.::. Edkal Business Solutions .::.

Data Migration and Related Services
Edkal has extensive experience in building and supporting large and complex system projects including ERP and DBMS consolidations and migrations. This track record has provided us with the expertise on standard tools, processes and methods in the field of Data Migration while we consistently apply best industry practices and management methods based on the scenario.

Edkal’s Data Migration process covers all the required steps to cleanse, correct and move the data into a new system. Technological changes, change in providers, software updates or data warehousing / data mining projects make such delicate and critical operations necessary.


	Benefits
	Reduce risk Data is any organization’s most Vital business asset, it is essential that any operation on data is carried out without any disruption. Edkal with its relevant experience on critical projects and carefully Designed migration plans help migrate legacy data with ease and break down migration complexity to manageable projects, thus ensuring that risks are mastered Lower Downtime Data migration is a one-off activity triggered by point circumstances. Edkal’s solutions and services help the client’s resources to remain focused on their core activities Improve data quality Edkal’s refinement and improvement Techniques ensure perfect data integrity after it has been migrated. From a user and development perspective, the migrated data will be completely optimized

User Perspective
From a user perspective, a strategy is put in place to achieve maximum flexibility and quality. This entails to take a number of measures and actions, including:

Iteration
Data is iteratively identified and cleansed. The aim is to give the users one or more ‘iterative’ opportunities to identify corrupt data, and then rectify it either using the existing application functionality, or automatically cleanse the data within the bespoke data migration functionality. The different iterations of the data cleansing process would take place several weeks before the live data migration run
Weeding
Data weeding within the data migration mechanism allows for better identifying candidates and non-candidates to migration
Inspection
Users are also left with the opportunity and ability to inspect data that has been archived, which is particularly important where users no longer have access to their source application and data following migration

Development Perspective
From a development perspective, great care is taken to ensure that the data migration roadmap caters for maximum safety, avoiding risky big bangs and allowing for phased migration activities. We ensure the following:

Each new application to which data is to be migrated has its own data migration strategy and roadmap document while using a unique, consistent and generic template document that can be referenced by all projects.
A generic data migration mechanism that can be used across the majority of application migrations exists. This approach has the benefits of reusability, and allows the development of generic modules for data migration for different types of ‘source’ and ‘target’ platforms
A source of application data to facilitate system test and user acceptance test of the new application is provided for. The most reliable method for acquiring a ‘live volume’ database to facilitate testing is to migrate ‘live’ data from the source application database into the new application ‘test’ database.

Data migration Tool

Edkal uses its Data Migration Tool for its Data Migration Services. For each Data Migration Project a separate Staging Server is created to define the Legacy and Target Systems Objects and for writing the Migration Scripts.

Data Migration generally starts with System Study – both Legacy and Target. The key objective of System Study is to identify the Objects to be migrated from the Legacy System to the Target System and also the Input format of the Text file exported from Legacy System and the Output format of the Text File to be exported to the Target System.

The outcome of the System Study would be the following

Legacy System / Input File Specification Document
Target System / Output File Specification Document
Basic Data Validation Document
Data Mapping Document
Advanced Data Validation & Transformation Document

Once all the above documents are ready, the Data Migration Tool can be used to do the Data Migration. Based on the Legacy System Specification Document & Basic Data Validation Document, the Legacy System Objects are created and based on the Target System Specification Document & Basic Data Validation Document, the Target System Objects are created. For both Legacy and Target System Objects, the detailed attribute specification is done for each of its attributes/fields like

Maximum Length of the field
Fixed Length or Not
Mandatory or Not
Field Type (Numeric, Alpha Numeric, Date etc.) Etc.

After that, based on the Data Mapping Document & Advanced Data Validation & Transformation Document, Migration Scripts are written and each Migration Script is mapped onto the Migration Object. Once done, the Tool becomes completely functional for the Data Migration.

For Data Migration, initial all Lookup Objects are loaded using the Data Migration Tool. Then export the legacy data as a Text File. Select the file using the Data Migration Tool and Run. The tool will transform and validate the legacy data and generate the output Text File ready to be exported to the Target System. In case the data does not comply with the Target System specification, a Log/Error file will be generated specifying the data records with reason for non compliance. In that case, the error is corrected in the Legacy System or the Input File and the new Input file is validated again and again till no errors found in the Error Log file. The output of the Migration tool is then exported to the Target System. Data Migration Tool has an Administrative Console where Scripts can be easily written or edited. Also using Administrative console, Custom Reports can be generated in various file formats like

Excel File Format
HTML File Format
Tab Limited Text File Format

Such reports, especially the deviation reports are really helpful in identifying the deviations and auditing the data. The Reports can be generated based on the Input and the Output Data and can be matched for the Legacy and Target System for ensuring the successful Data Migration.