During application migration, a key success factor is always the effective and correct migration of existing data from the old platform to the new. The two obvious extremes for accomplishing this work are a fully manual vs. an automated approach. While an automated solution is naturally preferred, typically no ‘out-of-the-box’ conversion tools exist that are able to handle the complex environments found in practice.Consequently, more often than not, companies fall back to the manual approach. Costs for the design, implementation and use of a throw-away automated procedure typically outweigh the costs of manual conversions.Data conversion challenges can be summarized as follows:
- Confirming the scope
- Understanding the ‘core’ data that must be migrated and its inter-relationships
- Capturing verifiable data consistency rules
- Establishing a consistent, repeatable and auditable conversion process
- Automating the conversion process, wherever it is cost-effective
- Creating test plans to ensure the accuracy and completeness of conversion
- Repeatability to support phasing and testing
- Reducing business impact and project risk
Benefits of using Mapador
Mapador addresses the challenges described above in three key areas.
First, it brings a robust and time-tested process to the table. Using Mapador’s flexible, quality-driven, self-auditing and repeatable process, the data migration project can be managed effectively and efficiently. All project activities are identified in the plan and can be estimated based on the experience of other Mapador data migration projects. The repeatability inherent in such a controlled process enables regression testing to be done at any point in the conversion, thus streamlining the elimination of any data conversion errors. This results in a higher overall conversion quality than is attainable with an ad-hoc process.
Second, necessary understanding of application data and its relationships can be developed more quickly and effectively, by viewing production (‘live’) system information captured in the Mapador Repository. This ensures that information on which critical decisions are based is complete, current and authoritative.
Third, data migration projects can be delivered without having to develop automated conversion routines from scratch. Mapador’s application understanding functionality is accompanied by a targeted and customizable set of data migration tools. The ready-made capabilities within Mapador ensure that the conversion routines are simpler and that the cost of automation is justified. The open architecture allows the tools to accomplish client-specific tasks, as if the tools were made for the specific data migration at hand. As a result, more conversion processes can be automated, eliminating error-prone and time-consuming manual conversions.
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