Data Migration: Strategies and Best Practices

21 JULY 2022

Migration of data may be a challenging task. It could be costly, drawn-out, and complicated. However, it’s frequently the best choice for enterprises that want scalability, agility, and security.

In the current world, databases are the backbone of every firm. The highest quality of data is necessary for all insights, patterns, and results. Planning for data migration is therefore necessary when switching from an older to a newer version of the system.

The process of migrating data involves several difficulties. Data is considerably more intricate than it can be copied and pasted. Certain migration techniques and best practises are required throughout the entire process. You must create a plan that outlines each phase of the operation.

In this blog, we will examine the various data migration strategies and best practices that help with improved data management while updating or relocating from old systems.

What is data migration?

Data Migration is the process of moving data from one database system to another. It can involve copying database data to a new system, making any required adjustments to the data, and restoring it.

It is frequently necessary when an organization decides to transition to a new system or improve its existing database platform. When a company decides to migrate its database from a traditional platform to a new, more scalable database platform, it can also be part of a bigger migration strategy. It is often used to move a database from a traditional on-premises database to a cloud database like Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud.

Types of Data Migrations

There are five types of data migrations there are,

Storage migration

Storage migration is the process of moving data or applications from one storage location to another. With a storage migration, you move all of your data and applications to another location, and they are subsequently duplicated in that location. This means that even if your main data center suffers a failure, your applications can still run, ensuring your business can keep operating even if the primary site experiences an issue.

Database Migration

Database migration is the process of transferring all or part of database data to a new database, a new server. It improves security, allows for the use of more powerful servers, and improves performance. It is also one of the most common application development tasks and is widely used in web application migration and data transformation tasks in application development, web development.

Application migration

Application migration refers to the process of copying an existing application and moving it to another environment, such as a different server, a different operating system, a different data center, or a different cloud.

Cloud migration

Cloud migration refers to the process of moving a business’s data or applications to the cloud. Cloud migration is generally viewed as a process that enables one to move their data to a specific cloud in the cloud platform, relying on an external service provider to store their data. Most businesses shift their data to the cloud because it provides so much storage capacity for such a low price.

Business Process Migration

Business Process Migration is when two businesses merge, either one or both of them must transfer information into the new system. The transfer of information as a result of a competitive risk or changing client expectations.

Data Migration Best Practices

Here are a few best practices to follow to make sure your migration process is successful.

Specify the Project Scope

When it comes to data migration, the first practice is to define the scope of the project. For example, is the goal to upgrade an existing database or build a new one from scratch? This will help you determine what technical expertise is required, and whether you need to involve a third-party consultant. It will also help you prioritize which systems should be targeted for migration, as the effort and cost will vary depending on the scope of the project.

Analyze Your Current Data

Understanding your data is an important practice in moving forward with the effective database migration. Some data may be able to remain in its present location. Some data may be duplicates or data that is no longer required. By analyzing your current data, you can develop a plan for migrating it to your new database. This plan should indicate what data needs to be moved, the source and destination locations for the data, and the schedule for when the data will be migrated.

Establishing a Realistic Time Frame

The migration should not impact your current business activities, thus spacing it out over time will allow the process to be as insignificant as possible. Make enough time in your schedule for unforeseen delays and extra work.

Identify Needed Vendors

Identify a vendor that can migrate your data to a new data platform. This vendor should be well equipped to handle all essential tasks for data migration, including preparing the data for import, backing up data, verifying data integrity, validating data completeness, and validating data accuracy. Vendors must have experience in both database migration and data integration to be considered viable candidates.

Back up Your Data

The possibility of data loss during a relocation is terrifying. When switching from old software on a server to new software, many businesses have lost data.

When performing a database migration, first consider whether the data can be backed up and restored separately. This will help you avoid any data loss and will allow you to troubleshoot any issues that may arise while migrating data. When the migration is finished, you’ll need to safely destroy your backups if you’re working with sensitive data.

Cleanse Data before Migration

Data Cleansing means when moving data from one database to another, you want to make sure that your data is in the best shape possible. You don’t want to re-create current data issues in a new place, especially in larger data sets that will become more difficult to audit as they become larger. This means that you need to cleanse your data so that it is ready to be moved to the new platform. It helps to remove undesirable records from the data, ensure that the schema is consistent, and purge extraneous metadata.

Test and Validate Migrated Data

You should check again to make sure everything is in the right location once you’ve successfully moved. Test your migrated data to see how it performs. The best way to do this is to compare the migrated data to the original data from the time database was first set up. Analyze the performance of the two sets of data to see how they compare.

Data Migration Strategies

Big Bang Migration Strategy

The big bang approach refers to the migration of all data from one source system to a destination database. When staff and consumers do not need to utilize the platform, most organizations implement this data migration strategy.

This technique has the benefit of allowing a business to finish the procedure quickly. Users don’t have to utilize two systems simultaneously, making it more convenient.

Trickle Migration Strategy

The entire migration procedure is broken down into several short migration phases with trickle data migration. Both a new database and an old database are active at once. Small data units are moved by an expert from the old system to the new one.

This method takes significantly longer than a big bang migration, yet there is no downtime for employees or customers. As long as the amount of data exchanged is limited, the application stays accessible.

Zero-Downtime Migration Strategy

Zero-downtime migration is a technique that enables data replication from the source database to the target database without causing any downtime. This approach ensures that the client can continue to access and utilize the source database while the migration process is ongoing.

The advantages of a zero-downtime migration approach include reducing business disruption, faster migration, and lower costs, particularly when considering the business impact and efforts required for an all-hands migration.

Conclusion

For successful migration process, all you need is a smart decision. The best outcomes will come from the execution if the roadmap is well drawn out. We discussed the various data migration types, strategies, and best practises that you must be employed during the migration process.

If there is still a discrepancy, then will need to seek the assistance of an expert to prevent data loss. You may easily handle your data transfer procedure by hiring an expert software development firm.

Data migration is on the horizon if your firm is updating systems, relocating to the cloud, or consolidating data. It’s a significant and essential project, and the data’s integrity requires that it be done correctly. Here at Star Knowledge, we go through a thorough data migration process from planning to post-migration. To detect instances of loss of data and corruption, our developers evaluate the information that has been saved in the new database. Contact us to learn more about options to meet your unique migration needs.