Glenn Johnson*
IT modernization and digital transformation usually involve incremental changes in existing systems. Occasionally, though, a rip-and-replace strategy may be necessary, one that requires migration of data from an old software system to a new one. Switching enterprise resource planning (ERP), CRM, or other central applications will involve such data migration between systems, which is never a simple task; the complexity of data-migration jobs can result in unexpected costs and add significantly to time-to-value. Mistakes made during migrations can lead to costly downtime, diminished end-user productivity, and the loss of important data.
With proper planning and a thorough approach, you can avoid some of the most common data and application migration project mistakes. Here are 10 tips to keep your data migration project on track:
1. Assess the applications and data.
Be certain to assess application functionality and analyze the app and its data from a business process standpoint. Consider the data types, transmission protocols supported, external dependencies, and input and output formats supported.
Things may have started out perfect, but it’s more than likely that data inconsistencies and data duplication were introduced over time with multiple users. So it’s important to sanitize the data before the moving the data over, by de-duplicating data and fixing any data integrity problems.
Your company’s business and validation rules may have changed since the legacy system was first built. Now is the time to make sure that the businesses rules are current and any questions or disputed processes are ironed out. Determine if any data fields need to be changed or added and ensure the necessary validations are included in the new database.
Click here to read more*Glenn Johnson is a senior vice president at Magic Software Americas. Johnson is the author of the award-winning blog „Integrate My JDE“ on ittoolbox.com and contributor to TheBusiness Week Guide to Multimedia Presentations (Osborne-McGraw Hill). He has presented at Collaborate, Interop, COMMON, CIO Logistics Forum, and dozens of other user groups and conferences. His interviews on software industry issues have been aired on NBC’s Today show, E! News, Discovery, and more.
