Data Migration

    What is data migration?

    A data migration is the process of transferring data from one source into another. The complexity of a data migration depends entirely on the type of data you wish to be extracted from your existing recruitment CRM, applications or manual spreadsheets and imported into your new recruitment software.

    There are different types of data migration, for example, migrating from a legacy system in an on premises data centre to a cloud environment can require more complex planning around integrations. Whereas, cloud to cloud migration may require additional attention to security to ensure compliance with different security standards that are specific to each cloud provider.

    How to have a successful data migration

    A data migration project can be a tough process that requires a level of careful planning, execution and monitoring in order to make sure that it all goes to plan. In order to ensure a successful data migration project, there are a few things you should consider during your planning phase and migration process.

    Set a clear objective

    While it may seem like a step to overlook within the data migration process, setting yourself up with a clear expectation of what needs to be accomplished can be a very useful tool in understanding the best way to migrate data. You need to outline:

    • The data that needs migrated

    • Why to migrate data

    • What a successful migration looks like

    Establish Current Data

    Data migration projects require you to assess the data you have, whether it has any dependencies and the volume, structure, and data quality. This process will help you understand the requirements needed for the data migration process. Sometimes a data validation and cleansing process prior to the data migration will streamline the process.

    Data Migration Tools

    Now that you have a deep understanding of your data set, you’re able to determine the hardware and bandwidth requirements needed to transfer data, in addition to what other tools and software you may need to ensure success. Consider how you will perform the data extraction, transformation process, and loading, also called ETL.

    Develop a Plan

    A data migration plan is key to doing the actual migration process. Determine the tasks required, the timeline for the migration, resources, and the responsibilities for each phase. And don’t forget to ensure you have a disaster recovery plan and a plan to reconcile data in case your migration scenarios don’t go to plan.

    Test Migration

    Ensure that the entire data migration process will work by performing test migrations with a subset of data. This will help you make sure that there are no bugs with your data migration and that you have a thorough data integration. You’ll then be able to go through the process of data cleansing and ensure that your migrating data retains its integrity.

    Execute

    When it is finally time to initiate the migration process, it’s important to be consistently monitoring the database migration and fixing any issues that arise throughout the process so that all the data is migrated successfully.

    Final Checks & Review

    Once you’ve completed the data migrations, it’s time to do data reconciliation, performance tuning, and test that all is well with the migrated data. Once you’ve determined that your data migration was successful, review the process and see where potential improvements could be made.