Tools to do the work may represent additional costs, just like purchasing new appliances for a kitchen or renting a table saw for renovation. You’ll also want to find out if you need a budget to contract for migration services your staff can’t, won’t or shouldn’t perform. In any migration project there will be these items where it doesn’t further the learning experience for your team, or there is no time or need to go through some steps, so it will make sense to outsource these items.

A successful migration should fit into the bigger picture of a company’s business and computing strategy. Close study of what sits in your kitchen’s cupboards can reveal items that haven’t been used in years — so you don’t have to make space for them in the new kitchen. With the same kind of diligent planning, you can find applications that aren’t serving the company needs or workflows — and aren’t contributing to the bottom line any longer. These will not have to be migrated or repurchased.

Once you’ve got a detailed plan, the migration implementation — the actual journey, or building your kitchen space — makes up 40 to 60 percent of your total costs to migrate. If you’re expecting a small migration project, spending $40,000 on an executive seminar and detailed planning, plus the cost of tools, may bring the whole project in at a much more reasonable cost. Without the detailed plan, the project will cost more and take longer.

Plans Need Blueprints

Good implementation should include data blueprinting. It is like measuring your available kitchen area. No matter whether your applications will be migrated or replaced, your data is making the journey — just like your pots, pans and dishes will continue to be used in a new kitchen.

What’s in a data blueprint? It’s a complete inventory of what’s on your current servers, and can include file formats, file types, database designs, metadata sources and the number of volumes and storage needs. A blueprint examines how useful your data really is — so you can see why you’re storing old data. A blueprint also identifies data constraints and relationships between your data.

Testing

Whether you buy an application or migrate your current one to a new environment there will be testing, typically about three times as much as is usually estimated for the entire project (so closer to 30 percent, not 10 percent). There will be testing to prove that all the data got moved; testing to be sure that migrated surround code and the application performs well under load; testing for the application integration with other application systems; and also user acceptance testing.

By hiring subject matter experts with experience, you achieve system acceptance in a timely manner by getting the users scheduled early as part of the quality assurance and test process.

Training

Once the transition is complete you will need to be in a position to function in the new kitchen; the new skills in operations, programming and even end user deployment will need timely and comprehensive training. Budgeting and planning for training mitigates risks and is a critical success factor.

Budgeting for training costs is another tricky bit that requires experience. It can be as low as 1 percent of the total migration or as much as 5-10 percent if business process reengineering will take place. All education needs to be considered, from the early steps of training for new operational skills required in IT, plus new application skills to be taught to end users. 

Managing a Project

Application migration is a project that demands management and planning. With the help of your guide, analyze your budget and include a skilled project manager. Typically the project management will be 17-25 percent of the project. This is another critical success factor.

Everyone needs to plan their resources: people and finances for projects, so they can determine what resources will be required to build the cabinets, fix the plumbing and purchase the desired appliances and light fixtures. Or in this case, the applications and services required to make their migration a success. There are so many aspects to consider and be managed.

Post-project activity list

Once the project has completed its “go-live” process, there is still work to do. First there will be the parking lot items: things that came up during the project which did not need to be addressed immediately, but should be scheduled now that the project is finished.

You also need to have a decommissioning plan: a strategy which will take care of deciding how to best manage the historic data. You want to get things to a point where the old servers can be shut down and disposed of — not to mention the savings that can be obtained.

Oh, and don’t forget to celebrate. It’s been a long process, but you finished a migration project on time and within budget, because it was well planned and budgeted. It is time for the after-party.