"Data migration is the process of selecting, preparing, extracting, and transforming data and permanently transferring it from one computer storage system to another" (Wikipedia).

"Whereas data integration involves collecting data from sources outside of an organization for analysis, migration refers to the movement of data already stored internally to different systems. Companies will typically migrate data when implementing a new system or merging to a new environment. Migration techniques are often performed by a set of programs or automated scripts that automatically transfer data" (Solutions Review). "Additionally, the validation of migrated data for completeness and the decommissioning of legacy data storage are considered part of the entire data migration process" (Wikipedia).

"However, ‘transfer’ is not the only aspect of data migration methodology. If the data is diverse, the migration process includes mappings and transformations between source and target data. Above all, data quality must be assessed before migration to ensure a successful implementation. The success rate of any data migration project is directly dependent on the diversity, volume, and quality of data being transferred" (Astera).

"Most migrations take place through five major stages:

  1. "Extraction: remove data from the current system to begin working on it.
  2. "Transformation: match data to its new forms, ensure that metadata reflects the data in each field.
  3. "Cleansing: deduplicate, run tests, and address any corrupted data.
  4. "Validation: test and retest that moving the data to the target location provides the expected response.
  5. "Loading: transfer data into the new system and review for errors again." — TechnologyAdvice
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