Software migration into Agile Apps

The software industry is undergoing constant?development.?Accompanying this change are the growing needs of your organisation, which can only be met with the most efficient software infrastructure solutions. Regardless of whether or not you have started to automate your operations, or reach the next level of your organisational complexity, you will inevitably find that the topic of software migration?is challenging both for your management and the agility of your organization as a whole. This article aims to act as your guide through the software migration process, and provide expertise to help you achieve better infrastructure solutions.

What is a software migration?

You may wonder what a software migration is, and why your organization needs one. There are certain situations during the expansion of your organization that requires a rethink of your company’s infrastructure. Some components of your infrastructure might become obsolete at certain stages of your company’s growth. Consider the software upgrades that your organization relies upon. Some software upgrades are automated in their entirety and the individuals responsible for them can handle them as part of their day-to-day routine. In this article, we will look at software changes which involve major decisions, planning and investment of time and money.

Why migrate your software?

Let’s investigate the common reasons for software migrations.

• Your organization might just be starting out; you have employed a few people, and you use a simple software like spreadsheets, shared document platforms, single-purpose proprietary desktop software. Now you need more coordination, data exchange, reporting and consistency.
• Your organization might use considerably outdated or even unsupported software. A software migration might be necessary for your system to continue operating due to security risks of unpatched vulnerabilities, and missing features.
• Your organization needs new features that are unavailable in currently used software. This might happen when the software you use does not meet your organization’s needs. Software updates provide many benefits, including the adoption of new processes, policies, organizational structure, and future objectives.
• The software you use is not efficient enough for carrying out your daily operations. As your organization grows, your software needs to be optimised, perform well, and streamline the company’s internal process.
• The software you use is not cost-effective enough to justify its current management and usage pattern. It is likely that you will find some integration or cloud-based software more economically appealing, and therefore transition to the new infrastructure that is needed.?
• Your in-house software team developed a major update to your internal software products, motivated by facilitating future development and maintenance of products. To sustain the development and quality of your software, you might need to periodically introduce major technical improvements which come with the extra update phase of performing a migration to the new version.
• Your organization may use old or faulty hardware. You might be forced to replace old hardware. This not only involves the migration of software and data as they are, but also the new hardware that might come with the latest software migration. This process will become more complicated depending on the compatibility of your existing software.
• There is a security or data breach and your infrastructure is compromised; it becomes vulnerable. You may have no choice but to look for some other distinguished vendor or custom solutions which include significant software changes that protect the system from future threats. These changes often lead an organisation to a migration plan with sophisticated security measures.

How to plan for software migration?

Software migration is complex, and inexperienced teams can easily and unknowingly fall into pitfalls.?Review the following points to gain a better understanding of what you need to account for when preparing for a successful software migration.

• Make sure that you have a reliable backup infrastructure. Ensure that your backups are up to date, and can accommodate for extra usage during migration when lots of temporary and intermediary data will be generated.
• Gather as much information as possible on the impact that software migration is predicted to have on your organisation. These include: people and knowledge required, expected (measurable) result, cost, time, risk of failure, rollback strategies, dropped functionality and exact stages of the migration process. These not only provide a good basis for effective communication, but more importantly they enable organisations to recognise whether or not migration is possible at all.
• Look for any proprietary data formats in use, and assess how this data is positioned within the new infrastructure. Data might be compatible, or require transformation. Some data might need to be re-entered manually.
• Be prepared for simultaneous operations of old and new software, as is the case for any non-trivial migration. You can decide whether some data needs to be duplicated, temporarily synchronised or dropped (and archived).
• Investigate the use of ready migration tools from vendors that you trust. There are many excellent software packages available which can speed up migration. However, you must be careful not to introduce any obstacles for migrating other software or data in a way that will defeat the purpose of the migration.
• Gather any existing documentation (technical and functional) on your old software, and write down any changes that are expected to happen or need to be made available alongside the new software. It is often the case that software is not properly documented, and you will need to seek a better understanding of it from those already using or maintaining it.
• Evaluate existing software for any unused features or useless capabilities. You can make your migration simpler and faster by not migrating what is not necessary.
• Find the best time frame for planned downtime during critical infrastructure updates. Secure as much time as needed for successful migration and hypothetical rollback action. This is usually scheduled for when your organisation exhibits the least activity, or during the processing of secondary workload.
• Plan ahead for any suitable training and feedback opportunities for users of the new software. Let them reach you with any issues early on, before any irreversible change is made to their operating environment.
• Plan for testing after each phase of the process. Involve end-users and automated software tests.
• Make sure you have at least one critical reason for migrating. Without a clear goal, resistance to change will eventually inhibit or interrupt the migration process.

A lot is involved when replacing key business application, why not give us a call to discuss your idea. We specialise in replacing outdated old software solutions and building apps that allow businesses to operate more efficiently including improving productivity, billing, reporting whilst utilizing mobile devices and the cloud to enable your business to do more!.

We have designed, developed and implemented systems such as Time & Attendance Administrations, ecommerce, product Inventory and ERP / MRP systems. We have worked in most areas of commerce from healthcare, manufacturing, engineering and financial, so we fully grasp the varied needs of your business.

Andrew James - Impact IT Solutions - www.impact-web.co.uk - Tel 0117 20 20 200