May 22nd, 2008 — Data Quality, Strategy
Data migration expert and author of “Practical Data Migration” - John Morris. will join us in the next data migration coaching class where we explore some improved practices for managing data quality in data migration projects.
All you need is an internet connection to post questions and listen to the discussion, audio is available afterwards as a podcast (only for registered members).
Click the link below to register for the event:
DQ Best Practices in Data Migration, 29th May 2008 8pm (BST)
(Are you an expert? Want to take part in a coaching class? Please contact us).
If you missed the last session why not download the podcast?
May 22nd, 2008 — Data Migration Technology, news
Our main aim for Data Migration Pro is to create a platform for knowledge sharing within the data migration sector but we also recognise that many members have great skills, services and solutions that others may find of benefit.
To promote members responsibly we are now creating a series of registers and blogs where members can post services, skills, tenders, events and announcements etc.
Members requiring specialist skills or solutions can therefore browse these services as their need arises and the registers become populated.
Here are some of the new features:
May 22nd, 2008 — Community, Data Migration Technology, Data Quality, Strategy, news
There has been a flurry of new innovations in the industry recently and resident industry analysts Philip Howard and Andy Hayler have been documenting the moves.
We also interview Kognitio CEO Roger Llewellyn about the state of the data migration, their approach and technology.
Arkady Maydanchik, author of Data Quality Assessment, is also onboard our expert panel and is giving us some great insights already on DQ best practices.
Check it out…
April 28th, 2008 — Data Quality, Knowledge
Following the very successful first coaching call with John Morris, author of Practical Data Migration, we have published a podcast of the session.
Simply travel to this page to download the 45 minute recording.
We are now introducing a regular data quality coaching feature within the community due to the high demand for knowledge and discussion in this area. Sign up to find out more.
April 10th, 2008 — Knowledge
Our new data migration coaching classes are kicking off on the 16th April at 8pm (BST).
John Morris, data migration guru and author of “Practical Data Migration”, will explore the challenges of data quality on data migration projects and take questions from the online participants.
It’s free to everyone interested in data quality and data migration so just click here to register and find out more.
April 9th, 2008 — Data Migration Technology
As part of a regular new feature on Data Migration Pro we are interviewing key figures in the technology world of data migration and data integration.
This month we speak with Fabrice Bonan, COO of open source data integration and migration vendor Talend.
To read the full interview please just click here.
April 4th, 2008 — Article, Knowledge
We are now getting a steady stream of expert articles into the Data Migration Pro professional community so perhaps it’s time you checked the site out if you haven’t yet had the opportunity.
To read the latest articles which include topics such as:
Data Migration Strategy, Data Migration Tools, Data Migration Scoping, Data Migration Issues, Data Migration Misconceptions and much more just check out the Data Migration Pro expert articles section.
We also have a wide range of data migration, data integration and data quality articles linked into our data migration knowledge finder tool.
Or why not publish your own data migration article, data quality whitepaper or even your own data integration podcast?
We are also about to launch a series of high-quality “coaching call-in’s” with a range of data migration guru’s, including John Morris, author of Practical Data Migration.
We will be focusing on key data migration challenges and allowing Data Migration Pro members to raise questions and join in the debate.
So why not join Data Migration Pro (for free) today and tell us about the challenges you are facing in the areas of data migration strategy, data migration resourcing, data migration contract negotiations, data quality management and all the other issues that rear their heads during a data migration project.
April 4th, 2008 — Data Migration Technology, Knowledge
If you are interested in finding out which companies provide data migration tools or data migration solutions then we have created a dedicated data migration technology page on Data Migration Pro, the only independent data migration website.
The tool also lists current data integration tool/data integration technology vendors as well.
Just click here to view the various suppliers: Data Migration Tool Selector
If you wish to be included in this list please contact us.
To learn more about the latest data migration and data integration technology providers why not check out this link:
Data Migration/Data Integration Articles
April 4th, 2008 — Article, Strategy
Even a modest sized data migration project will inevitably uncover dirty data - and probably lot’s of it.
The key to success is to prioritise and focus your data cleansing efforts in order to cut the “wheat from the chaff” and find the data quality issues that really impact your data migration project.
There are numerous anecdotes of organisations cleansing vast amounts of legacy data that is not business or project critical.
Data migration guru John Morris sums this up with his Golden Rule No.3:”No organisation needs, wants or will pay for perfect quality data”.
But how do we categorise what “perfect quality data” is for our data migration projects?
