I’ve been listening to organizations talk about “digital transformation” for years. It’s an overused phrase that no longer captures today’s real challenge – how we store, manage, and use data to create value. It’s the challenge that led us to pursue AWS validation – becoming an AWS Select Tier Services Partner. To achieve this, we needed to demonstrate that we have trained and certified staff, an excellent track record of customer success, and capabilities to help customers design, architect, build, migrate, and manage applications on AWS. As a Select Tier Services partner, we’ll be able to work with our customers to migrate their data from tape and older legacy media to secure AWS cloud storage. This enables us to respond to a significant shift in the market.
Organizations in every sector are generating and relying on data more than ever. Yet, much of their most valuable information is stored on outdated tapes, disks, or other physical media. These archives hold knowledge that could drive progress, but the formats are obsolete, the hardware is retired, and access is slow or unreliable. It can’t be searched, shared, or trusted to feed the next generation of AI tools, power new discoveries or drive data-driven decision-making. Much of this data is irreplaceable – once it’s gone, it’s lost forever.
Most recently, there’s been a growing consensus that real transformation now lies in the cloud – creating data environments that are secure, structured, and always available to those who need them.
Why cloud matters
Cloud data migration enables organizations to transform static information into a dynamic resource; accessible anywhere, protected against loss, and scalable to meet evolving needs.
No longer just a technical choice, moving to the cloud is a strategic decision. As AWS explains in its overview of cloud storage, secure and scalable data hosting is now central to modern business resilience. When data is properly structured and securely hosted, it becomes the foundation for multiple operational processes, and innovation. It gives decision-makers confidence that what they’re looking at is current, complete, and correct.
For organizations managing decades of operational, research, or cultural data, this shift is vital. Without it, they risk losing not just information, but opportunity, and the ability to draw insight from their own history.
Why validation matters
For more than four decades, Ovation has helped organizations preserve and protect their irreplaceable data. We’ve handled everything from film reels and seismic tapes to scientific archives and fragile paper records. Across every project, one truth stands out: even the best-recovered data only achieves its full potential when it’s accessible, usable, and secure.
Cloud technology underpins this and is what led us to strengthen our cloud services and seek AWS validation. Our goal was simple: to give our clients confidence that their information is handled with the same rigour, resilience, and forward-looking approach they’d expect from the very best in the industry.
Making data ready for the future
Ovation’s media audit and tape-to-cloud migration services make the transition from physical to digital seamless. We meet organizations wherever they are on their data journey, sharing and adapting our expertise to their needs.
Our approach encompasses every (or any) step, starting with an assessment of the existing data, its location, and the formats in which it is stored. We can recover, transcribe, and structure data, apply metadata and add quality checks to ensure completeness and reliability. Validated data can be securely transferred to AWS cloud storage, becoming instantly accessible, searchable, and ready for use.
This approach brings clear benefits:
- It’s scalable, allowing large and complex datasets to be handled efficiently and securely, regardless of their location.
- It brings a high level of security with encryption, verified chain of custody and tracking protecting the data.
- It means work gets faster, because teams can retrieve and analyze information instantly, eliminating the need for waiting on hardware or physical access.
- It’s sustainable because once in the cloud, data supports AI, reporting, and analytics without needing to be reprocessed. The risk of loss, damage, or deterioration to physical media is also mitigated.
In this way data becomes usable for decisions that save time, cut costs, and spark new discoveries. For our clients, it delivers a data layer that’s ready to support whatever comes next.
Looking ahead
Every organization’s data journey is different, but the destination is the same: having information that’s clean, structured, and ready to use. By continually investing in cloud expertise and infrastructure, Ovation ensures we can help clients bridge the gap between the data they have and the insights they need.
Contact us to learn how Ovation Data’s cloud migration services can help your organization make legacy data accessible, secure, and ready for the future.
