Database Migration: What to Know
Database migration is a decision most businesses will need to make at some point. Before the advent of the internet, firms traditionally kept their data pipelines and storage in-house, centralized within their local area networks (LAN). This system was simple, efficient, and allowed companies to function well as they accumulated data from smaller amounts of resources.
But the world is very different now:
- Data is coming in much faster than ever before
- Data can be collected from massive amounts of sources
- Internet of Things (IoT) logistics concerns aside, databases that do not adapt can quickly become overwhelmed.
- Keeping track of continually changing data schemas can be a headache depending on how large your organization is.
- Layers of optimizations will be required as data continues to be collected over time and, depending on the use case, technology decisions will need to be made based on business requirements (e.g., live data feeds vs. a scheduled refresh).
No matter how long your operations have been functioning, there will come a time when your data flow will need adjusting. In a world where businesses are continually expanding, engineers and analysts are faced with the challenge of maintaining data integrity while keeping up with growth.
While migrating your database seems like a time-consuming process, it is in fact a prime opportunity to consider a cloud database for revolutionizing your data pipeline. Cloud-based data management is a powerful solution for inundated repositories, with the added benefit of being able to access your data from anywhere.
What is database migration?
Database migration is simply the process of moving data from one repository or platform to a new one. Every enterprise is different, and thus, have their unique reasons for considering migrating. You may be in a position where your old applications just do not measure up, or you find that another data manager has critical features that your old one does not. Alternatively, you may have been dealing with inefficient database logic and have finally reached the point where a transition is affordable, needed, and crucial.
Database migration usually happens in a series of steps:
- Assessing your need for a new repository
- Assessing your potential need for updated systems for the foreseeable future and what those systems should entail.
- Iterating a series of changes across the system, testing every step of the way
- Moving the data and redirecting collection towards a new database
- Apprising your team, and training your staff on navigating new interfaces
In migrating your database, certain challenges can arise. For example, many firms may have several disparate databases spread across multiple projects, data engineers, data scientists, and managers. The issue here is consolidating the different databases throughout your organization and ensuring that your data integrity remains consistent. Luckily, keeping accurate documentation across these databases should mitigate a lot of these issues.
Keeping accurate documentation is a breeze with cloud databases, for instance. Contact Zuar to find out how your operations can benefit from the cloud!
However, further problems can arise if you are not careful.
For instance, if database migration is done carelessly, your data can end up corrupted or lost; this poses obvious issues within your enterprise. Moreover, if you move to a different database that emulates the same problems as your old one, you could encounter these roadblocks all over again. The time spent training personnel to maintain these new databases might as well have been wasted if this happens.
Luckily, Zuar recommends a simple solution that will not only improve migration success but also allow you to access your data from just about anywhere. Migrating to the cloud may be the smartest solution to consolidating, sanity-checking, and cleaning your data while centralizing your operations on one, massive, and flexible database.
Why should I migrate to a cloud-based data manager?
Moving your database operations from on premise/LAN to the cloud is how we define cloud migration.
In its simplest form, it involves companies moving anything from applications and software to their entire infrastructure to the cloud. Some groups choose to migrate completely to the cloud, while others only maintain pieces of their operations on the cloud, depending on the situation. For example, healthcare providers and researchers may opt to keep de-identified data on the cloud, while keeping identifiable information on-site on a HIPAA compliant server.
Gartner estimates that the cloud services market will grow 17% this year, and investments in cloud-based computing are skyrocketing. At this point, cloud-based data workflows are considered the standard.
Moving to the Cloud Offers Numerous Benefits
Save Money
Elevating your operations to a cloud database offers tons of financial benefits. Without the need for constant on-site maintenance, you can cut the costs of personnel and redistribute focus to other areas of your business. With the advent of telecommuting, cloud migration allows your staff to work efficiently pretty much anywhere.
Update your operations
Updating your system is part of growing as a company, and cloud migration is part of that growth. Like we’ve said before, the world of data looks very different from the time of legacy systems and outdated software. By switching to a cloud database, your operations gain exceptional flexibility previously impossible through local networks, reducing time and cost along the way.
Centralize your data repository
Perhaps most powerful, cloud databases allow you to consolidate data into one system. As companies grow, they accumulate a lot of individual data silos that are difficult to trace and clean. By uploading and redirecting data to the cloud, you remove a lot of the legwork of pulling data from individual databases across your local server.
Simplifying your data pipeline
There are various benefits of cloud hosting that can help simplify processes that may be too advanced or convoluted for smaller teams and businesses. Most cloud platforms have placed significant emphasis on easy of use and have developed tools that allow for easier management. Additionally, cloud databases can help simplify your data pipeline or Data Value Chain (DVC). In general, cloud databases have made it very easy to tune or adjust performance, increase or decrease storage capacity, and heighten or reduce security requirements. This leads to less hassle and reduction of time consuming, trivial tasks for your administrators and data teams.
Conclusion
Data migration to the cloud is made simple through a systematic process that maintains data integrity. Assessing your data blueprint and translating it into a system that takes advantage of the cloud’s flexibility is part of the transition, and Zuar is here to help.
Whether you are planning to use scripting or software to transfer data to the cloud, normalizing and cleaning is much simpler when you can access your data anywhere there is an Internet connection.
Are you looking to finally make the jump to a cloud database? Let Zuar help you transition to a more powerful pipeline! Request a free data strategy assessment.
