Flexify.IO shares Musify case study and best practices for others embarking on data migration.
Storage virtualization provider Flexify.IO is sharing a case study which describes how Musify, a streaming music service provider based in Japan, used Flexify.IO to achieve 80% cost savings and improved performance.
When CEO David Liu launched Musify, he chose Google Cloud Platform (GCP) in Tokyo as its cloud service provider. As Musify grew and required more and more storage, the volume of stored data reached over 500TB rather quickly. At the same time, Musify’s customer base was expanding beyond Japan to include Latin America, Europe and beyond, introducing latency issues to the equation. Predictably, the costs to store and move all that data began to skyrocket.
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Liu discovered that migrating his data to Backblaze B2 in the U.S., while taking advantage of their partnership with the content delivery network offered by Cloudflare, would save him about 80% over what he was spending with GCP. Not only would storage and egress costs be greatly reduced, but also network performance would be improved for Musify customers. After contemplating the technical and logistical challenges of doing this migration himself, Liu discovered Flexify.IO through a Google search.
“After the first call, I was convinced partnering with Flexify.IO was the way to go,” recalled Liu. “It was a no-brainer because they’ve already solved all the problems I would have had to solve myself. They’ve already completed many migrations of this type with clients like us. They’ve seen all the things that could go wrong and have thought about problems that wouldn’t have even occurred to me.”
**The Challenge**
Musify had several unique needs that required a tailored approach. First, Musify had many outdated objects that the company didn’t need to pay to move, so they provided a list of files to Flexify.IO for the migration project. Segmenting parts of the data in this way inherently made the project more complex than moving all of the data in its entirety.
Secondly, all of Musify’s data had been stored in one bucket with GCP, although the data comprised three different types of objects, each type being a different size. This could cause problems to arise over the course of the migration. An “off-the-shelf” migration solution was not going to work for Musify.
Although Liu and his team had the engineering skills to get the job done internally, the time and effort required would take them away from the more important work of continuing to build their business and meeting the needs of their growing global client base. Ultimately Liu decided that such a distraction was not wise, and he went looking for viable alternatives.
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**The Solution**
The first challenge of working from a list of files rather than all of the data stored with GCP Tokyo required Flexify.IO to develop a tailored strategy. The Flexify.IO team was able to successfully implement a new feature in Flexify.IO to support this more complicated task, and they did it in less than two weeks.
When it came to Musify’s storage architecture, Flexify.IO guided Liu in thinking about future scalability by suggesting the separation of songs, lyrics and images into three different buckets at Backblaze B2, which optimized the migration in terms of storage. Although it added another layer of work to this migration project, implementing an architectural improvement was a strategic move that Musify had not considered doing on their own. It also afforded Musify the opportunity to do some much needed clean up, creating a fresh start for their next level of growth.
“I appreciate the time Flexify.IO took to offer advice and insights, going above and beyond, offering considerations I hadn’t thought about,” said Liu. “It was an awesome work experience all the way, from the first call. We were able to start the migration together and debug together, resolving it very quickly and efficiently. Our partnership with Flexify.IO has been one of the best partnerships I’ve had with a third-party vendor.”
In the end, Musify’s migration with Flexify.IO was completed in a fraction of the time it would have taken Musify to manage it internally. Through a combination of informed choices, custom coding and knowledge of how to leverage networking options, the partnership between Musify and Flexify.IO resulted in improved performance and options for migrations that might be needed in the future.
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**Five Key Considerations for Large Data Migrations**
The choices made by startups at the beginning of their lifecycle rarely serve the needs of the company as they scale in deployment size and expand geographically to serve new markets. But data migration doesn’t have to be a cumbersome or risky undertaking when you go about it strategically. Having managed dozens of large-scale data migrations, Flexify.IO offers lessons learned that organizations can use to avoid headaches in the migration process. Here are 5 key things to consider to make data migration seamless:
1. Egress fee structures should be considered from the beginning.
The choice of cloud service provider and region are extremely important at the very beginning. Founders and lead engineers often choose a cloud service provider based on who they’ve worked with in the past or they default to one of the Big 3. What is not considered is the future cost of storing a growing amount of data as the business scales, and sticker shock is often a reality. Comparing egress fees for future migrations is a vital step to consider from the beginning.
It is also important to choose a region for your cloud service provider with your future customers in mind. You’ll want to remain agile by having your data close to your growing global customer base, so keep in mind that conducting an inter-continental migration is a costly endeavor. Close to home isn’t always the best location to begin this journey.
2. Consider getting help with migrations to optimize your engineering staff’s time.
Although you may have assembled a strong team of engineers with the skills to handle a large data migration, their time and focus may be better used in service- and growth-focused activities. Partnering with a cloud migration solution provider can keep your internal team from being stretched thin. Also, every data migration project is different, and experience is the best teacher on how to overcome the challenges of major data migrations. Having a seasoned partner that can anticipate and navigate hurdles and implement solutions with ease is ultimately a wise investment.
3. Make sure the cloud service provider you’re moving to has relationships with service providers that your apps need.
Part of your research in selecting the storage vendor you’ll move to should include the discovery of agreements those storage providers have with the other service providers in your service delivery stack. For instance, consider what kinds of favorable partnerships the storage providers have with your preferred CDN. Thinking this through early on can save time, frustration and money.
4. Take advantage of the migration to consider updating your storage architecture to something that’s more efficient and performant.
Data gets unwieldy over time. Migration offers the perfect opportunity to conduct spring-cleaning to purge, tidy and reorganize your storage architecture.
5. Make an internal verification plan.
Technically, there’s a lot that can go wrong in a migration project. Whatever technique or service you’re using, look for features that will make tracking the progress and performance easy (like a real-time dashboard). Ultimately, you want to make sure that the migration solution verifies data integrity by collecting detailed statistics and by providing a migration report that gives you the ability to confirm success.
Major data migrations can be a massive undertaking, which is why bringing in a data migration solution provider is something every organization should consider as they grow. Capitalizing on the experience of a data migration solution provider can keep your engineers in forward propulsion, save your organization a lot of money and headaches, and provide an opportunity to structure and streamline your data storage architecture to support your expansion now and in the future.
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