Methodology Overview: Migration Delivery

The migration will be delivered during the implementation phase of the wider project to implement a new system. Initial timescales will be dictated by the project plan.

Data migration is an iterative process, with the following key elements:

• Mapping
• Testing
• Issue Management
• Sign-off

The following diagram shows how this fits together:

Hopp’s core functionality supports the migration implementation indicated by the shaded box in the diagram above. The organization of this work will have been specified in the migration plan contained in the data migration strategy.

Migration Implementation – Milestones and Releases

The wider project plan will have various milestones that the data migration will need to meet. The work of the data migration itself will be sub-divided into Releases that are analogous to Agile Sprints. Elements of the migration preparation will feed into the migration planning, in particular:

• Project Decomposition will identify the different areas that need to be delivered by the data migration. This will help to define the focus for each Release.
• Landscape Analysis will inform the data migration where the source data is and how it can be accessed.
• The Migration Issues Log will provide information about the issues that will need to be addressed by the migration.

Testing

As the data migration team begins to iteratively build the data migration, the results will need to be tested. In larger projects, the responsibility for testing is often held by a dedicated testing team, so communication of the specific migration testing requirements is very important.

There are different types of testing that are relevant to data migration, which include:

• User Acceptance Testing(UAT): This is used to check that the new system operates as required. It is often initially carried out using test data, but it is important that real migrated data is also used.
  • This type of testing falls outside the direct scope of the core Hopp functionality.
• Reconciliation Testing: This testing is used to confirm that the required records have migrated and check key values are correct. It often involves comparison of legacy system reports and outputs with their new system equivalents.
  • This type of testing can be supported by the core Hopp functionality but always requires external sources for comparison.
• Record Level Testing: This type of testing is used to check individual records down to field level.
  • This type of testing is very well supported by the core Hopp functionality.

Any errors identified in testing are logged as migration issues and fed back into the iterative migration loop.

Migration Issue Management

The Data Task Group that was established during migration preparation will need to agree the priority and decide the plan for each issue raised. Where it is decided that action is required, the issue will be assigned to a Release. The Data Task Group will then be responsible for monitoring the progress of these issues.

Migration Sign-off

Before the new system can go live, the data migration will need to be signed off by the Data Owners. They will need to be provided with evidence that the migration sign-off requirements agreed during migration preparation have been satisfied. Production of this evidence should be the primary focus of the migration testing.