Provide IBM-supported tool to migrate Retention Sets, including all associated metadata and retention policies, from IBM Storage Protect to IBM Data Defender (Cohesity), enabling complete decommissioning of legacy Storage Protect environments.

Product Enhancement Request: Retention Set Migration Tool

Title

Retention Set Migration from IBM Storage Protect to IBM Data Defender (Cohesity)

Why is this useful?

Many organizations use IBM Storage Protect retention sets to meet regulatory and business requirements for long-term data retention, often for periods of 7 to 10 years or more.

In our environment, retention sets with a 10-year retention period were created on an IBM Storage Protect server running on AIX. Although backup operations have now been successfully migrated to IBM Data Defender (Cohesity), the legacy IBM Storage Protect server cannot be decommissioned because the retention sets remain tied to that platform.

As a result, organizations must continue maintaining the Storage Protect infrastructure, including the operating system, hardware, support contracts, licensing, and administrative effort, solely to preserve access to retention set data.

A retention set migration capability would eliminate this dependency and facilitate a complete transition to IBM Data Defender, reducing operational cost, infrastructure footprint, and administrative overhead.

Who should benefit from this?

This enhancement would benefit:

• Organizations migrating from IBM Storage Protect to IBM Data Defender (Cohesity).
• Customers with long-term retention set requirements for regulatory, legal, or compliance purposes.
• Enterprises seeking to decommission legacy AIX, Windows, or Linux servers after migration.
• Storage Protect customers modernizing their backup and recovery infrastructure.

How should it work?

IBM should provide a Retention Set Migration Tool that enables seamless transfer of retention sets from IBM Storage Protect to IBM Data Defender.

Proposed Functionality

1. Connect to the source IBM Storage Protect server.
2. Discover existing retention sets and their associated metadata.
3. Validate retention periods, expiration dates, and data integrity.
4. Migrate retention set data and metadata to IBM Data Defender.
5. Preserve all retention policies, compliance settings, and audit information.
6. Verify successful migration through validation and reporting.
7. Allow administrators to decommission the legacy Storage Protect environment once migration is completed.

Expected Benefits

• Accelerates migration projects.
• Eliminates the need to maintain legacy Storage Protect servers for archived retention data.
• Reduces infrastructure and licensing costs.
• Simplifies operational management.
• Preserves compliance and regulatory retention requirements.
• Improves customer adoption of IBM Data Defender.

Business Impact

Without a retention set migration capability, customers may be required to retain legacy IBM Storage Protect environments for many years after migration, resulting in increased operational costs and complexity. Providing a migration tool would significantly improve the customer migration experience and support modernization initiatives.