Technology Migration Risks and Considerations
Technology migrations have become increasingly common as organizations face and embrace the digital economy. The transition can sometimes be difficult and fraught with pitfalls, mostly due to business impacts, the number of unknowns, and the process and cost of the migration itself. Migration can consume a significant portion of the enterprise. Having the right partnership and careful planning can help mitigate many of the risks and ensure a smoother migration.
The digital economy requires all organizations to look inwards to determine if they are ready. Ready to participate. Ready to compete. Ready to provide the services their clients are demanding. Organizations rely on their enterprise technologies to provide what they need to be successful. However, over time, things change. An organization may have outgrown its current systems because it doesn’t provide the required capabilities. From the non-business side, a technology or platform may approach the end-of-life or become too costly to support.
Inevitably, all organizations face the prospect of a technology migration where capabilities are transferred to a new set of technologies, supporting and enabling the business for the future. However, technology migrations are not always smooth and painless. There are risks involved throughout the migration, including a very significant risk of business impact. Migrations and upgrades can present substantial uncertainty regardless of the business and technology drivers. This uncertainty can result in a minor speed bump or an expensive outage, depending on an organization’s skill-sets and appetite for risk.
The primary risk areas and challenges for a technology migration are:
- Lack of skills, depth, and experience with a new technology (technical risks) – Most organizations have built sufficient depth around their existing legacy technologies, but the new technology is frequently unfamiliar. New technologies may require the introduction of new business processes, which themselves take time to develop and establish. There is an organizational cultural aspect that is important to consider. Is the organization culturally prepared to go through the migration? In addition, the organization rarely has solid skills around the migration process itself and may never have done it before.
- Lack of a clear, realistic migration roadmap – There are unknowns in any migration or upgrade, which can make an accurate timeline and level of effort very difficult to develop accurately. Even during the migration, the business needs may change depending on the competitive landscape and customer demands. That may require frequent adjustments to the roadmap and increase costs.
- Lost productivity – No matter how smooth the migration, productivity will get impacted. During the migration, the enterprise is often forced to operate in multiple modes, supporting the old technologies while the new technologies are being put in place. The longer the migration, the more the productivity is impacted, as resources are sidelined into migration-related tasks and duplicate systems need to be supported.
- Disruption to the business – Migration unknowns have a frightening potential to cause downtime, and potentially a substantial business impact. This also includes downstream impacts to clients that depend on provided capabilities. What is the best time to do the migration? How long will both technologies coexist? Are their contingency plans in place to address all potential situations? These and other questions related to business impact are crucial to managing migration.
- Data risks – The longer the migration period, the greater the risk that some data will be corrupted, lost, or start to diverge (when two duplicate systems are running side by side). What is the impact of data that is drifting apart? If something goes awry in the migration, there is also worry that the change will not be reversible. There are also security concerns around the data. If a third party is involved with the migration, data may not remain on premises and might not be secured properly, leaving it open to exposure.
- Other uncertainties – Often enterprises will struggle with uncertainty around what resources the migration will take and what the final cost will be. Still others may be overwhelmed by the planning, testing, and general ambiguity and uncertainty around what it will take to migrate. Have all the costs been properly identified – not just in resources and time, but also process changes and new supporting tools?
Beyond the primary risks and challenges, there are other key considerations when attempting any migration. An assessment of the readiness of existing IT infrastructure, which consists of servers, storage networks and security technologies, must be taken into consideration. Then, a clear understanding of all data and data sources has to be undertaken to determine if they are sufficient or need to be upgraded or migrated as well. The proposed migration may affect any custom or 3rd-party platforms that will have to be revamped or replaced or otherwise modernized.
The key to a successful technology migration starts with careful planning, an open mind, and the right partnership to manage the risks and ensure success. At Ness SES, we partner with all levels of the enterprise to meet their needs for successful technology migrations by bringing to bear our people, processes, and considerable expertise.
