SBSI has been heavily involved in Data Migration Services recently. Migrating data comes in two primary options: one-time migrations and ongoing data transformation interfaces. Each migration is both a little bit of an art and a little bit of a science.
One-time migrations, by definition, are usually smaller and easier projects unless they are dealing with a substantial amount of information with a lot of complexity. A typical one-time migration project arises due to a company transitioning from one product to another. Obviously, the company would not want to re-enter all of their valuable data again just because they found a more suitable application to support their business. If that were the case, they probably wouldn’t make the transition at all.
However, many vendors only provide limited support in the realm of data migration to or from their product. Migrating data out of a vendor’s product is not exactly in their best interest as it means they are usually losing a customer. Migrating data into a vendor’s product is a great sign for the vendor, but they do not always have the resources available to deal with the complexities of the various needs of their clients and the various competitor products from which they are migrating.
Ongoing data transformation interfaces come into play when companies are making use of multiple applications for different aspects of their business that need to share data. The company often needs to continuously transfer data to keep both systems current and accurate. Often these transfers are one-way, but some are bidirectional, and some require user-input for each batch of transferred data. This kind of project involves more planning and 3rd party integration programming to be successful.
To create the interface between existing applications one must build another application itself and be aware of all the possible scenarios involved in the transfer of the data. Therefore a deeper understanding of the applications involved is necessary and one must account for all exceptions. With one-time migrations, one can handle some of the minor exceptions as they appear in the process.
The timing of the data transfers between applications is another important consideration. Often a batch-process running daily, hourly, or even every minute will suffice depending on the need to have the data updated in a timely manner. Sometimes the data may be transferred not only to other applications, but also to and from other applications, requiring a more complicated replication approach that allows for reconciliation of data with potential conflicts. Periodic batches may also require an additional user interface to allow approval of some of the data transferred.
Data Migration Services covers a wide range of levels of complexity, and involves a high level of communication to ensure that the data transferred meets the customer needs. Shaw Binary Systems, Inc. (SBSI) deals with all types of data migrations on a regular basis and works closely with their customers to explain the process clearly using high-level language that makes sense to them. The key to a successful migration is making this often low-level and complicated process into something digestible for those using the data.