John Platten from UK data migration specialists Vivamex has just written a great article on this very subject available from Data Migration Pro by clicking on the link below:
Data Cleansing Categorisation for Data Migration Projects
There are heaps more articles on data migration strategy, data migration technology, data quality, data integration and many other disciplines on Data Migration Pro, here are just use some of the following links:
Data Migration Articles
Data Migration Whitepapers
Data Migration Technology Providers
Data Migration News
April 4th, 2008 — career
We’ve had a strong interest for our data migration job board on Data Migration Pro so we decided to extend the service and create a fantastically simple mirror site just for data migration job searchers - DataMigrationJobs.com
The site allows visitors to find jobs in seconds using a highly intuitive search panel that you simply don’t find on other job boards.
Jobs are fed from the upload facility on Data Migration Pro and are syndicated to the weekly newsletter.
Jobs will soon be displayed on a number of the world’s most popular business networking sites giving you even more exposure for those hard to find job requirements.
We hope you like the data migration jobs search tool and if we can make it better, just let us know.
March 19th, 2008 — Community, Knowledge
We are about to kick off an exciting new feature on Data Migration Pro - the coaching call-in.
The approach is simple…
- You pick a topic area that is of interest to you or your organisation
- We hire a well respected industry expert from the data migration industry
- We provide a free phone-in service with Q&A facilities
- You dial-in for free to listen to the coaching call or listen again on audio download
- You pick up some great tips and advice
To help us decide which areas to focus on we just need you to complete this 20 second survey.
Just register on Data Migration Pro and we will send you details of the first coaching call-in.
March 15th, 2008 — Community, career
A survey revealed that many members would like to see jobs relating to the data migration posted on the website.
This has been created and is available for both members and non-members to view available roles by clicking here.
Agencies can currently post jobs (for FREE) into the online job search tool by clicking here.
We will be shortly adding some additional career services for professionals who wish to expand their careers in the data migration sector but for now please check out the new service and let us know how we can help you develop a longer term career in the industry by clicking here.
March 9th, 2008 — Survey
Are you looking to create a career in the data migration industry? Is your employer doing enough to develop your skills? What will make you stay with your current organisation?
If you have 60 seconds to spare we would value your opinion regarding the data migration profession and your role within it.
Please just click here to complete the survey.
March 5th, 2008 — Article, Knowledge
Lack of effective upfront scoping is often seen as one of the key failure points in data migration projects. Data migration specialist John Platten of Vivamex has just posted an interesting article that explores the issue of data migration scoping in more detail but from a different perspective to the usual emphasis on tools.
In particular, John stresses the need for data migration professionals to focus their efforts on creating a valid and defensible business case so that we speak in business, not data migration, terminology.
All too often we data migrationists throw up our arms in despair when the client imposes inconceivable deadlines without any thought to scoping but as John rightly points out - is it not our fault for failing to provide sufficient business justification for effective scoping?
A timely article, adds another dimension to the scoping debate and well worth a read, click here for the full article.
Do you have an article or whitepaper you would like to publish on Data Migration Pro?
Please click here to have your content reviewed.
March 4th, 2008 — Community, Knowledge, Strategy, news
Interesting post from John Morris in his BCS blog last week regarding the announcement of Indian technology services giant Wipro and their move to standardise on Informatica’s new Data Migration Suite offering.
Wipro have announced a factory approach to data migration that claims to enable a large element of the migration work to be implemented offshore for reduced costs.
John raises some interesting issues and questions about these kind of initiatives and his post is well worth a read.
On a practical note - has your organisation ever implemented this kind of solution to data migration?
If so, what kind of issues did you find when geographically outsourcing data migration projects?
What worked well? What didn’t go as planned? Would you repeat again?
This is an important topic and one that is no doubt on the mind of many a senior IT or business leader aiming to cut costs and scale their projects.
If you have any lessons to share from practical experience of data migration outsourcing, please share them here or in the Data Migration Pro strategy group.
March 4th, 2008 — Knowledge
Data migration has to surely rank as one of the most poorly understood disciplines in the world of IT and business.
So often the “ugly duckling”, lacking the sexy appeal of those important new business applications that are destined to come online, at some point, in the future, when the migration is completed, hopefully, fingers crossed.
Misconceptions about what data migration is, and more importantly what it is not, abound within the business and IT world so industry specialist, Norma Davis, has written a great article detailing some of the most common inaccuracies.
She cites the following:
- Misconception 1: Data migration is an IT job function.
- Misconception 2: An in-house IT department possesses the skills necessary to extract and import the data.
- Misconception 3: Data migration is one of the last steps taken before you go live with the new system.
- Misconception 4: Changes to the data are necessary and desirable.
- Misconception 5: “We achieved a high success rate on the migration. Now we need to test our processes”.
- Misconception 6: “We can always change it after we go live”.
To read the full article please visit here.
Got any other misconceptions about data migration? Please add them to this post.
February 29th, 2008 — Community
To make Data Migration Pro a truly global community we have launched a new feature on the site where members can create their own regional groups.
