Haven’t we all been in the predicament of trying to move some kind of information or data and it’s gone to who knows where some black hole never to be seen again. It can be frustrating, annoying and in some cases the make or break of your business and ideas. Or in some cases you throwing your phone across the room because you’ve lost all your messages and images.
Working hard and being innovative all for it to be swallowed up by a migration process that should’ve been done properly, to begin with as opposed to rushed, hurried, and worst of all done by yourself. Let’s leave the technical aspects of the business functions to the professionals, shall we?
And if you’re like me, the minute I hear about or need to do computer work I run for the hills, there are people suited to this industry, so I hand over the job and go for a well-deserved double shot latte.
For all your ‘moving’ and ‘transferring’ needs, get expert help and advice for your cloud data migrations and let them do the job right the first time around. Life is too short to stress about lost details, hiring in a company is your best option for fewer grey hairs.
What is Data Migration?
In basic terms for those who get anxiety at the sound of big computer jargon like myself, it’s like moving house. You prepare everything, box it up and label, and transfer it to the new house for a new start and hopefully an upgrade. The same goes for your computer systems for your business.
When you are looking to update, upgrade or do a complete 180 degree in terms of programming and software, making sure that the information you have currently is packed up properly to move to the new system.
It is programmed in such a way that the majority of the work would be automated, and your staff can get on with less tedious and time-consuming tasks.
But for those who enjoy a good read of the planning and phases that go into the migration journey, then check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_migration and get an in-depth understanding of it.
5 Tips to prevent disaster as you migrate your data:
- Match / Compare. You need to be sure that the data you are sending is fit to work with the new system, are the formats the same? If not, this could result in broken links, data and not all the information being sent. Be sure that you ‘tell’ the information where to go when you plan to make the move, if the setups are different this can cause delays and issues if not sorted before the shift.
- Quality. Can, what you have today, be used tomorrow and will it be different or better? You may not realize it but your data is most likely a mess, hence the reason in opting to move to a newer model.
- Validation. Check that the business rules and policies are clearly defined, are they outlined to be implemented for use with the new system? Will the new software provide the facility for what is missing through the older version?
- Responsibility. Essentially who is going to be in charge of the business processes, who owns or runs the data? Make this clear early on so everyone knows where they stand. And remember that they will also be liable for the consequences of that migration, understand who has to live with the outcome, whether good or bad.
- Tools and Users. Having tools on hand to help is great and should not be ruled out, but you need to keep the people who understand the data the best and the suited way in which to use it, these are usually the data captures or those who input the info into the system daily.
Why is data migration important?
Well, if you have ever bought a new phone and simply tried to swap sim cards and hope this would be good enough to have all your old info on the new phone you would be mistaken. Some info is in cloud storage, internally on the phone or an external SD card, all containing and safely holding your data, so sending over requires you to make sure the new phone not only has sufficient storage to take on all the new items but that it is also compatible.
This will prevent any losses, sad faces and is the same for files and folders in your business, with the exception it is on a significantly larger scale. The idea is to prevent any loss of data. Read this short blog and see what others say on the subject, how they implemented their strategies and the best way that worked for them and can for you.
With a new system you can do the same work and probably more with less the effort, working smarter not harder, being more flexible and in return the efficiency results in higher revenue and turnover. Win-win.
Lastly, with so many improvements it will be hard for someone, or even employee, to try to commit any kind of fraud, so this can give you some peace of mind too, and with the Hierarchy in place, you can sit back and watch your well-oiled machine of a business work the way you had envisioned all along.