Glossary · IT & systems
Data migration
Moving data from an old system to a new one.
Data migration is moving data from an old system to a new one. Customers, orders, history: everything you want to keep has to come along and end up in the right place. It sounds simple, but it is often the trickiest part of a system change.
The difficulty lies in the state of the old data. It is rarely as tidy as you hope: duplicate records, missing fields and old errors all come to the surface during a migrationMoving from one system to another without losing your data.. That is why this is the ideal moment to clean up your data, rather than moving the mess along with it.
A successful migration is tested beforehand on part of the data and checked thoroughly before you make the final switch. Keeping a way back in reserve is part of it, in case something doesn't go as expected.