Imagine you live in Sydney, Australia and want to develop a local or regional community that meets online or offline to discuss and support each other on a common aim. You now have everything available here on Data Migration Pro to make that a reality.
Our event management facilities can inform members (and non-members) of event location, date and time. We can even manage the event registration process for you!
Provided the focus of the group is relevant to the goals of Data Migration Pro we will provide you with as much support as you need to get your community off the ground.
Want to know more? Just contact us for details.
February 29th, 2008 — Knowledge
In the first of a two part report we look at the impact of the Bloor Data Migration Survey of Global 2000 companies carried out late last year.
The report examines how some of the key survey findings will benefit organisations, vendors, consultancies, integrators and independent contractors.
Some of the focus areas include:
- Most migrations still failing to deliver on-time and on-budget
- Hand-coding still one of the most popular implementation methods
- Customers showing strong interest for best-practices methodologies
- Half of all projects are delivered by in-house teams
- Customers want to see better communication and collaboration
- Growing global market for data migration
- 4.5 Major application implementations per year in Global 2000 organisations
The report identifies key areas for improvement within the industry that organisations, vendors and consultancies should focus on.
To read the rest of the report please click here.
February 29th, 2008 — Knowledge
Creating any kind of enterprise information management framework requires a great deal of time, effort and skill.
So why not get a head-start and leverage the work initiated by BearingPoint under their Open Source MIKE2.0 initiative?
MIKE2.0 is an Open Source collaborative initiative that provides organisations with a complete enterprise framework covering solution offerings such as Data Integration, ETL, Data Migration, Data Quality - and much more.
Content is published under Creative Commons license so you can use, extend and modify to your hearts content. Just be sure to credit the original source and strive to give value back to the initiative wherever you can.
We recently ran an article on Data Migration Pro with the founder of the initiative, BearingPoint’s Sean McClowry.
You can read the article here, it provides numerous links and advice that members of Data Migration Pro will find useful.
February 29th, 2008 — Knowledge
There are a significant and growing number of vendors providing technology for data migration and data integration style initiatives.
To help members and visitors of Data Migration Pro search these different providers we have created a simple, Flash-based, aggregation tool on the site, just click here and scroll down past the community features until you reach the bottom of the page.
We are shortly contacting all vendors for additional information so if you can think of a way to improve the tool please just let us know by clicking here, also contact us if you are a data migration/integration technology vendor that is not on the list.
We hope you find the service useful.
February 27th, 2008 — Knowledge
In a recent data migration survey by specialist research group Bloor Research, the ability to accurately scope data migration projects was seen as one of the key failure points for many Global 2000 organisations.
The fact that only 10% of organisations used data profiling techniques is definite proof that organisations are simply ignoring the needs for upfront, detailed analysis of their data landscapes before they travel down the challenging road ahead.
Poor scoping means poor planning, poor resourcing, poor forecasting, poor budgeting and ultimately - failed projects.
The members of Data Migration Pro are committed to developing better standards within the industry so we thought this would be an excellent starting point to focus our collective knowledge.
How do you scope data migrations?
- Do you use data discovery and profiling tools?
- Do you assess data complexity and “health” to derive a scoping metric?
- Do you examine the performance of target interfaces to assess load-rate?
- Do you build forecasting spreadsheets and analytical charts to simulate different scenarios?
- Do you look at past team/technology performance and reflect this in your calculations?
Or do you fit your scope into the remaining few months your migration has been allocated and hope for the best?
To contribute to this debate please add your comments here or join datamigrationpro.com and collaborate with other peers in the debate online.
February 27th, 2008 — Knowledge
Ever wasted your time scouring the web for articles, whitepapers or blogs trying to find useful information relating to data migration matters?
Well, we’ve just launched a new tool that we think you’ll find very useful.
Click here to access the tool.
The Data Migration Knowledge Index is a simple yet intuitive Flash based tool that helps you find exactly the information you need, quickly and with less hassle.
We will continue to link the tool to high quality content across the web and a range of articles to be published within Data Migration Pro but we need your help.
If you have data migration content that adds value to our members then please click here to upload your content for publication on our site or tell us about other interesting material that we can link to for the benefit of members.
February 26th, 2008 — news
DataMigrationPro.com - the world’s first dedicated community for data migration professionals and organisations striving to deliver successful projects - is officially online!
This blog will become the public voice of the community, informing readers about our members, new articles, industry events, important innovations, high-value blogs and a wealth of other data migration related content.
Why not learn about the benefits of community membership, use the data migration knowledge index tool or use the site navigator for a 360 degree view of the community.
Remember, DataMigrationPro.com is an independent, non-vendor resource where membership is free to serious professionals and organisations who want to create successful data migration initiatives.
Why not join and get involved today?