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Data migration is an essential aspect of every enterprise. Moving data from legacy systems to modern applications enables companies to keep up with the competition and optimize the use of data. At ShiftAhead, data migration is part of our IT infrastructure management proposition. We come across companies that require comprehensive data migration support to achieve the desired results. If you also are planning to migrate your data, these four tips can positively help your strategic venture. On the cloud or otherwise.
1. Give Migration the Time it Requires/Deserves.
Many companies fail with data migration as they rush through the process. Of course, the necessity is understood. You might have a dying legacy system, the data of which may require an immediate transfer. But what if hurrying up costs the data losing itself?
The key is to plan the process with the help of experts well in advance and give migration the time it requires. Remember, retaining data and its quality are the essential aspects here. Of course, the cost is an important aspect. But if you plan the process meticulously, you can balance cost and data quality.
2. Know What Needs to be Migrated
You have zillions of bytes of data across your server. But you might not be required to migrate every bit of it. Data migration can be an excellent opportunity to identify what’s necessary and what should be moved to the new system. It includes identifying duplicate data, obsolete data, etc. This way, you can reduce the load, effort, resources, and time required in data migration.
Some data, like customers and products, can be migrated ahead of your go-live date.
Besides, you can migrate historical data like sales history any time after your new system is live. You should create a clear and practical move timeline. It will help you control the scale and cost of the project. Underestimating the scope can result in overrunning on time and money in the most conducive situation. In the worst scenario, it could lead to a complete failure!
3. Migrate in Phases
Of course, who wouldn’t want to complete the data migration process in one go? But things don’t work like that in reality. Migrating in phases helps you organize the process and migrate comprehensively and successfully.
Implementing a data freeze, which is data after which your staff cannot make edits to the source system for the migration, is recommended. The data could be frozen as close as a day before the data migration process. But it is worth noting that edits aren’t made to the connected areas of a system, the migration for which is already done.
4. Test the Process
Data is critical to your business. Hence, you should not rely on the big transfer and only expect everything to fall into place. Rather, you must perform preparatory tests to ensure the migration performs as desired. Once you are sure that the migration progresses per your expectations, plan the final date and perform the actual process.
It will incur some time and cost for sure. But testing is imperative from the results perspective. You wouldn’t want to repent later or spend a fortune rectifying errors that resulted from proceeding without testing.
Looking for data migration assistance and IT infrastructure support in the form of managed IT support or with Cloud Ops ? Connect with ShiftAhead with our experts who can help you plan every aspect of IT infrastructure support, help you maintain high infrastructural uptime, and derive optimal results from it. To know more, write to us at info@shiftahead.tech
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