Backup and migration
Move existing hosts to the cloud and build tiered backups at the same time — snapshots for recent restores, archive storage for long-term retention.
The challenge
- 01Ageing hardware, but migration downtime is a worry.
- 02Backups are scattered and hard to find when you need them.
- 03Long-term data sits on expensive storage.
Reference architecture
How it rolls out
- 01
Assess and plan
Engineers inventory systems, data volume and downtime windows, and propose the order of moves.
- 02
Back up, then move
Everything is backed up to object storage first, then moved in batches with a way back at every step.
- 03
Cut over and verify
Cut over in the agreed window, check data and functions one by one, and retire the old environment only when everything matches.
- 04
Keep backing up
After go-live, set automatic backups and retention, with copies in another region.
How a customer uses it
A trading company with twenty years of history
- Before
- ERP and file servers sat in an office rack on ageing disks with no off-site backup; one power cut stopped the business for a day.
- After
- Our engineers planned and ran the migration and cut over in one weekend. The systems now run in the cloud with daily backups to another region.
2 days
To cut over
0
Data lost
Daily
Off-site backups
Design notes
Migrate, then cut over
The migration tool syncs in the background; switch traffic only after verification to keep downtime short.
Three tiers of retention
Snapshots for recent restore points, infrequent access for months, archive for years.
Rehearse restores
The only proof a backup works is a successful restore.