Data Migration Testing

A Research study, "Data Migration in the Fortune 1000 companies," found that: "87 percent of data migration projects fail to meet expectations due to Quality issues"

Data Migration does not mean simply moving data. A good analogy here is the distinction between moving (permanently) from Santa Clara to New York versus Santa Clara to Germany. The former is just moving house whereas the later is migration: changing culture, language and environment. Similarly data migration is not just conventional ETL (Extract Transform and Load). In reality, data migration is always a subset of a larger application initiative, whether that is custom built application consolidation/migration/upgrade, master data management etc or moving from Legacy to bundled ERP solutions like SAP or Oracle E-Biz. It also involves the validation and cleansing the data to ensure the data migrated is correct and in the proper format for use by the application.

Business Drivers for Data Migration

Withdrawn database vendor support
Architectural or Functional scalability issues
High cost of maintenance or manageability
Consolidation of old legacy systems
Product or Technology upgrade
Technological obsolescence
Security Issues
Better performance
Mergers & Acquisitions

Data Migration Testing Service Overview

We specialize in the following migration testing services:
SQL Server 2000/2005 to Oracle 9i/10g
Oracle 9i/10g to SQL Server 2005/2008
DB2 to SQL Server 2005/2008
Legacy to New technology
Open source to Commercial database
Commercial database to Open source

Data Migration Testing Methodology

At Arsin we use blend of home grown IP (TSPs and DBQGen) and market popular tools such as Microsoft’s SSMA or Oracle’s Migration workbench, IBM’s Migration Toolkit etc, Quest code tester for Oracle etc, for data migration validation.

Arsin’s data validation accelerators (TSPs and DBQGen) helps reducing data validation effort by 60%.

TSPs-Test Stored Procedures, DBQGen-Database Query Generator

Migration Testing-Analysis phase

Understand all data sources and data within that have to be migrated
Data analysis and Profiling of data
Identify the size of data and database objects to be migrated for scoping
Verify the mapping between source and target databases/tables
Recommend a POC for complex application testing
Prepare Detailed Test Plan and Test Strategy

Migration Testing- Pre Validation phase

Build the QA/Test environment (installing, configuration of the required h/w and s/w)
Configure the source and target database environment
Populate the test data or production data, extract to the source test database server
Install and configure Arsin’s accelerators for migration validation/testing
Validate the scripts or ETL built for data migration

Migration Testing- Validation phase

Perform smoke test for quick validation
Run the migration utility/ETL/ scripts for data load
Monitor the data load time and error logs
Terminate the data load if error threshold exceeds
Run Arsin’s TSP’s/DBQGen utility to validate the data between source and target databases
Report issues/defects

Migration Testing- Post Validation phase

Analyze test results
Perform Security audit

Additional Benefits

We have a repository of “rich experiences in handling complex migration scenarios and best practices” for data migration validation which helps solving most of the complexities encountered during migration testing
Our Migration testing, besides functional, also covers database performance, scalability, and security, to ensure that the migrated database is secure and performs better.

*TSPs, DBQGen, QA Mapper, GAT, AIPT and WASA are accelerators built by Arsin Corporation which reduces testing time and cost significantly.

TSPs- Test Stored Procedures DBQGen- Database Query testing tool