Every organization will have some strategies to execute the task and follow those in order to achieve success. Let’s consider building a house, the person will plan for the budgets, select the construction land, makes a rough design before building a house. Similarly, for data migration also there has to be proper planning before executing the operation. Data migration simply put, is a process of moving or transferring data from one location to another. It can be for example, moving of emails, entire data of the company from cloud to cloud or from on-premises to cloud etc.
Let’s see the common reasons why organizations go for migration of the data.
- Moving data to the cloud.
To accomplish and utilize the cutting edge collaboration tools, many organizations prefer migrating the data to the cloud. Here, the data will be available online and accessibility of data is much easier for everyone. This kind of migration is necessary when employees are working remotely.
- Mergers and acquisitions of the company.
Merger and acquisitions involve the process of combining two or more companies into one to increase the market share, gaining competitive advantages, etc. These migrations need to be planned carefully when merging two companies as it involves huge amount of files, documents and mailboxes of users
- Moving data to the new platform.
To gain the advantages of new features, some companies migrate their data to a new platform.Business units can achieve productivity in a robust collaboration environment.
- To save money.
Storing data in the cloud saves many organizations from having to maintain on-premise servers, IT administrative charges, frequent backup issues etc. Many companies therefore are on a constant lookout for lesser expensive platforms to move the data from their existing environment
- Security aspects.
Security is the major concern of every organization. On-premises though is under the control of the organization is highly prone to disasters, fire accidents, hardware failures etc. Databases present on-site are vulnerable to cyber attacks. These are some of the aspects which might push companies to migrate to cloud based solutions.
The data migration strategy includes the following steps:
- Explore and assess the source.
You should understand what you are migrating and also how it will be stored in the target server before starting the migration operation. For example, if you are migrating mail items from one mailbox to another, data will be migrated to the corresponding location of the target mailbox. Mail data are in the form of inbox, outbox, sent items, and so on. If the organization does not concentrate on this source review step and does not understand the data in hand, it can lead to disastrous results wasting both time and money.
- Define and design the migration.
While designing the migration, you have to consider security plans for the data. After completing the design part, the project should have a proper and thorough documentation.
- Build the migration solution.
To build the migration solution, you should check both the source and target server. When you deploy a solution, you should test the target environment whether the data is migrated properly or not. If an organization is working on a particularly large migration, it makes sense to build and test it in parallel.
- Conduct a test.
After the data migration design, it is necessary to test the working process of the migration. Perform a test migration with few data to know if the migration process actually works.
- Audit.
After the implementation, audit the data to ensure the accuracy of the migration. Source and destination data should match after migration. Firstly, you should know how much amount of data you have selected for migration. However, migration of data between two different storage systems is not simple as copying the data from one location to another. You should also make a good selection of a suitable software, if you plan to do so.
Best practices for data migration
There are many best practices to be considered while performing migration operations. By following these key points, you can migrate data without any issues.
- Backup the data before executing.
This can’t be stressed enough. In case if there is an issue with the implementation part, or if the migration is unsuccessful, a backup copy can save the day. Once you have taken a complete backup of all your data, start executing the migration operation.
- Follow the strategy.
The migration process can seem complicated and may have intermediate issues, so you have to prepare a contingency plan for that and then stick to the plan.
- Test the process again and again.
Throughout the migration design and implementation process you have to test the data migration to make sure that it provides the desired outcome as planned. For example, if you plan to backup your data prior to migration, then you need to verify for the consistency of the data after the backup operation is complete. Or if your plan of action is to migrate only a few mailboxes over the weekend, test the target immediately once the process is complete. The trick here is to ensure that there are no open or loose ends which might prove costly at a later stage.
- Data migration software.
The migration software also plays an important role during migration. Using the right tool during migration will make the process faster and more efficient. So consider this as a key component of your planning process and choosing the right data migration tool should be based on the organization’s business requirements.
Let EdbMails help you migrate data
EdbMails is a trusted and internationally recognized software that provides a simple way to migrate your data from the source to the target. It supports offline Exchange, Live Exchange, Office 365, SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, Office 365 groups, Global Address Lists (GALs), Exchange OST, Outlook PST, IMAP email, etc., backup and migrations.
It ensures 100% safety and security of the data during migration. There is no data loss on the target server. Before starting the actual migration process, you can test the software by using a free trial version and also understand the working process and features supported by EdbMails software.
To know more about data recovery, backup and migration, please visit https://www.edbmails.com/
If you want to know the features supported by EdbMails, please visit https://www.edbmails.com/pages/features.html