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?

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:

• New Vendor Centre Features
• Join the vendor group
• Recent opportunities in the Opportunities Blog:
  • Client requires a DQ and Integration System, requires ETL and data migration
  • Data warehouse build required
  • IS Programme Framework

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…

• Expressor make an innovative entrance to the sector
• Interview with Roger Llewellyn of Kognitio, discussing the changing market of data migration and Kognitio’s approach
• Optim and Trucompare reviewed, strong focus on data migration
• Ensuring DQ in data conversion, expert panelist Arkady Maydanchik explains where to focus 80% of your migration effort
• [View all articles]

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.

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.

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.

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.

 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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.