Migration Checklist and Strategy

Posted: March 26th, 2018

 

Here’s a list of questions to ask yourself before you begin planning your migration:

 

New architecture

 

1) Should you change the architecture, computing power, OS/software versions or file structure of your servers?

 

2) Do you have the necessary human resources to identify the new architecture’s requirements and opportunities, and configure your new servers correctly?

 

3) Having identified your new solution, does your hosting provider give you the storage, bandwidth, computing power and reliability you need for now and the near future?

 

4) How scalable is your new hosting architecture – can you easily improve it, upgrade it or migrate it if you need to?

 

Migration strategy

 

1) Should you freeze changes to files on your existing server, and when should you do this in order to allow enough time for the migration (plus testing).

 

2) How much downtime is acceptable, and how can your migration strategy reduce downtime? Is avoiding downtime worth adding complexity and resources to the process?

 

3) How will you update/manage your databases in order to ensure data continuity and not lose data that is changed during migration? Do you need to lock your database in order to achieve this?

 

4) Do you have a plan in place to ensure that users have the correct privileges on the new server.

 

5) How will you thoroughly test the new servers using realistic loads?

 

6) What will be the impact of the changes on server users and how will you manage this? Who is affected, and what steps do they need to take.