Data Migrations Pointers
Introduction
The digital transformation is already an integral part of our lives and digital awareness becomes our 2nd nature.
Part of this digital revolution involves many application implementation projects, in various fields which require migration of data.
As in any business decision, a project is set when an organization seeks to gain value from execution of the project. For example, moving to a cloud platform from an on-premise solution is a business decision to be made. As such, we would like to have the impact of this decision to be the best one in terms of our P&L.
In today's world, collection of revenues from our customers is challenging. Meeting the organization's margin targets is often achieved not only due to the revenues, but also on how efficient the organization is in terms of its operational excellence, i.e. its cost management.
A Dollar not spent, is a dollar earned !!!
Even if our revenues are consistent with the payment milestones set in the contract, while our ability to upsell is sometimes being compromised, we can still increase our margins if we are more efficient in terms of our cost management.
Many years in the software appllications business has proved me that data migrations are often a critical phase of many projects, and our ability to perform this phase successfuly, with minimum costs, is a big differenicator and a critical contributor to the ability to meet the margin targets.
In this article, I will try to share some of the considerations that should be applied in the principal scope and schedule of a migration project in order to maintain a healthy cost structure for the migration phase.
Reasons for Data Migration
Types of Data Migration
When you are facing a migration project, note the following to allow you to better preapre.
1.????Migration plan
Having a solid data migration plan does save hours when it comes to actually moving the data.
?1.1.?Evaluation of the data being migrated
Evaluation of the data being migrated and its impact on the business. It is not just an IT project.
Data provides value to the business and as such a migration plan must address the importance and value of the data being migrated to the business functions in the organization.
1.2.?Governance
Being clear on who has the rights to create, approve, edit, or remove data from the source system, and document that in writing as part of the migration plan.
?1.3.?Schedule
?Definition of schedule and operational checklists to implement the plan.
?1.4.?Migration fallback
Have a migration fall back procedure. Do not shut down or eliminate any component until you are fully convinced migration is approved also by the business functions.
2.????Stakeholder management
2.1.?Key Stakeholders
Identification and briefing of the relevant key stakeholders (internal and external). Notification to people who care about the data being migrated (technical teams and business teams)
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?2.2.?Stakeholder’s approval
?Receiving stakeholder's consent to the plan
?3.????Migration design
3.1.?Define goals of the migration
3.2.?Which systems are shutdown (apply both IT and business considerations)
3.3.?Which data to move?
3.4.?Cross-object dependencies. If cross-object dependencies are discovered late in the migration process, the price will be high.
3.5.?Evaluate the quality of that data before and after the move.
?4.????Execution
4.1.?Build and Test
Code the migration logic and test the migration with a mirror of the production environment data.
4.2.?Migration Software
?Insufficient data preparation software and skills - Invest in high data quality migration software (this is related also to automation considerations)
?4.3.?Migration steps
4.4.?Validate
5.????KPIs
Measuring Migration throughput.
Sincerely,
Boaz Ogen
For any clarification or additional information, please contact me at:
Boaz Ogen
052-854-9852