For some time I have been working on and thinking about a Data Center Efficiency Maturity Model to help us poor operational folks work out just how well or badly we are doing on a scale of one to five. I have also been doing some thinking about a Continuous Migration Architecture (CMA) that recognizes the reality that IT systems are not static entities but are in a process of continuous change.

CMA is a bit like playing snooker or billiards well, it’s not just about potting the right ball consistently but also about lining up to make the best of the next shot. Thats how the professionals play and it’s exactly how the very best Operations guys have been thinking for years but we’ve never had a term to describe it or a formal methodology to help us with our thinking and planning.

So when I heard about HDS’s new High Availability Manager that is designed to enable customers to do constant and dynamic data migrations it really struck a chord.

Here is one of the basic rules of the Continuous Migration Architecture, you change it once and set yourself up so the next time you have to change it (and believe me you will) it is easy. Sounds simple, perhaps, but try doing that level of thinking when you are under intense time and cash pressure to simply just get the first change done!

The HDS High Availability Manager means that in at least one corner of the data center planned downtime can be eliminated and Continuous Migration is enabled.

Here is what Thompson Reuters had to say about the product:

(High Availability Manager gives us) the ability to seamlessly migrate data between arrays, and to refresh the SAN non-disruptively