Don't lose your way on the migration

It’s not a one size fits all approach when it comes to data migration.

Data migration is the process of moving data from one location to another. It’s a chance for companies to spring clean, streamline, change processes, add new functionality, and improve system performance, whilst reducing the burden of customization for the support team.

This moving of important/sensitive data is often seen as difficult and risky and puts stakeholders on edge due to “data gravity”. Data gravity is a metaphor for how data attracts other data as it grows, how data is integrated into a business and how data becomes customized over time.

The main issue is that every application complicates data management by introducing elements of application logic into the data management process. Business processes use data in isolation and then output their own formats, leaving integration for the next process. Therefore, application design, data architecture, and business processes must all respond to each other, but often one of these groups is unable or unwilling to change. This forces administrators to sidestep ideal and simple workflows, resulting in suboptimal designs. Although the workaround may have been necessary at the time, this technical debt must eventually be addressed during data migration or integration projects.

Martin O’Rourke is a data Migrator for Claremont, he has 20 years of industry experience. One of the first projects he worked on was a data migration project and as well as advising on HCM, Payroll and other Oracle functions, data migration remains close to his heart.

He was warned over two decades ago that data migration would become an automated process and was a dying task. However, after 15 HR/Payroll migrations projects that have spanned from Oracle 11.5.10 through to Oracle Cloud involving the movement of data from 3rd party vendors to Oracle, or from one Oracle Application to another, Martin continues to provide customers with the best migration experience.

Martin says “that data migration is not just flat files and Application Processing Information (API) calls, it’s much more. It’s a skill to understand the data, understand the preciousness of the data, understand that each piece of data is personal/sensitive and needs to be treated with the most utmost care.

It’s not a one size fits all approach when it comes to data migration. You can not just extract, translate and load the data. You need to understand how each piece of data works, customisations that have been done and how the data is used, to ensure that the data migration runs smoothly.” Martin believes that data migration is a passion and an art. It requires someone who is diligent, meticulous and who can communicate well. It involves planning, landscape analysis, design, building & testing, and validation.

The key things that need to be addressed in data migration are including relevant stakeholders, communicating with the business, planning and understanding who has the rights/use of the data.

Martin has recently completed another successful HR/Payroll migration, a reimplementation of R12.1.2 to R12.2 for one of Claremont’s largest clients.

 

If you are looking for an Oracle partner who can help you with your data migration, goes about it the right way and can back up the talk, then contact us.  If you would like to find out more about E-Business Suite updates, you can email us at info@claremont.co.uk or phone us on +44 (0) 1483 549004.