Data migration is the process of moving data from one system or storage device to another. This can include moving data from the source operating system to a new target system, application migration of data from one app to another, or storage migration from on-premises data storage to a cloud platform, such as data warehouses and data lakes. Although there are various ways of moving data, every type of migration can benefit from having a migration strategy.
Ensuring proper data transfer is a key component of data migration plans. This means that there need to be contingencies in place to ensure no data is lost as part of the transfer. This will often require ensuring that the current data storage solution is backed up in a secondary location before starting any migration process. Data management is an especially important consideration when conducting a database migration. This includes ensuring there is adequate memory and data storage available, as well as monitoring the build of the database both before and after all data migration projects.
Securing your data during a cloud migration can help protect your organization from cybersecurity issues, data breaches, fines, and legal repercussion. By adding extra security measures such as encryption to protect against cybercriminals and malware, continuous data validation to ensure only the most relevant and necessary information is being transferred and training your employees on proper cloud security protocol with a detailed training plan and informative seminar on security protocols, risks, and standard cybersecurity best practices, can help you further protect against data breaches and ensure success.
Data migration assessments are a fundamental best practice for migration success. Through proper assessment, organizations can develop a clear vision of the entire data migration process of moving data between systems, devices, and formats. Data migration assessments should identify the potential risks and benefits, where specific data or a system is located, and where it will migrate. The evaluation should also outline a detailed timeline and budget for the project.
When moving to the cloud or across cloud services, there are a variety of migration tools available that can help simplify the process of moving data. Data migration tools are often specialized for different types of data, such as specialty software for creating a data warehouse or data lake from on-premises data storage, or tools for moving from one cloud database to another. Depending on the type of migration, these tools may be able to help set up data pipelines that allow for automation and analyzing of data as it is ingested. This type of data integration can help streamline business processes and analyses going forward. Data migration tools often have built in redundancies to help prevent data loss or corruption as part of the migration process.
Data migration can be a complex and daunting process because it involves moving critical data and impacts both internal and external stakeholders. To manage this complexity, most data migration projects are broken down into three key phases: Planning, execution, and verification.
The initial and most pivotal phase, where you assess, purify, and analyze your source data, develop, and test migration scenarios, and create a formal data migration plan.
The implementation phase, where you will carry out your migration plan, after thoroughly testing your solution to ensure its effectiveness.
The final phase is validating your migration process, conducting data validation, and confirming that all required data was successfully transferred. During verification, you will check for errors and data loss and decommission any legacy systems that previously supported your data to reduce costs and optimize resources.
From properly identifying data sources, incompatibility between legacy and modern data formats, lack of governance, to unclear requirements and lack of documentation, data migration can be a risky and challenging landscape to navigate. Therefore, a robust migration strategy is recommended and should be applied to ensure optimal results.
Despite the challenges and risks of data migration, an effective migration process can provide significant benefits for your business, including: