Safe migration of critical scientific data
The challenge
The organisation responsible for managing the Human Genome project possesses more than 9PB of vitally important data, spread across two main data centres. To keep this data more secure and more accessible, EMBL wanted to consolidate it into one data centre, alongside conducting a full audit and cabling review.
Given the sensitive nature of the data, EMBL demanded 100% guaranteed cabling accuracy. However, preliminary audit work uncovered several issues, including a lack of labelling protocols, no patching and asset documentation, densely populated racks, and a large amount of overhead proprietary SAN cabling.
Our solution
JSC was commissioned by Sunspeed to assist with this complex migration. Our services included: full hardware and connectivity auditing with labelling of all equipment and cabling; destination site rack layouts and patch schedule planning; creation of final design and migration documents; pre-patching of the environment with specialised techniques and equipment; migration of around 600 devices and 3000 cables; with reconnection and support of all connections.
The outcome
The migration went seamlessly, with a 100% success rate of more than 1500 data connections. The benefits for EMBL included:
- Complete transformation of rack configuration into a manageable, identifiable environment
- Full documentation of rack plans, asset schedules and patch schedules
- Uniform quality standards for equipment identification and cable specifications
