Migration Governance

1. Migration Feasibility Analysis

   Undertaking a migration journey requires proper planning, covering topics such as the approach, skills needed, communication and testing required, among other factors. Failure to plan can be catastrophic: According to Gartner and the Bloor Group, more than 80% of migrations either fail or run over time and budget constraints, largely by neglecting this organizational step.  

   At Pentalog, we begin with a feasibility analysis to review factors such as readiness of the migration, hosting, licensing and platform expectations to devise a coherent migration and to build an operational strategy and tactics to achieve the goals.

2. Migration Planning

   Informed by the feasibility analysis, we work with stakeholders to build a comprehensive backlog with all tasks needed to be achieved as part of this migration. The goal here is to cover as many tasks as can be anticipated, understanding that any backlog will always evolve.  

   With the backlog in hand, we order the priorities and build a roadmap depicting the phases of the migration. While a roadmap will also evolve over time, an initial view should include: 

   • Pre-Migration - Define work items to prepare the migration, such as changes to applications, infrastructure, scripts and training needs. 
   • Explicit Go-Live Plan - Detail instructions for each person involved in the migration, down to the second. Will be simulated as needed. 
   • Post-Migration - Define post-migration follow-up items (e.g., KPIs). 

   During planning, we will assess the required resources and will build an explicit responsibility assignment matrix (RACI) covering the teams and roles involved in the migration. The RACI will carefully consider the skills and structures needed to achieve the migration, and propose changes as needed.

3. Migration Simulation

   Before attempting to migrate to a live environment, we conduct Migration Simulation designed to run in an isolated environment, one prepared to be as close as possible to production. This simulation will work as a kind of “live fire exercise” and will follow the precise “Go Live” steps as planned for the production crossover. We will run the simulation as many times as necessary until we are confident that we have a solid plan to make the leap in production. 

4. Target Migration Architecture

   Drawing on our analysis of the source and target platform(s) agreed with the client, we will create a Target Migration Architecture Design which will consider all existing resources (as well as adjustments where needed). Typically, this plan is refined based on feedback from the client.  

   When building the Target Migration Architecture Plan, we collaborate with stakeholders to carefully consider all aspects of the migration. We will pay extra attention to Data Migration Tactics (covering Storage, Volume, Producers and Consumers, Data integrity validation) to ensure an optimal migration in the right period and with no data loss. 

   We will define together with the client a Migration Success Criteria, as well as Business and IT (Information Technology) KPIs (key performance indicators) to follow post-migration. We will also define a Rollback Strategy in case of an unforeseen event.

5. Risk Management

   Risk Management is an ongoing focus across the migration process. At each stage, we will focus on identifying, evaluating and prioritizing the foreseeable risks for the entire duration of the migration. We will construct mitigation plans with the client, detailing our workflow to coordinate, monitor and control the migration, minimize risks and optimize for success.