The Complete Guide to Data Migrations in Santa Ana
All businesses that utilize software, especially database-based solutions, will almost certainly have to move data at one point.
It’s possible that they are undergoing a digital transformation and will be required to automate data and execute a migration to their chosen data management platform. Or it could be that stakeholders have decided to transition their large datasets from their on-site server or data center to a virtual data repository via cloud migration.
Irrespective of your use case, to ensure a successful migration, there are certain systems a firm must implement to make the most of their investment and the time invested (as well as potential downtime) required to execute the migration.
In this piece, we're going to share what a data migration is, why they're useful, and the steps of a migration.
We'll also cover best practices for migrating which involve affairs like automating your business tasks and evaluating data quality and potential data cleanup opportunities.
Our mission is to give you the data migration tools you need to ease the burden of this operation. So, are you ready? Let's get to it.
What is a Data Migration?
First and foremost, what exactly is data migration? In the most basic terms, it's the act of transferring all of your company’s data from one database to another.
This can be process documentation, company assets, customer information - generally anything stored (whether the data is stored physically or digitally) and utilized to manage or support your business functionality.
Data Cleansing
Unfortunately, with many organizations, this is a lot of data. And as time goes, this information may have gotten pretty disorganized and there might be a significant volume of data that is no longer required, or obsolete, and is thus making your overall data quality weaker and less relevant.
That being said, there is an element to data migration, outside of simply moving it, that also involves what we call data cleansing.
This is the process of deleting or updating obsolete information, eliminating unnecessary data altogether, and potentially rearranging the information you would like to keep so that it’s easily obtainable for team members.
Data Governance
Furthermore, for many organizations who collect, use, store, or transmit sensitive client information, there’s also the element of data governance to think about.
Data governance involves why and how the information can be collected, who has authorization to access it, observing your client’s rights to the data, and verifying that it is safeguarded in compliance with industry regulations.
Data governance standards and regulations vary from industry to industry. A number of common frameworks include GDPR, FedRAMP, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and more.
Hence, an organization must ensure that not only is the data properly prepared prior to transfer, but also that how it is treated prior to and after the migration fulfills any criteria that the company is required to uphold.
Regardless, after the hard work is done, there are numerous advantages of executing a data migration for your business.
The Benefits of Data Migration
A well-planned and executed data migration can have a number of desirable impacts for your organization, such as the following:
Enhanced user experience while locating and sorting data
Greater efficiency, reliability, and viability
Enhanced data integrity
Lessen costs of managing unreasonable amounts of data
Increased data discovery (i.e. leveraging the right data to generate significant insights for your company)
Though, it should be mentioned that whenever a migration is poorly planned and the company refuses to perform its due diligence in preparing the data, migrations can actually have some major consequences.
This could be misplaced, inaccurate, or duplicated data. If worst comes to worst, it could potentially lead to the exposure sensitive information and non-compliance offenses. These can result in decreased productivity and lost revenue, some could cause severe reputational and financial damage.
Now that we've discussed what a data migration is and why it's helpful, let's now move on to the diverse phases of a migration.
The Data Migration Phases
A data migration project comprises three fundamental phases. The three phases are: preparation, migration, and post-migration QA. Let us examine each phase in further detail.
Phase 1: Preparation
Regardless of whether you’re considering a Jira migration in Atlassian Cloud or going with a hybrid platform such as AWS or Microsoft Azure, the preparation stays the same.
First, you have to assess all of your data’s dependencies and requirements.
Next, you must be aware of your hardware, bandwidth, and availability requirements.
From there, you’ll obtain your software and licenses.
Then, you will want to execute a pre-migration data cleanse to verify that outdated, unnecessary, incorrect, or excessive data is managed.
The cleansing phase will also involve how you’ll classify your data moving forward and the naming conventions you will use.
When your data is ready and your requirements are established, you can now start mapping out your migration strategy.
Will it be an all-at-once lift and shift, or will you have to migrate in stages to prevent lost efficiency?
You must also backup of your prepared data to assure that nothing is misplaced during migration, or if the migration is unsuccessful.
Develop and evaluate your migration process including data integration, automation, mapping, etc.
Phase 2: Migration
You are now ready to begin! In this phase, you may need to revisit some aspects of the planning process to regulate and configure the process to better meet your needs. Some of these duties could include:
Optimizing migration methods.
Assuring that hardware or software standards have been satisfied.
Putting your migration process to the test (Yes we are repeating ourselves because it is non-negotiable).
