Not long ago, data consolidations and migrations used to be point-in-time projects. However, ongoing data movement has become a standard requirement for IT organizations that must keep up with today's constantly changing business environment. Whether data movement is a result of centralization efforts, a merger or acquisition, a technology refresh, or a rebalancing of existing resources, organizations must have a reliable plan for migrating file data without causing downtime, disrupting users, or distracting IT staff from their daily operations.

To help organizations overcome these challenges, Brocade offers end-to-end file data migration services to seamlessly move data within the data center - and between the data center and remote offices - in the most reliable and cost-effective manner possible. Brocade File Data Migration Services are based on proven methodologies that leverage Brocade technical expertise and best practices to help ensure that data is where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.

This service includes the following activities:

• Defining the scope and schedule of the data migration, ensuring that prerequisite and implementation requirements are met, and helping select organizational resources to support the migration. Brocade will help develop a list of systems and volumes to be migrated and will specify any additional storage requirement needs for the new or revised environment.
• Assessing the impact on operations (both in the data center and remote offices, as applicable) and provide a detailed migration timeline in accordance with a specified schedule.
• Ensuring that current data backups exist, and verifying the network link size, utilization, and bandwidth availability allotted for the migration.
• Install data migration tools (if needed), perform a test data migration and validation, and schedule the actual migration.
• After the migration is complete, Brocade will verify file integrity and ensure that the migrated shares are accessible to users. Brocade will also disconnect the remote office file severs and remove the data migration tools, as necessary.
• Brocade will provide a Transfer Of Information (TOI), a summary of completed activities, and a list of future actions and recommendations.

• Leverages in-depth Brocade expertise and best practices to help move data in the most efficient and reliable manner possible
• Reduces the time, resources, and cost to implement a file services solution by outsourcing the work to highly trained experts
• Frees up technical staff to focus on core business activities
• Minimizes the impact on users during the implementation of the WAFS solution