Workload mobility is increasingly essential for organisations, but they also have islands of data hosted in multiple cloud environments that they need to move and use securely. The strategy to manage this sprawl must be built on effective data management, says data management and mobility company Veeam Africa cloud and hosting manager Trent Odgers.

All data, regardless of where it resides, requires continuous backing up, testing, and measurement of its recoverability in the event of a disaster. Workload mobility should inform and guide the data management and protection strategy of an organisation.

However, workload mobility is not about accessing data from tablets and smartphones, but specifically deals with the management of workloads between customer sites and other cloud models, such as public, private or hybrid.

“The underlying project to manage data effectively is a complex exercise, especially given the security and regulatory concerns of the digital landscape,” he explains.

The basics of such a strategy require a solution that is capable of taking a backup of a physical server or virtual machine workload and moving it to a hosted environment in such a way that the data is structured and unpackaged according to the requirements of the cloud provider.

The benefits of having such a strong strategic foundation include greater organisational agility, better data recovery, and improved availability, as well as unlocking more testing and development options. Organisations can, thus, more effectively embrace a multicloud strategy with less risk and complexity, while ensuring compliance is adhered to.

“Once this migration of data is completed, the business can simply turn on the workload and access the data in the new environment. Such a strategy makes adopting a public cloud platform user friendly and cost effective. Similarly, if the data needs to be moved back into the previous environment, or to a new one, an effective, rigorous data management solution automates and eases much of the process.”

Data mobility also relates to the concept of cross-cloud mobility. Any transitions between cloud service providers or environments need to happen as seamlessly as possible to avoid impacting on existing operations, says Odgers.

“However, cloud mobility is more complex than only migrating workloads across different service providers. Organisations must be cognisant of the security precautions that must be put in place if the worst should happen, as well as the networking requirements. There must be testing, and an impact analysis carried out beforehand to ensure a smooth transition,” he advises.

From an organisational perspective, in the beginning of the cloud adoption journey, a company cannot switch off one environment and turn it on in another cloud environment. Therefore, a company must first move a backup, test to see if it works, and monitor to see if it delivers on what the business requires. Only once it has been tested and approved by the infrastructure, security and compliance officers can the switch-over process begin.

A challenge is the perception of the safety of data in the cloud. While data centres are significantly more secure than what local companies can afford to have on site, shared responsibility is an important aspect of cloud environments.

“Regardless of what service-level agreements are in place, cloud service providers will rarely guarantee customer data or availability. It is the responsibility of the organisation to ensure that its on site data and the way it is migrated to a hosted provider are secure.”

Organisations must then determine how much data could be lost and this needs to be mapped back to how frequently the provider is backing up. Similarly, the cloud vendor cannot move customer data without ensuring there are backups in place to avoid any loss or risk to the business, he advises.

“Cloud mobility will soon become a business requirement. Data is too important as a resource to be locked away at a single provider. Organisations must review how they approach their data management and ensure they have the systems in place to accurately and safely manage potential migrations,” concludes Odgers.