Data Migration
Data Migration
As the IT industry matures, companies are starting to realize the benefits of having a standardized approach to IT. This includes the use of common applications within a business sector. These applications can be a new application entirely for the company or an upgrade of one of a number of existing products in place. When a company decides to go down the path of standardization there are a number of things that need to be considered. One of the most important issues that a company needs to consider is the question of what to do with legacy data. Depending on the type of application, legacy data may or may not be required. In the LIMS world, foreseeable situations exist where the answer to the legacy data question is both! The question is then – migrate the data to the new system or warehouse the data? I will explain some of the considerations that should come into play when making this decision.
There are a number of different types of data and it is very important to identify this prior to deciding your migration approach. Here are a list of questions you should ask when determining your approach:
1.) Is your data active and required to be easily accessible/updated/etc?
2.) Is your data only required for reporting purposes? Thus, no more updates to the data is required.
3.) What are the legal requirements for how long your data needs to be maintained? 5 years, 11 years, 20 years, etc?
4.) If data is active, how much longer is it active? When can this set of data be retired to the point that it is only required for reporting purposes?
These seem like obvious questions and they are. It always helps me, even though I know the questions I should be asking on a particular topic, to ask them – in order to better analyze the situation.
In the LIMS world, and other worlds, a plethora of applications exist. While the concept of what a LIMS must be able to accomplish is consistent across the industry, every application is different. Again, statement of the obvious – however, it is an important point to note. Different applications would not exist if there was not an underlying functional difference between them. Each company that develops a LIMS, attempts to create an application that can be applied to different categories of testing while maintaining some flexibility to allow for configuration and alterations of system setup. The benefit for the software developers is that they can penetrate new industries. The benefit for the consumer is that they can most likely make the system fit their business. The drawback for the consumer is that the application is not specifically designed for their business and options can at times lead to great complications. It also means that it can be very difficult to match systems of yesterday to these newer applications of today.
Data migration is a costly and time consuming process. It is difficult to map multiple existing systems into a new system that already has a predefined structure. Data warehousing can allow you the option to design your own data structure that can more easily accommodate the variety in data that you are retrieving. At the same time, data warehousing allows you to verify that the data is stored in a manner that matches your business – not just the flexible data structures that are created so that software can be used in multiple industries. Consider your data requirements and develop a long term data strategy. If you are looking to solely be able to report on the data, why not consider putting it into a warehousing structure that is designed for reporting rather than performing transactions?
Posted by Bryan J. Holmes at February 27, 2007 04:46 PM
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