Is your business growing? Have you considered whether you require Data Migration services? Perhaps you are unsure of what Data Migration is? In the ever-expanding world of IT, data migration represents a small but significant tool in allowing your business to flourish.

The experts at Syntax IT Support London offer this basic introduction.

Understanding data migration

If a fish was growing in a fish tank, you would eventually need to transfer it to a larger, more suitable home. This is essentially what data migration is.

Your current hardware may be suitable for now, but as your business grows, so will your need for greater hardware. It could be for storage reasons or that you are beginning to work with more complex data that your current system cannot handle.

Data Migration is unfortunately not as simple as transferring files via a USB. ‘Data’ represents almost everything non-physical in your business. This includes files, folders, documents, databases, crucial information on which your business is built upon. The three most forms of Data Migration are Storage Migration, Database Migration and Application Migration.

Unless your businesses’ infrastructure is particularly advanced, it is only storage migration or possibly database migration that you need to consider.

There are three options to accomplish data migration:

  1. Migrate one system to a different system

This is the most common form of data migration, as it explains, your data is transported from your current hardware/storage to a new or different one.

  1. Migrate the systems of two businesses into one, new system

For example, data migration would have occurred when Orange and T-Mobile

combined to become EE.

  1. Keep the systems the same but create a ‘data warehouse’

The systems do not change, but a common location is created for the data to stored.

Although Data Migration is typically straightforward, it is not to be taken lightly. There can be issues that businesses do not take into consideration when attempting to migrate their data themselves, such as unmatched data types (numbers, sub-records, dates) or different character sets (encoding). One system may support complex data formats while the other cannot, and this is where you can run into problems.

Planning

Careful planning is needed before undergoing Data Migration. During the process of migrating, business operations can be impacted, especially if it is not done in the most efficient manner. Extended downtime, performance issues and compatibility issues are just a few of the problems that can occur.

The larger the business the more crucial it is to both protect the valuable data that is being transferred and taking steps to make the process as smooth and efficient as possible. Seeking the help of an experienced and trustworthy IT support business to manage your migration is an important step.

With the help of a business like Syntax IT Support London, you do not need to worry about the complicated and often unconsidered issues that many organisations find when migrating their data. Your business aspires to grow and a specialist IT support and infrastructure business will enable you achieve this.

Finding the right support for your business

When looking for a business to support you, it is important that you assess their plans for migrating data in a fast, flexible and effective manner. It should be important to you that your provider works hard to make sure that there is minimal impact on your business activities while carrying out our services.

By Techwacky

Editor-in-Chef of TechWacky.com