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Enterprise organizations evaluate several factors when choosing a data migration vendor. When making the choice, it helps to consider top priorities, so you know what to look for in the process.
Here is a list that can help:
- Level of effort and associated cost of the solution
- Length of the data migration project
- Understanding the data to be migrated
- Support services that the chosen vendor offers
While these factors are essential for the successful completion of data migration projects, many enterprises overlook the role discovery and reporting plays in support of these.
Shopping for a Data Management Vendor
Enterprises should be careful about choosing a data migration provider that doesn’t clearly address discovery and reporting. Often, this is not communicated between the hardware vendor, service sellers, and the customers. Thus, it is often forgotten – which, in turn, results in unsuccessful data migration projects that can be costly for everyone involved.
Why is this the case? During the RFP process, delivering cost-competitive solutions often means eliminating reporting functionality from standard package offerings. The thing to realize is that reducing functionality lowers the cost of the project. This allows for hardware and service sellers to be more competitive on bids.
However, without accurate discovery information, there is a significant amount of risk added to the data migration process.
Accuracy and Reporting During a Migration Process
Accuracy is key. Without an accurate migration, you don’t get a proper validation of file content, meaning customers and/or the service provider could be financially liable for a number of reasons. Violations that result from noncompliance with data regulations such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) carry thousands of dollars in fines.
Reporting at different stages of the sale and services implementation is crucial to the success of a data migration project. It is essential to look for a vendor equipped with reporting capabilities from the beginning to after the end of the data migration process. Let’s take a look into the reporting abilities at each stage of the service implementation.
Pre-Sales Data Assessment
Prior to a migration project, enterprises should first begin by understanding the insights provided by their data, for example how many files are to be stored, the mix of sizes, the age of the data, etc.
It is important to find a vendor that assists in delivering highly predictable and cost-effective NAS and object data migrations with fast ROI. By doing so, organizations can receive a detailed intelligence report that provides enterprises with the insight that shows the project is being done properly based on the information from their data.
The Migration Services Delivery Stage
Delivery professionals can spend anywhere from 20-30 hours collecting discovery information in complex environments, especially when a multi-vendor infrastructure is present. Collecting the required discovery data in a multi-vendor infrastructure involves installing multiple tools, running several different reports, and having to remediate while both interacting with the customer and collecting and parsing data.
In the modern era of data migration and cloud data migration, it is essential to choose a migration service that is cost-effective without sacrificing utility. How is that possible? The answer is through smart automation, which provides fast and efficient data migration that maintains data integrity.
Post-Migration Delivery
It’s worth noting that even in post-migration stages having access to the reporting can help enterprises with compliance requirements.
Companies need a data migration vendor that provides services designed to provide IT professionals, legal teams, and compliance officers everything they need to know about the integrity of the file-system data that was preserved through the migration process and easily accessible to whoever needs access.
The bottom line: If you care about due diligence and attention to detail, then reporting and discovery are essential to your data migration process.