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Conversion Best Practices

As with any IT Project, In order for a migration project to be successful, it is important to utilize Best Practices throughout the project. Although companies encountering an upgrade or migration project sometimes feel the need to see these projects proceed very quickly, all of the same strategies apply as they do to any project. These following simple steps will ensure that a migration or upgrade project is efficient, effective and economical.

  1. Ensure the availability of proper resources and skills - Resources should include resources who understand the original application, how it functions and operates and who understand end user's expectations of the application. As well, staff who understand the new environment, have been trained on the differences, and who have a good understanding of what the differences will mean to the business are important. End users being available for testing are extremely important to the overall success of the project.

  2. Get commitment from management - Ensure that management has endorsed the project and is committed to the overall success. This means their ability to allocate resources as required.

  3. Project plans and schedules must be created and agreed upon before starting - Project plans with milestones and schedules should be determined before a project is started. If an outside vendor is providing the services, project payment should be tied to these milestones.

  4. Utilize Change Control Processes for changes to project scope - Regardless of the size and scope of a project, utilizing Change Control Processes is critical to the success of any project.

  5. Become familiar with the features of the new environment - Understanding the new system requirements as well as the capabilities of the new environment will ensure that staff understand what they are undertaking.

  6. Determine the correct migration or upgrade path - This is critical as the path going forward should be determined based on the business drivers of the organization.

  7. Determine if your organization is able to perform the migration or upgrade or if it should be outsourced - Resource requirements and capabilities going forward are critical.

  8. Determine system considerations - Requirements such as hardware, disk capacity, memory requirements, scalability and other hardware capabilities should be considered.

  9. Determine software requirements - This would include new licenses of software, additional software to support the new environment, performance tuning software, and any software that will be required.

  10. Tuning Database Parameters -Ensure that parameters have been set according to new requirements.

  11. Allow project time for performance tuning - As hardware and software may be changing, it is critical to perform performance tuning. This will ensure that any additional hardware and software required can be implemented before the migrated application goes into production.

  12. Develop Test Plans - Testing is one of the most critical components of any project. Thorough testing is important to ensure that the application functions in the most efficient manner, users are satisfied with the end results, and the migrated application supports the business processes of the organization.

    13. Testing requirements include:

    • Upgrade Testing
    • Functional Testing
    • Integration Testing
    • Performance Testing
    • Volume and Load Stress Testing
    • Specific Pre-Upgrade and Post-Upgrade Tests

  13. Set up a duplicate environment for initial installation and testing - This ensures that testing will show the same results in both environments.

  14. Create detailed installation instructions so each procedure can be repeated.

  15. Utilize testing and optimization tools - This will allow the application to function in the most efficient manner possible.