Data Migration News & Articles

Are your digital assets liquid? Can you easily move them from one system to another?

Your needs evolve, technology changes, vendors get acquired...something eventually inspires a change of content management platforms. But selecting a new system is only one step and likely not the most challenging one. Migrating your existing website and content, now that's another story.

Depending on your situation, you will face any number of different challenges -- missing digital assets, metadata all over the place or missing, linked resources, content restructuring. And let's not forget that it's unlikely you are migrating static web pages. 

Has Automated Content Migration Arrived?

Kapow Software has stepped up claiming a new approach to migrating content. They say they can eliminate the content freeze. After a detailed content inventory, they propose a three step approach to content migration. The process starts with extraction using their Extraction Browser, which can process dynamic HTML and extract data from Flash. From there it moves to transformation, and ends with loading the content into the new CMS.

They say their system works for all types of structured and unstructured content, including content such as email, calendars and blog posts.

The New Inventory, Extract, Map and Migrate Process

The tools look impressive during the demos. But extensive testing we've not yet done. So before you drink the Kapow Kool-Aid (and fork over the cash) make sure you dig into the details and run real tests. Their Definitive Guide to Automating Content Migration is a start.

Last fall, Queplix brought a layer of virtualization to your data. With its Virtual Data Manager, users can see their data across various systems, giving access to the bigger picture. But what happens when one of those systems gets out-of-date or, even worse, becomes a relic of data management? What happens to all the data that lived there?

At a time when Gartner (news, site) predicts companies will become obsessed with measuring the ROI of IT investments, Oracle (news, site) has just upgraded its cloud-based customer relationship management system (CRM) to include advanced business analytics and forecasting abilities to better measure and increase enterprise productivity.

Amazon Web Services, or AWS (news, site) is has a limited beta out for a new service. Called AWS Import/Export, you will soon have the ability to move your content into and out of the cloud much easier and quicker.

Using Amazon's high speed internal network, you will be able to move your data onto, or off of, just about any storage device -- as long as it meets the compatibility requirements.

It's not to difficult to understand why you would want this capability, but Amazon does offer a few ideas:

• Data Migration: Loading data into the cloud for the first time has never been faster.
• Disaster Recovery: Using Amazon S3 for storage of your website for disaster recovery purposes? Now you can get your website back up and running faster.
• Offsite Backup: Maybe you want to use S3 to store basic backups, whether full or incremental.
• Direct Data Exchange: Partners send you data on devices on a regular basis? Now they can send that data directly to your S3 bucket.

 This new service basically works by you putting your data on a storage device and then ship that device to Amazon Web Services to process in their secure data center. Of course there are a few other steps to complete prior to shipping off your device.

The beta is currently limited to importing data to AWS for US buckets. The export capability and support for EU buckets will come later.

Get yourself registered for the beta program if this new service interests you.

CMSWire spends a fair amount of time bringing you news and information about products or services that help you integrate SharePoint data into your other systems. It’s pretty rare to find a vendor who doesn’t want to integrate with Microsoft’s flagship CMS system.

If there was ever to be one though, it should come as no surprise that IBM is that vendor. The newest release of their Collaboration software, Quickr, comes with a content integrator tool designed to help organizations move away from the dreaded viral software that SharePoint is fast becoming to the software company that use to claim that “viral” title.