After, you can start the extraction from your old system to the new one. Once finished, you should ensure that everything has been properly mapped over and that all records were properly transferred.
Phase 3: Post-migration QA
In the post-migration stage, you should check for completeness. While lengthy, this is a crucial step to guarantee that you have successfully carried over the data that was supposed to be migrated. This includes:
Verifying that all field mapping and translation was done accurately.
Comparing both the old and new platforms to check for discrepancies and data loss.
Post-mortem analysis of the migration and the steps taken - this’ll be important if the migration needs to be repeated in the future.
And lastly, decommissioning your legacy tools and operations.
At this point, you may be feeling as though this entire process is a bit overwhelming. Don't worry! We have a few extra best practices that could help you guarantee that your migration occurs as smoothly as possible.
Data Migration Best Practices
As previously mentioned, the data migration operation will look different from one business to the next depending on the intricacy of your workflows and information, as well as the type of migration you are pursuing.
As such, there are a few best practices that are applicable in all migration plans which we will cover now.
Back-Up Your Data Before Migration
This should go without saying, but just in case: don't do anything until you have sufficiently backed up your data. We recommend backing up your data in its initial state and after it's been cleaned, so you’ll have both options in case of a conflict.
A recommended practice for this is to backup system images since, in the event of a data loss, restoration can be performed very quickly.
Perform a Pre-Migration Systems Audit
Understanding what you already have, what should be moved, where your deficiencies are, and where developments are required is a critical first step in ensuring your migration succeeds and is worth the time and financial investment.
This is notably useful for companies with low data integrity. It is necessary to "clean house" before migrating or you may end up jumping from one mess to another.
Plan Your Migration Carefully
It also is crucial to plan each step of your migration meticulously. When team members understand when systems may be unavailable (if migration cannot be scheduled during downtime) they can plan their work accordingly and avoid frustration and lost productivity.
Moreover, depending on the complexity of your migration, it may be necessary to migrate in stages based on systems so that there’s no need to take the entire firm offline at once.
This also increases your ability to examine and QA the migration for issues, piece by piece, as opposed to having to sort through numerous potential issues all at once which can only add to your frustration and downtime.
Perform Employee Training in Advance
An often forgotten aspect of migrations is prepping your personnel. To hasten the execution of new operations or innovation, it is important to educate your personnel on the new systems or organizational processes so that they are prepared to jump in and benefit promptly after migration.
Test, Test, Test
In the event that something goes wrong with your migration, you could always rely on your backups. But, this can quickly get complicated when you're trying to finish everything at once and have not thoroughly assessed your migration processes and the new systems.
Which is why we recommend thorough testing before, after, and during to guarantee that minor errors are resolved promptly before they snowball into something much more complicated and tedious to unravel.
Automate as Much as You Can
Via automating the data migration operation, you can enhance data integrity in the target system, obtain reporting on your progress and any problems that emerge, and audit your system in real-time to troubleshoot if something goes wrong. This’ll allow you to make your migration far more efficient and eliminate the possibility of human error.
Don't Forget the Post-Migration Review
Again, don't just assume that everything went according to plan just because there wasn't a breakdown or an warning. A post-implementation audit will assist you in ensuring that everything is up and running and that you could securely replace your legacy system.
Moreover, you should continue to perform checks and analyses of the new system over time to compare to your benchmarks and guarantee that your new solutions are not deteriorating over time.
Any performance delays, abnormal access patterns, possible security flaws, or other inconsistencies can be remedied if detected early on. If not, these can rapidly undermine the progress and value you got from your migration process.
How Wave Can Help With Your Data Migration in Santa Ana
If you're finding ways to modernize your back-office processes or enhance your digital transformation initiative, this could entail a partial or full data migration to a new tool or platform.
We could help you by working as a partner alongside your business to evaluate your existing systems and processes and discover opportunities to increase efficiency by implementing innovations or simply installing a few additional features where needed.
Should this involve data migration, we could provide a white glove service, assisting your organization to make a smooth transformation that leads to enhanced efficiency and productivity. We can supply step-by-step directions to ensure a cost-effective migration that leads to as little downtime as possible so you could get the most from your people, processes, and tools.
We happily work with over 60 industry-accepted ECM and DMS tools including SharePoint, OpenText, M-Files, and Oracle.
Now, if you are keen to learn more, get in touch with us today and we can schedule a time to chat about your next data migration initiative.