Vamosa, the content migration practice of T-Systems, working closely with IBM as their migration partner, were asked to deliver a large scale migration of collaboration content from an IBM Connections on-premise instance into IBM Connections Cloud.
The Task
- Moving from an on-premise installation of IBM Connections into IBM Connections Cloud can be a daunting proposition. Although the platforms are fairly similar, they are not the same – for example, many of the stand alone applications available on-premise are not available in the Cloud. These applications must be migrated into a community if they are to be retained – which they can be, using our content migration software.
- Every organisation has users who leave, and in this case, their data can be assigned to another author during the transformation phase. With over 700,000 content items (1 TB data) to be migrated, failure to do so can compromise the security access of the content, since logins might still be active – even after the content migration process.
- Content migration had to be finalised over a single weekend, so with the switch over taking place prior to Monday morning, users would be unaware of the migration activity taking place.
- IBM had a request to deliver the solution, which in turn led to the T-Systems Vamosa team being approached to handle the data management migration. The T-Systems Vamosa team has extensive experience working with IBM to deliver these transformation projects, so it was natural for IBM to again use their preferred partner for their content migration project management.
Delivery through best practice
A challenging content migration was delivered successfully by following our repeatable process. Working closely with the customer and IBM, the T-Systems team provided expert services to guide them through their migration journey.
Adoption of a tried and trusted methodology was followed, one which had been used to deliver many successful migration programs before. Automated analysis was completed in order to understand the scope and complexity of the content, and T-Systems Vamosa held vital workshops to drive the migration design and build a robust, repeatable solution using the Vamosa Migration Architect software.
Multiple validation migration runs were carried out, ensuring the customer could see the value in the migration result prior to the production run, while allowing for process improvement at each iteration.
Migration live execution over a smooth, consistent timeline ensured no impact to either the source or the target system. Complimented with a series of delta migrations to gradually synchronise the content in the lead up to the switch over, the synchronisation ensured it was possible to switch over during a weekend – which was a main requirement for the customer.
Benefits
Expert services and methodology – A successful migration result was delivered using Vamosa T-System’s expertise, proven methodology and dedicated migration software to suit the requirements of the customer, within a tight timeline and with no impact on business as usual for the customer.
Process improvement meets expectation – Dedicated validation migration runs provided valuable insight into the migration result at an early stage in the project. This provided the perfect opportunity to understand how functionality gaps could be closed, and to refine the process to resolve unexpected outcomes.
Reducing customer stress and costs – Incorporating multiple delta migrations ensured the content could be migrated over a longer timeline than the requested weekend, vastly improving the chance to meet the ‘go live’ deadline. Using only two migration servers, costs to the customer were reduced, otherwise more servers would have been required, and the complexity of the migration would be increased.
Ease of communication and consistency – Maintaining a small dedicated team, the content management migration was delivered using only two migration consultants and one project manager. This ensured one simple, single point of contact and provided a consistent team throughout the duration of the project.
Full traceability – Delivery of migration reports provided fully traceable results to the customer. As such, 100% accuracy was delivered and each content item was successfully identified, processed and migrated.
Take the next step!
A division of T-Systems, Vamosa Technologies specializes in content migration to cloud, on-premises and hybrid cloud systems. With two decades of customer migrations, Vamosa Technologies has experience with a comprehensive range of leading enterprise content management systems. To learn more about services from Vamosa Technologies, please read our case studies and whitepapers or contact us.
