Data migration is the process of moving data from one system or storage device to another. This can include moving data from the source operating system to a new target system, application migration of data from one app to another, or storage migration from on-premises data storage to a cloud platform, such as data warehouses and data lakes. Although there are various ways of moving data, every type of migration can benefit from having a migration strategy.
Ensuring proper data transfer is a key component of data migration plans. This means that there need to be contingencies in place to ensure no data is lost as part of the transfer. This will often require ensuring that the current data storage solution is backed up in a secondary location before starting any migration. Data management is an especially important consideration when conducting a database migration. This includes ensuring there is adequate memory and data storage available, as well as monitoring the build of the database both before and after all data migration projects.
When moving to the cloud or across cloud services, there are a variety of migration tools available that can help simplify the process of moving data. Data migration tools are often specialized for different types of data, such as specialty software for creating a data warehouse or data lake from on-premises data storage, or tools for moving from one cloud database to another. Depending on the type of migration, these tools may be able to help set up data pipelines that allow for automatic processing and analyzing of data as it is ingested. This type of data integration can help streamline business processes and analyses going forward. Data migration tools often have built in redundancies to help prevent data loss or corruption as part of the migration process.
Some benefits of data migration include:
- Improved business processes:By migrating data to new systems, businesses and organization can improve and streamline a variety of processes, including data analyses. As part of a data migration, businesses can choose to utilize a variety of cloud services that allow for automatic data analysis after ingestion.
- Keeping up to date with technology: By migrating data to new services, organization can ensure that they are taking full advantage of technological advancements. Cloud migrations often allow for automatic technology refreshes as part of the service offering, ensuring that subscribers are always at the cutting edge of technology improvements.
- Reduce data storage costs: Data migrations allow organizations to ensure that they are getting the best services for appropriate costs. This might mean taking advantage of cloud data services, or it could be changing to a new database system. Data migrations allow for planning around how best to optimize spending.
- Improved data security: When completing a data migration, organizations have the opportunity to ensure that their data is fully protected. This means considering both the ways to limit unauthorized access, and to ensure that data is properly backed up to prevent data loss. A common way to ensure both aspects is to complete a cloud migration to a service that provides security controls and enables automatic data duplication across geographic regions.