Building a Case for Database Migration

Building a Case for Database Migration

Contents

Section Title Page

1.0 Purpose 3

2.0 Why Do Companies Migrate? 3

3.0 What Inhibits a Decision to Migrate? 4

4.0 The Migration Process 5

5.0 Competitive Overview 6

6.0 Summary and Conclusion 6

1.0 Purpose

This document provides a supporting framework for enterprise IT departments to make business decisions on how best to migrate from one database system to another. It is written as a guide to structure a business case for presentation to upper level management.

2.0 Why Do Companies Migrate?

Given the critical nature of database applications in the life of a business, it is often hard to believe that a company would choose to jeopardize its operations by moving to another vendor’s database system. Indeed the fact that some business applications were written many years ago and were modified over the years by personnel who may no longer be in the company, it is understandable that there is not only trepidation about making a move to a new database system, but also there may be a high cost associated with the mechanics of the migration. But the fact is that companies vehemently oppose being trapped on one vendor’s products because there can be serious consequences such as higher total cost of ownership (TCO), less scalable solutions, a lack of developers, and more. But there are also issues about the flexibility of the business and how it can be negatively affected by the inability to move quickly because of being trapped on ...

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ETL Vendors Y

* As of the completion of this paper, DB Best was acquired by Microsoft Corporation.

6.0 Summary and Conclusion

There are many reasons to move from one database system to another. The process is complex and involves many important activities peripheral to the formal migration itself. A methodology was presented to analyze the formal database migration and place it in the context of an enterprise decision for making the move. The methodology focuses on what specific issues need to be addressed by a database migration vendor so that a complete analysis can be presented to executive management. Finally, a competitive overview is presented to assist IT personnel in identifying sources of database migration tools.