Automating Server Migrations into the Cloud
The trouble most solution providers have with migrating servers into the cloud is that it’s generally a one-time event that is hard to build an ongoing IT service practice around. Not only does the migration usually require a fair amount of time; each server migration can take weeks to migrate. But once it’s done the solution provider winds up with a lot of expertise in server migration that can only be reapplied only so many times.
For that reason WSM International has made a business out of working with solution providers to automate server migrations as much as possible. As of today, WSM International is now offering those server migration services at a fixed price starting at $849 per Linux or Windows Server.
WSM International CEO Ryan Pelerin said that reason his company can provide a Server Image Migration Service that includes the source environment and tool assessment, software license fees, creation, transfer and restore of the server image from source to destination, and testing instructions for customers to validate the image restore, is because that’s pretty much all they do.
Pelerin said that WSM International has already gone to the trouble of evaluating and licensing cloud migration tools; which means solution providers that make use of its service don’t have to go to the trouble of doing either. In fact, Pelerin says that roughly 70 percent of its business comes via IT services partners rather than internal IT organizations and the company since 2003 has completed over 250,000 server and application migrations.
The only information that WSM International needs from a customer is the number of servers and operating system (OS) versions that need to be migrated, and the primary data service, workload or application stack on each server. WSM migration analysts will then assess the infrastructure and applications to figure out what migration software to use. Pelerin said the image creation, transfer and restore occurs without disruption to ongoing IT operations, and is tested thoroughly to ensure the image restore succeeded at the new destination prior to going into production.
WSM also provides optional professional services in cases where transformation, version incompatibilities, application refactoring, delta data syncs or other technical tasks are needed to ensure migration.
Naturally, most solution providers can take on this task themselves. But the truth is that most of them don’t make a lot of money moving servers and applications into the cloud. It’s only once they get to the cloud that they start generating recurring revenue for managing those applications and servers on behalf of the customer that they start to make money. At the same time, once an organization does decide to move to the cloud they generally want that to happen as quickly as possible. As such, as part of a larger cloud management contract the internal IT organization never really has to know what it cost the solution provider to migrate their servers into the cloud. All they need to know is that it can occur a whole lot faster than most of them have come to expect.
