Live Sync & Live Migration
Migration and Synchronization Without Extended Operational Downtime
Seamlessly Migrate Existing Systems and Continuously Protect Critical Workloads.
Live Migration and Live Synchronization address two distinct requirements:
a) Migrating existing production IT systems to new infrastructure without modifying them or causing extended operational downtime, while continuously protecting critical systems against failures. This applies to both physical bare-metal systems and virtualized environments.
b) Migration without interrupting ongoing business operations during the transfer process.
Live Migration transfers existing systems to a new platform without modifying them. During the initial migration, the source system remains fully operational. Any changes made during the transfer are continuously synchronized to the target system.
The migration is completed only when the source and target systems are fully synchronized. The migrated system is then verified to ensure that it operates correctly on the new infrastructure and that all required workloads are available.
Only after successful verification is the original system shut down.
This enables the controlled migration of physical and virtual server environments to new HCI, Private Cloud, virtualization or data center platforms without having to modify the existing production system beforehand.
Live Migration licensing is limited to the duration of each migration project. License costs per migration are particularly low and apply only for the period of the respective migration.
Live Synchronization – Continuous Protection of Critical Systems
Live Synchronization, by contrast, is designed for continuous operation. Business-critical systems are continuously synchronized with a second, separate infrastructure.
After the initial synchronization, complete datasets no longer need to be transferred repeatedly. During normal operations, primarily incremental changes are transmitted as small data deltas. This minimizes additional bandwidth requirements.
Live Sync licensing is designed for permanent use because synchronization remains an ongoing component of the business continuity and cyber resilience strategy.
Why Backup Alone Is Not Enough for Critical Systems
Reliable backups are essential. However, they do not automatically answer the most important question:
How long will it actually take for a failed production system to become operational again?
If hardware or an entire server fails, having a backup is not enough. A suitable operating platform must first be available.
Depending on the environment, replacement components or complete server systems may need to be procured. In government agencies, public institutions and larger organizations, additional approval, purchasing or formal tendering processes may be required.
This is followed by hardware delivery, installation and configuration, restoration from backup and final technical verification.
Even with an existing backup, restoring full production operations can take hours, days, weeks or, in unfavorable circumstances, even months. For business-critical systems, such recovery times can be unacceptable.
Traditional backups are also often performed during scheduled maintenance windows, such as overnight, to minimize disruption to business operations. If a failure occurs during the working day, the latest available backup may already be older than the current production data.
Live Sync Shifts the Critical Moment
With continuous Live Synchronization, a second, up-to-date and prepared operating environment is already available before a failure occurs.
If a critical system or a defined group of systems fails within the production network, the synchronized environment can take over its functions. Following a defined verification and switchover process, operations are started on the synchronized environment — depending on the architecture, within seconds to minutes.
The key advantage is that production data is continuously synchronized until immediately before the failure.
The replacement environment functionally takes over from the failed system for users, applications and connected systems. A productive operating environment becomes available again within a short time, making the recovery of the original system far less time-critical for business continuity.
Recovery Without Production Pressure
While employees continue working on the synchronized environment, the original infrastructure can be restored without immediate time pressure.
Administrators can, for example:
-
Analyze and replace defective hardware
-
Procure and install new systems
-
Rebuild operating systems and applications
-
Restore the latest available backup
-
Verify and approve the recovered environment
Meanwhile, production data continues to evolve within the Live Sync environment. This prevents a gap in the operational data history between the original system failure and the subsequent restoration of the primary infrastructure.
Controlled Resynchronization to the Original System
Once the original or newly rebuilt production platform is fully available again, the latest data generated during recovery operations is synchronized back. The existing backup can first be restored to the recovered infrastructure. Live Sync then transfers only the changes made since that backup.
Once both environments are fully synchronized and the original production platform has been successfully verified, a controlled failback is performed.
Live Sync can then return to its original role, continuously synchronizing the production systems with the resilience or disaster recovery environment.
This keeps data consistent throughout the entire process — from the initial failure through temporary operations to the restoration of the original production environment.
Reducing Downtime from Hours or Days to Minutes
The decisive advantage is not simply faster data transfer.
Without Live Synchronization, resuming operations may depend on procuring replacement parts, delivering hardware, installation and restoring data from backup.
With Live Synchronization, this recovery window is reduced to the defined verification and switchover time of the prepared replacement environment.
While repairs or hardware replacement may continue in the background for hours, days or considerably longer, production operations can resume on the synchronized infrastructure after a short interruption.
From Migration to Continuous Cyber Resilience
Live Migration and Live Synchronization can be combined seamlessly.
Existing physical or virtual systems can first be transferred to new infrastructure through cost-effective, time-limited Live Migration.
Particularly critical systems can then be continuously synchronized with a second data center, disaster recovery site or resilience platform using permanent Live Synchronization.
The goal is to migrate existing systems to new infrastructure without modifying them or causing unacceptable operational downtime — and then protect particularly critical workloads so that hardware, system or site failures no longer result in prolonged business interruptions.