1. A method of migrating a plurality of data entries stored in a distributed data store from a source memory device of the distributed data store to a target memory device of the distributed data store while the distributed data store is receiving client data access requests, comprising: locking a data entry in the source memory device with a soft locking mechanism, where the locking is performed by an application executing on a computer system, wherein the soft locking mechanism comprises a migration thread associated with the application releasing the lock on the data entry when a client that is different from the application requests one of a non-transactional update to the data entry or a transaction on the data entry, and wherein the migration thread is at least partially configured to migrate a data entry from the source memory device to the target memory device in an atomic transaction; reading the data entry in the source memory device by the application; cloning the data entry in a shadow journal in the target memory device by the application; launching a plurality of alias redirection threads by the application, where each remaps one of a plurality of aliases of the data entry from referencing the location of the data entry in the source memory device to referencing the location of the data entry in the target memory device; and committing the data entry in the shadow journal to the target memory device by the application.