Challenges Businesses Face Before and After Data Migration
It is common for businesses to come across several challenges in data migration, when migrating data from one cloud to another or from local storage to the cloud.
Technical and non-technical challenges not only complicate the pre-migration stage but also present roadblocks during the post-migration stage.
Here are some of the common cloud data migration challenges businesses face before and after the migration:
Before Migration
1. Segregating Data Linked to On-prem Applications
One of the biggest cloud data migration challenges for businesses that are planning to migrate local storage users and data to the cloud is segregating data that is linked to on-prem applications.
IT teams must segregate on-prem applications-linked data when finalizing the users and data to migrate to the cloud. This is because it is critical for on-prem applications data to reside natively to ensure the throughput does not get negatively affected.
2. Mapping the Company Users and Data in a Granular Way
One of the most complicated challenges in data migration is mapping of the users and data in an intricate and granular way. In many cases, the IT teams plan to take a highly granular approach in mapping the users and data.
For example, the IT team of a company may want to customize sharing permissions mapping from Dropbox to OneDrive in Dropbox to OneDrive migration. It is important to use the CSV mapping technique to map users and data granularly or even customize their mappings.
3. Choosing the Features To Migrate With the Data
Many businesses also face the cloud data migration challenge of analyzing which specific features to migrate along with the data. For example, businesses may choose to retain sharing permissions, metadata, embedded links, shared links, and external shares during Google Drive to OneDrive migration.
Although migrating features such as sharing permissions, timestamps, and file versions are critical, losing too many features to migrate can complicate the overall migration project. Therefore, it is important to migrate only the features that will help improve business process outcomes post migration.
After Migration
1. Validating the Migrated Users and Data
One of the technical cloud data migration challenges businesses face after having the migration completed is validating the migrated users and data. One of the tried and tested approaches to validate the migration is checking the data migration reports.
For example, the IT team of a company can look for key insights in the reports, such as migration start and end date, processed status, the number of files and folders migrated, and file conflict status.
2. Onboarding the End-users to the Destination Cloud
Onboarding the end-users to the new destination cloud may sound simple but, it is one of the major challenges in data migration.
Lack of proper training can limit users from accessing important functions and features of the destination cloud which, in turn, may bring down productivity and overall output. It is important to plan proper user training to make the onboarding phase seamless for all the end users.
3. Decommissioning the Source Environment
One of the final cloud data migration challenges businesses face after completing the migration is decommissioning the source environment. In many cases, the decommissioning task is not a simple select-all-delete-all approach.
Businesses need to be specific about which users and what data to delete/remove and which ones to archive. Taking this critical decision will help them cut down cost on source environment maintenance while ensuring business process outcome improvements in the destination cloud.
