7 Things to Consider before a Successful Software Migration

Nowadays, there is a massive demand for software migration. Many businesses follow the latest tech trends and move from old on-premise solutions to new cloud ones. Examine the challenges your company can face during data migration and check the essential points before starting this process.

WHAT IS SOFTWARE MIGRATION?
Before we jump into the discussion of software migrations, we need to outline what this process is about. Software migration is the process of moving data from an old system to a new one. It is a usual operation in case of upgrading software or switching to a new platform. There are a few common types of data migration:

Storage migration (relocating the data from an outdated system to a new solution).
Cloud migration (moving data from on-demand server to cloud).
Application migration (moving the app software to a new system).
MORE ON TOPIC: The Guide to Data Migration | Types, Tools, Approaches, Challenges, Phases and Comparisons

WHY LAUNCH SOFTWARE MIGRATION IN YOUR COMPANY?
The next thing we need to define is the reasons the company has for software migration. As we mentioned, businesses launch migration in many cases because they need to update the system. Companies used to think about the migrating data operations as about the risk. At the same time, the migration process can benefit the business in the following ways:

Saving the money through data consolidation. In this case, the company will use less storage space due to a reduction in the number of servers.
Increase productivity, as you can find and fix a problem in the IT system and other processes during the migration.
Improve the security, as you will migrate the data to the more efficient software solution, and modern servers used to be more secure than outdated ones.
Moreover, system migration is not an easy process, and it requires such technical activities as mapping, data extraction, loading, and verification.

THINGS TO CONSIDER FOR SUCCESSFUL SOFTWARE MIGRATION
After defining that your business needs data migration software and launching this process is necessary for IT solution, there are also a few essential things to consider before software migration. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss each step in preparation for the migration software launch.

#1. EVALUATE THE DATA AND CHOOSE MIGRATION STRATEGY
The first thing to consider is a pre-migration evaluation of the software and data you need to relocate. You need to clearly outline the reasons for software migration and understand the whole process. It can be two parts of the pre-migration evaluation. The first one is to define the project migration structure, and the second one is to learn on technical aspects of the particular case. First, you define migration objectives, budget, and deadlines. After that – the strategy you are going to use, tools, and process timeline.

There are two of the most common strategies for migration implementation. “Big bang” migration assumes your system will go down for 24 or 48 hours, and you will migrate the data. Another strategy is a “Trickle” migration that ensures moving the assets in portions. It will take more time and be more complicated, but your system will work during this software migration process.

#2. CLEAN-UP THE DATA
The next thing to consider is checking the data quality and cleaning it before migration. During the migration process, we can get the different data, such as:

Source system data that can be a reason for system malfunction after migration. In this case, you will need to identify the insufficient data and fix it manually or develop an automated instrument for this operation.
Insufficient quality data because of poor data entry. In this case, you can identify possible “bad data” scenarios and write the report to clean them.
That is why cleaning up the data before migration is a necessary process. You can also access the data and map it into a new system to meet the requirements, and it will reduce the risks of project overruns. At the same time, in this step, you need also define how much data history you want to transfer to a new software system solution.

#3. ARCHITECT DATA MIGRATION SOLUTION
Software migration is a great time to rethink the whole business process and its objectives. In this case, you can analyze them and find if they can proceed more efficiently. It is important to define before data migrations, as you may need some specific format to fit the new system needs.

At this stage, you also need to define what tech stack you will use for the migration process. For different migration scenarios and business aims, you will require various migration tools. There is no general solution for each migration type, but you need to follow such factors in choosing software, such as security, scalability, price, performance, and integrity.

#4. TEST THE SOFTWARE MIGRATION
In most cases, the migration process can not be done the first time perfectly. It would help if you considered testing migration and have resources for it. To run the test, you will need to sample some records in the destination system. The confidence level will depend on the scale of the data sample for testing.

At the same time, it is not enough to review the data samples, as it is vital to view day-to-day operations: moving the data through workflow or check-in and out. You can also run a performance test to check the quality of migration. It is always better to test the process on its way and not wait for the end of migration. Testing will solve such problems as data duplication, comparison, or conversion.

#5. COMMUNICATE ON THE FUTURE SOFTWARE MIGRATION
Many people work with your software, which means you need to communicate the changes before starting them. All stakeholders need to be aware of IT migration and plan their workflow accordingly. It is also essential to communicate the migration with a team and plan their steps. In many cases, your team can be the first who will test a new system and identify problematic issues with data.

#6. BACK-UP THE DATA BEFORE EXECUTING IT
You can use sophisticated tools or advanced migration software solutions, but it is always better to ensure that you will not lose the data. That is why we advise you to have a backup of all your data for any emergency case. In this case, if you find that some data is corrupted or missing, you will restore it from the backup.

#7. ACCESS THE COST AND TIMELINE
The last thing you need to consider in evaluating the realistic cost and timeline of the software migration. The cost of the process will depend on strategy, tools, and the amount of data you need to relocate. Moreover, if your software migrates to the cloud, you need to consider the cost of storing your system with different providers. This planning can help you to use the budget appropriately. Furthermore, it is vital to understand how long the whole migration system will take to plan the workflow for the entire team.

CONCLUSION
Software migration is not an easy process, involving a lot of teams and tech tools to manage it appropriately. It is always better to have an experienced partner to confide in. Cprime has worked with software and data migration for a long time and have a wide breadth of unique use cases in their portfolio. Reach out to our experts to discuss.