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Understanding data migration
In its simplest definition data migration is the process of shifting the data from one storage to another. This may include a change in the storage system or a complete switching of a computing environment. There may be several reasons why a software development company or an enterprise may need to volunteer for a data and application migration project. It could be a requirement for replacing servers, storage devices or decommissioning your current data center. Data migration is also considered an essential step when an on-site IT infrastructure of a company switches to a cloud computing (public, private, hybrid or multi-cloud) environment.
What is the need for data migration?
The need for data migration rises every time a new system is introduced in the setup. Also; at times it may involve application migration or consolidation of the data that is shared between one or more legacy systems. Similarly, requirements may also arise from the integration of an additional system with the existing application. Thus, irrespective of the nature of data migration the final requirement of the process is to improve the overall business performance and get additional advantage on the existing market competition.
Big data already existing or the data chunk is the main ingredient that increases the value of the enterprise applications. When this existing data is migrated or shifted to a new environment; flaws such as inaccuracies, unknown values, data duplication and redundant data become inevitable. There are also large possibilities that the data being used is already correct but is entirely inadequate; it may be faulty in terms of structure, content and is unable to fulfill the preset objectives.
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Businesses spend billions of dollars migrating data among information-intensive applications. Still, up to 75 percent of new systems do not meet expectations, the reason being the flawed migration process that results in data that is not properly validated for the expected task. With a proper understanding of the challenges, strategic data migration can deliver accurate results and mitigate the liability of business process delays, budget inefficiency and all other vulnerabilities that may arise.
The future of data migration – Cloud computing
Modern-day businesses are continuously generating growing chunks of data and are facing intense pressure to extract maximum value from it. This scenario has increased the pressure on the businesses to choose cloud-based environments to make sure that the data is stored securely, efficiently and is accessible for all.
Organizations are thus choosing cloud computing to host their software-based products in the most cost-effective way and with seamless performance. Thus selecting the appropriate data and application migration solution is certainly the key component of your migration process. This should be taken care of during the preliminary stages.
Regular system upgrades and data migrations offer various opportunities for surging businesses, increasing agility, enhance growth and focus on business opportunities. It also reduces capital expenses while migrating applications to an advanced environment. Therefore it becomes rationally important to choose the type of data migration from the existing 3 types; cloud migration, application migration, and storage migration.
Steps for an effective data migration process
- Quality check of the data – Before initiating a data migration process you need to determine the quality of your data. Redundant, duplicate or incorrect data can create serious issues into your freshly migrated system. This needs to be avoided at all costs as nobody wants vulnerabilities in their migration process. Strict profiling, mapping and correct evaluation of your data ensure that it fulfills the requirements of the new system. This reduces the overall risk of project delays, overruns and process failures.
- Assessment – You always need to complete your homework before jumping on any project. The rule also applies to ensure a successful data migration process. You need a solid game plan before hopping in. A pre-migration assessment always helps in tracking the errors that you may face in the future. The assessment can be divided between two basic categories which are project structure and technical aspects. The project structure includes components like pre-defined migration objectives, budget and project deadlines. The technical aspect may contain the outlining of the data migration process, a list of tools to be utilized and the overall timeline.
- Security threats – Data and application migration process may compromise on security settings and data permissions and leave your data vulnerable. This could lead to data theft, breaches, corruption and misuse. A block-level security scan can help in mitigating data security threats.
- Gather time to learn the new environment – Get yourself and your team enough time to learn everything new, as several things are changed during the migration process such as server security, uptime and data reliability. One must need to understand that are several other aspects other than technical challenges that may challenge or alter your business objectives post-data migration.
How offshore vendors can help?
- Get in touch with a reputed software development company, and leverage their expertise with data and application migration for different environments, to address your significant pain points. However, you need to choose your vendor skillfully as not all of them provide enough migration skills or follow a path that makes the process and experience a smoother one.
- An expert service provider can educate you about the kind of environments and multi-server clusters. These details are often not clear for the in-house IT staff as they are often engaged in different operations. Offshore development and migration experts can anticipate the questions that may be asked by the technical staff.
- Industry-level experience from professionals who have detailed knowledge about the migration elements can help you in making a planned business move. Leveraging such expertise can, therefore, be an invaluable asset for your business. From exploration and creation to planning and execution one can discover several pitfalls, outsourced expertise can help in avoiding these pitfalls at the right time.
