Data Migration

According to research conducted by Bloor
Research
industry currently spends in excess of $5bn per
annum on data migration, including software,
services, consulting and so forth. Yet there is no
market for data migration per se. Nor is it
recognised as an independent discipline within
data management. Indeed, the tasks required in
data migration are typically treated as being
just a part of what you need to do when
migrating, implementing or upgrading
application software.

These application projects frequently overrun
their budgets, get delayed or, in extreme
circumstances, get cancelled. We believe that a
major reason behind these failures is precisely
because the techniques and disciplines of data
migration are not treated seriously enough or
are not well enough understood. This is
supported by our research, which indicates that
more than 60% of data migration projects have
overruns on time and/or budget.

In our view it is time to reverse this situation. It
is time for data migration to be recognised as a
discipline it is own right and for its exponents to
get due credit when their job is well done. It is
time for data migration to be treated as a major
component, with its own requirements, within
larger application projects rather than as an
afterthought.

This paper is not supposed to be a how-to guide
for data migration. Such can be found in John
Morris’ “Practical Data Migration” published by
the British Computer Society. What it is
intended to do is to highlight the major issues
involved in data migration. We hope that an
understanding of the complexities involved will
help readers to understand why we believe that
data migration, and the people who do it, need
to have their status elevated. At the least, we
hope that the issues involved in data migration
will be taken more seriously, especially in the
planning stages of broader application projects.

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