6 steps to a complete data migration

Previously, it was quite common, when talking about migrations, to refer to the migration of templates, blogs, and even the complete migration of a website . Now, the term migration has a broader scope, and is used to carry out other types of actions such as data migration

Projects that require data migration range from upgrading a server to moving to a new data center; from the launch of a new application to the integration of the resources of a newly acquired company.

Ideally, data transfer to a new platform, location, or architecture can be completed without loss of information and with minimal manual data manipulation or recreation.

If this process is new to you, here we tell you how and why to do it.

What is data migration?

It is the process of moving data from one location to another, from one format to another, or from one application to another. It is usually the result of the introduction of a new system or location for the data.

Data migration is now an essential component of data management and is the key to gaining 360-degree visibility. By implementing data migration practices in your organization, you can get a consolidated view of your organization and unlock the full value of your data.

9 reasons to migrate your database

If you still have doubts about the advantages that this process can bring you, keep reading

1. Provides agility

It is convenient that you are able to transfer data between different platforms and applications; Thus, as your technology needs change, you will easily upgrade to the best possible platform or application for your organization and take all the data with you. With data migration, your business is streamlined and avoids being trapped in specific platforms and providers that at any given moment may no longer be functional for you.

2. Encourage greater collaboration

Eliminating different data warehouses or repositories allows departments to work better together and gain complete visibility into what is happening in your company.

3. Provide a single source

Without a single source, data is stored in separate silos or warehouses and departments operate on limited information. Migrating data to a centralized warehouse enables analysts and managers to make decisions based on the data of the company as a whole (rather than from a single departmental data silo or system).

4. Improve data quality

For a variety of reasons, your data may need debugging. The data migration process gives us the opportunity to clean, transform, and avoid duplicating data as it moves, resulting in higher quality data. 

When data from all of our source systems is consolidated in one place, we can create a view of our customers and our companies. Production, customer and service data, sales and marketing information are equally valuable when making business decisions. Companies need access to all this data to make decisions that help them stay competitive in the market.

5. Accelerate comprehension time

Having to manually collect data from multiple source systems is time consuming. Data migration allows us to get all our data in a single storage system quickly in a large data warehouse in the cloud.

If analysts and other employees can access all the data they need from one system, they can immediately use it to make better decisions.

6. Save expenses

Using an old database can cost you a lot, you may even have to install other systems and applications to speed up the processes. With limited infrastructure, it can become increasingly difficult for your business to scale and becomes cost and time inefficient. 

It is more prudent to move your database to a platform that serves your purpose more efficiently and at the same time seek to help you save on the labor, infrastructure and experience necessary for support. Data migration will give you flexibility and improve reliability, security, speed, and disaster recovery planning for your system. It will also help you avoid or at least minimize service interruption.

7. Makes it easy to upgrade to new technology

One of the most common reasons companies choose to migrate data is to move from outdated systems to newer technologies that are better designed for today's data requirements. We live in an age of big data and your business must adapt to new and efficient storage technologies that will enable it to achieve greater business efficiency.

8. Reduce redundancy

One of the most important benefits of data migration is the reduction of redundancy. Moving your data to one place will help you minimize redundant or duplicate data and make it easier for you to access all data from all divisions of your company.

If your departments have different databases it can be very difficult to obtain information because their databases are not compatible. Data migration will mitigate this problem because you can have all your data in one place and be accessible to the entire organization.

 9. Fix your security problems

Cybersecurity has become a multi-billion dollar industry and one of the worst nightmares a business can go through. You need to understand that the database is one of the entities most vulnerable to cyber attacks, so if you don't update your database regularly, hackers will have a high chance of obtaining your valuable information. This makes it imperative to have up-to-date security fixes to avoid data breaches that put the stability of your business at risk.

In short, data migration offers business benefits. Companies that successfully migrated their data enjoy concrete benefits such as:

• A boost to productivity and efficiency.

• Updated applications and services.

• Reduced storage costs.

• Improved ability to scale resources.

• A decrease in unnecessary interruptions.

Data migration is a specialized activity that requires planning, especially if the project involves complex data. 

We share six steps to make your data migration.

How to do a database migration? 6 steps

1. Define the scope of the project.

2. Evaluate your resources.

3. Migration design.

4. Test design.

5. Developing.

6. Execution.

1. Define the scope of the project

If the project parameters are unclear, or if you haven't done a data migration before, doing this scoping exercise will benefit you. Make a plan before you start, first determine the critical areas of the project structure. The elements to include are:

• Stakeholders and their required deliverables.

