization’s data is dark data – the unknown data stored across various systems. While data owners are often aware of the existence of this dark data, they don’t know how much they have, where it’s stored, who has access to it, and whether any of it contains sensitive information. Moving this data without these insights can be risky; if sensitive information is unknowingly migrated to a location or folder that is widely accessible, the organization can open itself up to a data breach.

In addition to uncovering dark data and eliminating the risk of sensitive data exposure, there are many benefits to choosing an intelligent migration over a traditional “lift-and-shift” migration.

Here are 5 benefits of intelligent data migration:

• Reduced Storage Costs: By eliminating stale or unnecessary data, intelligent migration can significantly lower storage expenses. Many productivity platforms have storage quotas, and exceeding these can be costly. You don’t want to pay premium rates to store obsolete content. Intelligent migration identifies data age and activity, automatically deleting outdated information or archiving seldom-used data to a more economical repository as part of the migration process.
• Lower Migration Costs: Data migration projects can be lengthy and resource-intensive. Understanding your data upfront and removing redundant information shortens the migration timeline, thus cutting costs. AI-driven data discovery and classification eliminates much of the preliminary auditing effort and ensures fewer migration errors, further reducing expenses.
• Improved Productivity: Better decisions about data storage and access can greatly enhance business operations. Often, companies face siloed data storage that hampers collaboration and the ability to leverage data for organizational excellence. Proper classification of unstructured data enables organizations to rapidly surface and act on key insights, unlocking new revenue opportunities, cost reductions, and operational efficiencies.
• Avoidance of Regulatory Fines: Identifying and classifying sensitive data ensures proper storage and protection, aiding compliance with local and global regulatory mandates. Since it went into effect on May 25, 2018, the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has assessed more than 2,000 fines, worth more more than $4.9 billion cumulatively. Intelligent migration and data management can help prevent these penalties entirely or significantly reduce them.
• Enhanced Data Security: Proper classification and management of unstructured data during migration ensure that sensitive information is secure, reducing the risk of data breaches and enhancing overall data integrity.

Intelligent Migration Step-by-Step

Follow these 12 steps to execute an Intelligent Migration:

1. Integrate the AI-driven discovery and classification platform with your source repository
2. Scan and analyze data volume, age/activity, file type, size, location, document type, sharing, and other surface insights
3. Classify sensitive data such as CCPA (CPRA), HIPAA, GDPR, PII, PCI, intellectual property, or other sensitive information
4. Define migration endpoints based on classification tags, sensitivity, age or other custom parameters
5. Create custom polices that based on deep data insights to automatically sort existing files as well and new incoming files
6. Plan your migration execution timeline
7. Determine your migration cutover process
8. Define your change management process
9. Execute the transfer of source data to its appropriate destination endpoint(s)
10. Review any remaining non-migrated or unclassified content
11. Obtain real-time chain-of-custody logs and status reports of migrated content for audit purposes
12. Continuously discover, classify, and organize files as they’re created and updated in the new storage platform

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