Data migration consulting for UK businesses
The reasons for performing a data migration can vary depending on your business model, company lifecycle stage and many other factors. You might need to migrate the data to new storage after merger or acquisition, or you might want to move from legacy infrastructure to the cloud or want to build a new data management system from scratch. In any case, your business will benefit from professional data migration services and achieve your goals.
There are actually three popular approaches to data migration implementation: working with a cloud platform, hiring a database administrator (DBA) in-house or outsourcing the project to an experienced team from a Managed Services Provider like IT Svit. Below we will list the advantages ad shortcomings of all of these approaches.
- Data migrations from cloud platforms. Every cloud service provider, like Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform, has data migration features and workflows in place. These can be used on your own, following step-by-step guides or by contacting one of the licensed partners of that platform. This approach grants a reliable roadmap that can be executed to the letter, so the risks are pretty minimal.
However, these guidelines are built around using platform-specific features like Google Big Query or Amazon Aurora, as well as data storage and processing tools. Thus said, all of these features are pay-as-you-go web services, meaning you will be paying for them only when you actually use them, but the downside is that you will be stuck with them and will end up with vendor lock-in. Moreover, software engineers from licensed cloud platform partners will build cloud systems mostly using these vendor-specific tools. Needless to say, should you want to swap a cloud platform any time in the future, you will have to rebuild the cloud infrastructure and repeat data migration from scratch again.
- Hiring DBAs in-house. This is an approach multiple larger UK and global businesses take. They prefer investing in long-term success of their operations and want to attract and retain the required expertise in their team. This is good in terms of expertise continuity as well as in terms of minimizing the number of people dealing with one of the most secure and valuable parts of your business operations.
Nevertheless, this approach is subject to all the standard flaws of any recruitment. You need to invest in HR and recruiting processes, pay for the office space and appliances, pay all the legally required fees just to hire a DBA in your team. In addition, it is hard for a business without a skilled DBA at hand to evaluate the level of candidate skills, which might lead to hiring a specialist without a sufficient qualification for the project. To say more, in case this specialist falls ill, goes on vacation or quits the job, your data migration project is under threat.
You should also keep in mind that data administration in the cloud differs profoundly from this operation performed on-prem. Therefore, you will have to hire a DBA (or a couple of them) and a system architect, and a couple of DevOps engineers to run and monitor your cloud infrastructure — and if any of them quits, you are hamstrung again. Also, if their expertise is not sufficient for your project requirements, you face the risk of them making incorrect decisions and building sub-par systems and workflows, so the cost of their errors can be too high to bear for your business. Wouldn’t it be better to hire the whole team at once from a trustworthy contractor?
- Engaging data migration services from an IT outsourcing provider. If you decide to take this route, you will work with a team that has successfully accomplished multiple data migration projects in the past. Managed Services Providers like IT Svit have in-depth experience with all the aspects of data migration and management, configuration and monitoring of the cloud infrastructure required to store and run your data.
We can help with migrating your applications and data from legacy on-prem infrastructures to the cloud or between the cloud platforms, optimizing the existing infrastructure, monitoring the systems and workflows for IT operations of UK businesses of any size.
Data migration strategy for your business
Below we describe the most common data migration strategy, like the one used to move your applications, data and workloads from the legacy infrastructure to the cloud:
- External audit of the infrastructure, databases and workflows your business uses
- Planning and implementing necessary optimizations to improve performance and remove bottlenecks
- Selecting the appropriate analog for your existing databases in the cloud. This is based on whether lifting-and-shifting the database to the cloud is possible, or if the data can be only partially replicated and some workarounds must be found
- Performing a synchronization between your on-prem systems and the cloud-based infrastructure and preparing dump & restore procedures for moving the bulk of your data to the cloud
- Executing data migration from your existing infrastructure to the cloud data storage
- Decommissioning or refurbishing the old servers to ensure optimal resource allocation and helping your team to master the new tech quickly through developer documentation and close collaboration on all tasks.
We can also provide ongoing DevOps and DBA services to allow you to concentrate on core tasks, while we take care of the server and data management. IT Svit has more than 5 years of experience in providing data migration and administration services. If you need this kind of assistance — we would be glad to help!
Thus said, IT Svit has helped multiple businesses migrate from their legacy systems in a dedicated data center to AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and other cloud computing providers. We know how to plan and successfully accomplish migrating your workloads to the cloud. Moving your data and applications and implementing best practices while mastering Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud features can be quite easy if we help you do it!
