The cost of migrating to a new storage array adds about 54 percent to the price of the new array and involves complexities including application downtime, writes Wikibon CTO David Floyer in “The Cost of Storage Array Migration in 2014”.  This discourages migration to new array technologies such as Server SAN and solid-state storage, delaying their adoption.

This means that the total cost of migrating to a new $300,000 array is $163,000 according to Floyer’s calculations. This includes the cost of moving the data, planning and testing, which Floyer estimates will take a total of five months. It also includes the cost of buying the new array five months before it goes into the production environment and the cost of keeping the old array for three months after it is taken out of production in case a problem arises with the new array.

Additionally, he says, migration invariably involves some downtime for the database and its associated application. Users operating in today’s 24X7X265 world resist having core applications unavailable at any time, making scheduling an issue. And differences in the management systems attached to the two arrays can cause complications. These can be eased if the storage is virtualized, but that introduces other overhead costs.

Like all Wikibon research, this Professional Alert is available without charge on the WIkibon Website. IT professionals are invited to register for free membership in the Wikibon community, which allows them to participate in Wikibon research and post their own comments, questions, tips and research to share with the community.