• Knowledge of the business field, experience in systems and migration.

•  Communication plans and reporting requirements.

•  Budget and deadlines.

If you use a third-party provider to run the project, be clear about your own data set or you could end up changing the requirements and incurring additional fees. Be honest about the scale of the project, be aware of your scope, and agree on costs with the supplier. This also helps budget for an internally managed project.

Make sure communication paths are defined, project artifact versioning and storage are available, and hardware is ready and accessible.

2. Evaluate your resources

A clear methodology is essential if you want a robust, well-managed, staged approach to your data migration. 

Consider incorporating standards into your project. They are used to identify problem areas early on, making sure they don't reach the final stages with a hundred different problems to solve. 

You should also evaluate the available migration tools. In addition to evaluating its characteristics, the questions to consider about the migration software you use for the project would be: how flexible is your tool? Does it adapt to the skills of the people working on your project? If you use an outside company to manage the project, confirm if the software is included in the cost or if there will be an additional fee.

Initial assessment of staff skills and training requirements can reduce reliance on external experts and increase the team's confidence in the project. Will the people who carry out the project be there while it lasts? Are they trained and knowledgeable about the toolkits and methodology they will use? For those in charge, this process provides clarity about their role within the data migration.

3. Migration design

This stage plans the extraction, verification and transformation of the data. These basic steps will allow for an uninterrupted flow of data during the migration. 

The migration itself depends on the key artifacts being available at this point in the migration project. The migration design should include:

• How the data is extracted, stored and verified.

• Mapping rules.

• How the data is loaded into the new system.

• Recovery plans for each stage of the migration.

You will also need a timeline of the actions necessary to get started. 

4. Test design

The test design stage defines a general test plan for all stages of the migration. An initial overview should evaluate the tools, reports, structures, and limitations involved with testing. This typically includes how each stage is tested on a per-unit basis, then the entire migration is tested from start to finish to ensure data flows accurately.

The test specifications will define groups that contain individual tests for that particular area in the migration. Each test should be broken down into its component steps (including description and expected results).

5. Development

As we have established, it is important to create your data migration project in stages, especially in which different stakeholders participate. 

An agile and visible approach across all teams ensures that risks are mitigated as soon as they occur. It also provides test data relatively early in the process.

A test framework for development should also be created. This framework allows unit tests to be run regularly, highlighting any potential issues.

6. Execution

Drills are often conducted to test the action strategy, allowing the plan to be adjusted if necessary. When you're ready to start, go ahead. You can do it during the weekend to reduce interruptions in the operation of your organization and transfer your data piece by piece. Preferably, if your business goals allow it, it should be a parallel migration (keeping both platforms active). This can increase budgets and deadlines, but allows your team to address any issues that occur, with minimal disruption.

This process helps to ensure that the project is delivered successfully and that there is minimal risk.

7 tools to successfully migrate data

Today, there are tools to facilitate business data migrations. These include specific solutions offered by cloud providers to support your customers' move to their private or public cloud environment, as well as licensed and open source tools. Your data migration strategy will determine which tools work best for your project.

There are many options and that can confuse you a bit, so we have created a selection of tools that can help you carry out this process easily and quickly. Choose the one that best suits your needs.

1. Veeam

Provides a rapid migration tool to speed up and simplify the process of migrating VM-based workloads between storage environments and hosts.

2. Zerto

Provides a converged workload mobility, backup, and disaster recovery platform that supports migrations ranging in size from individual applications to entire data centers.

3. Rclone

It is an open source command line tool, which can be used to migrate data to and from cloud object storage. You can automatically segment large objects and load your parts in parallel.

4. Cyberduck

It is an open source FTP and SFTP client that can be used to transfer individual files or file volumes between hosts or in a cloud environment.

5. Quest

It is a tool that offers the data migration service to the cloud quickly and without losing data or damaging your downtime. QUEST offers to almost completely minimize the risks in migrations from Lotus or Exchange to advanced cloud solutions such as Office 365, for example.

6. Ora2Pg

It is a free tool used to migrate an Oracle database to a PostgreSQL compatible schema. It connects your Oracle database, automatically scans it and extracts its structure or data, then generates SQL scripts that you can load into your PostgreSQL database.

7. Azure Migrate

for data migration to the cloud, it provides technical support for critical migrations such as Windows, SQL and Linux Server, data, databases, web applications and virtual desktops. 

Now that you know the importance of doing a data migration, and some options that can help you with that, choose an implementation model that aligns with your business requirements and implement its use. By following this simple instruction, your data migration will be smooth, successful, and provide business value in terms of performance and security.