With technology, business requirements have evolved as well. The constant need for change has taken down many businesses that found it difficult to cope up. Data migration is one such change in the businesses industry that has brought about the need for meticulous planning and huge investments, but your efforts should not end here. For success, the right tools and exhaustive testing are also important.
Businesses have three well-defined and clear objectives.
- Engage Customers
- Involve through Innovations to the Market
- Find New Ways of Doing Business
Although the objectives are simply put, achieving them requires years of experience and street-smart skills. If you have managed to achieve these, you must have heaps of data that you would want to preserve whether you move around or are planning to implement a new ERP system. This is why you will need a conceptually simple task like data migration, however, the challenges faced, when going through data migration, are unnumbered. Before we get to the challenges, here are a few things that you should know for a better understanding of the challenges ahead:
Types of Data Migration
Database Migration
This is when data is migrated from an existing vendor’s database to a new one, or when your existing database is updated.
Application Migration
This is a product or need of the new era. When there is application migration in your business, i.e. from an enterprise server on-premises to a cloud database, or from one cloud environment to another, data needs to be migrated.
Data Center Migration
There are also times when a data center is moved from one place to another; for example, when you are expanding or shifting from one office complex to another. This is when data is transferred from the legacy database to the target center database.
Business Process Migration
Business process in this type of data migration refers to merger, acquisition or business optimization. Whenever the nature of a business process changes, it requires data transfer between various locations, applications or storage systems.
Now that you have learned about different types of data migration, you can match this knowledge with your situation and set an important level on your data. This importance level should be conveyed to your data migration service provider so that data is classified into categories according to urgency, importance, and useless. Even though you may think that every Kb file is important, instructing the service provider will do you good.
Challenges with Data Migration
Even if you invest loads of money, choose one of the best data migration tools and hire a team of IT professionals, there are still a number of challenges that you can face, with data migration.
Challenge # 1 – Data Loss Risk
This is one of the major risks of data migration. The costs involved with rectifying data loss and business costs that arise due to the use of poor data migration techniques add up to high risk for financials and reputation.
Challenge # 2 – Semantics Risk
This risk occurs when the legacy column of a database and one in the target column holds the same meaning but the values differ in terms of the measurement unit. As a result, the meaning of data changes. However, there is no risk here for data loss or corruption.
Challenge # 3 – Data Integrity and Data Corruption
Not only the format but also the content of data differs between the target and the legacy system. This happens during the data migration process, which is called data corruption. In another scenario, anomalies, redundant, duplicate, or non-meaningful data may also appear. All these issues relate to data integrity.
Challenge # 4 – Interference Risk
This normally happens when a number of stakeholders are accessing the source application at the same time during the transition process.
Challenge # 5 – Data Cleansing
This occurs when the owner or important personnel have not defined which data is business-critical, mandatory, non-business critical, and non-mandatory data. This is when the data migration process takes a lot of time.
Challenge # 6 – ETL Tool Selection
This is very important during the analysis phase. A decision to purchase an off-the-shelf product or hire a vendor-supported service can be a time-consuming decision. Weighing in the benefits according to what the business really needs instead of accumulating extra features will be the smart move.
Challenge # 7 – Test Migration
Establishing the correct migration timings and validating data is important before the actual data migration task is executed. A sample of data must be migrated to ensure everything is running smoothly and there is a chance for errors.
ExistBI is the leading data migration services provider around the globe. ExistBI has brought together the business and IT industry by providing impeccable products and solutions designed to enhance the decision-making processes and improve the overall experience of doing business in the modern, technology-driven world. They do this through experienced and certified software company professionals and representatives.
Now you can conduct your day-to-day operations with more confidence. For more information, visit www.existbi.com. You can also contact us on +1 866 965 6332 (Canada / US) or +44 (0) 207 554 8568 (UK / Europe).
