Data Migration and Integration
Poor data integration can endanger the successful delivery of many Information System
projects, Including; Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, ERP and CRM. The foundation
to delivering such projects successfully relies upon consistent, accurate and reliable
data. This data has to provide an accurate picture of your organisation.
You already know that Data integration can be a barrier to success, but it doesn’t
have to be! A successful integration of enterprise wide data can ensure consistency,
accuracy and reliability of data across your entire company. Data integration is
all about getting the right data from the right sources, this usually entails retrieving
relevant data from complicated source systems and outdated legacy systems, whilst
ensuring the data is clean and concise. In many situations, a successful data
migration project can enable your organisation to come away from and switch off
expensive, cumbersome mainframe legacy systems.
The Steps
Data Migration can be loosely categorised into two Major steps, the first is understanding
the data, and the second is physically moving the data. Each major step has a series
of minor steps, as discussed below.
Organisations can begin their data analysis by implementing a two-step process:
data profiling and mapping.
Data profiling involves studying the source data thoroughly to understand its content,
structure, quality and integrity.
Data Mapping occurs once the data has been profiled, an accurate set of mapping
specifications can be developed based on the source data.
The combination of data profiling and mapping comprises the essential first step
in any successful data migration project and should be completed prior to any other
data manipulation.
The following minor steps constitute the second major step and are traditionally
performed with an ETL tool (Extraction, Transform and Load). There are numerous
tools that perform these tasks, one of which is Microsoft’s SSIS (SQL Server Integration
Services).
Extraction is simply the method of taking the data from legacy systems and compiling
it into a ‘Staging’ database. The staging database will then form the source
Transforming the data entails modifying the staging data depending upon the specific
business logic, so that it can then be sent to the final data repository.
Finally loading the data, this is the final step which simply entails loading the
data into the new data repository.
We can help you with your data migration projects, as a straight forward data migration
project, or as a full Business Intelligence solution for your organisation.
So please - get in touch
to find out more about how we can help you integrate your data.