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Data Migration and its Tools

Data migration is the process of moving data from one location to another, one format to another, or one application to another. Generally, this is the result of introducing a new system or location for the data. The business driver is usually an application migration or consolidation in which legacy systems are replaced or augmented by new applications that will share the same dataset.



Below are the types of Migration:

  • Storage migration. The process of moving data off existing arrays into more modern ones that enable other systems to access it. Offers significantly faster performance and more cost-effective scaling while enabling expected data management features such as cloning, snapshots, and backup and disaster recovery.

  • Cloud migration. The process of moving data, application, or other business elements from either an on-premises data center to a cloud or from one cloud to another. In many cases, it also entails a storage migration.

  • Application migration. The process of moving an application program from one environment to another. May include moving the entire application from an on-premises IT center to a cloud, moving between clouds, or simply moving the application's underlying data to a new form of the application hosted by a software provider.


Best Data Migration Tools


#1) IRI NextForm

IRI NextForm is available in multiple editions as a standalone data and database migration utility, or as an included capability within the larger IRI data management and ETL platform, Voracity.


You can use NextForm to convert: file formats (like LDIF or JSON to CSV or XML); legacy data stores (like ACUCOBOL Vision to MS SQL targets); data types (like packed decimal to numeric); endian states (big to little), and, database schema (relational to star or data vault, Oracle to MongoDB, etc.).


Key features:

  • Reaches, profiles, and migrates data graphically in IRI Workbench, a familiar and free Eclipse IDE for job design, deployment, and management.

  • Supports close to 200 legacy and modern data sources and targets, with the ability for more through custom I/O procedures or API calls.

  • Uses standard drivers like ODBC, MQTT, and Kafka for data movement, and supports local, cloud and HDFS file systems.

  • Data definition and manipulation metadata are in simple, self-documenting 4GL text files that are also represented in dialogs, outlines, and diagrams for easy understanding and modification.

  • Builds job tasks or batch scripts for execution, scheduling, and monitoring from the GUI, command line, etc., plus secure team sharing in a Git Hub for version control.


#2) Xplenty

Xplenty is a cloud-based data integration platform. It is a complete toolkit for building data pipelines. It provides solutions for marketing, sales, customer support, and developers. These solutions are available for retail, hospitality, and advertising industries. Xplenty is an elastic and scalable platform.


Key Features:

  • Xplenty has features for easy migrations. It will help you migrate to the cloud.

  • Xplenty provides the features to connect to legacy systems.

  • It will help you to connect easily to on-premise, legacy systems, and migrate data from them.

  • It supports Oracle, Teradata, DB2, SFTP, and SQL servers.


#3) DBConvert Studio

DBConvert Studio Exclusive Discount: Get 20% off with coupon code “20OffSTH” during checkout.

DBConvert Studio by SLOTIX s.r.o. is the most suitable tool for database migration and synchronization. It supports ten the most popular on-premises databases, including SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and more.


For large data storage volumes, it would be reasonable to consider migrating databases to one of the following cloud platforms like Amazon RDS/ Aurora, MS Azure SQL, Google Cloud SQL, and Heroku Postgres.


Key Features:

  • The following three scenarios of data migration are possible: Source to Target migration, One-way synchronization, Bidirectional synchronization.

  • All database objects can be renamed during migration.

  • Data types can be mapped as for all Target tables as for separate tables.

  • Filters can be applied to extract the necessary data from the Source database.

  • The source table can be reassigned to an existing Target table.

  • Flexible built-in Scheduler can be used to launch tasks at a specific time without GUI running.


#4) AWS Data Migration

AWS Data Migration tool that is owned by Amazon is best suited for cloud data migration. It helps to migrate databases to AWS in a secure and easy manner.


Key features:

  • AWS data migration tool supports homogeneous as well as heterogeneous migrations such as Oracle to Oracle (homogeneous) or Oracle to Microsoft SQL(heterogeneous) etc.

  • It minimizes the application downtime to a remarkable extent.

  • It facilitates the source database to remain fully operational throughout the migration activity.

  • It is a very flexible tool and can migrate data among the most widely used commercial & open-source databases.

  • It can be used for continuous data migrations due to its high-availability.


#5) Informix (IBM)

Informix by IBM is another excellent tool repository that can be used to move data from one IBM database to another IBM database. It primarily supports homogeneous data migrations.


Key features:

  • It supports data migration between different operating systems like UNIX or Linux etc.

  • It also carries out data migration from one server to another.

  • It is capable of performing high-speed data checking transfers with the help of utilities like db export & db import utility, db load utility, on load and on unloading utility, Non-logging tables, high-performance loader etc.

For data imports from non-Informix sources, IBM has special tools/utilities to facilitate that too like – External tables, High-Performance Loader (HPL) and IBM Informix Enterprise Gateway products.


#6) Azure DocumentDB

Azure Document DB Data Migration Tool is owned by Microsoft. It is an excellent tool to be used for data movement from various data sources into Azure Document DB.


Key features:

  • It can successfully import data from any of the mentioned sources: CSV files, SQL, MongoDB, JSON files, Azure Table storage, Azure Document DB, Amazon Dynamo DB, HBase.

  • It supports a wide range of Windows operating systems and .NET frameworks 4.5.1 or higher versions.


#7) Rsync

Rsync is a data migration tool for transferring data across computer systems efficiently. It migrates data based on the time stamp and file size.


Key features:

  • It best works with Unix-like systems and acts as a file synchronization and data transfer program.

  • Rsync processes act as a sender and receiver to establish a data transfer connection between peers. It is capable of performing local and remote data transfers by forming peer connections.

  • It uses SSH to connect to the remote system and invokes the remote host’s Rsync to determine which parts of data need to be transferred over the secure connection.


#8) EMC Rainfinity

EMC Rainfinity File Management Appliance (FMA) is a product of Dell EMC Corporation. It is designed to help organizations to reduce storage management costs.


Key features:

  • It implements automated file archiving algorithms that can perform data migration across heterogeneous servers and NAS environments.

  • It comes with easy to use wizards to transparently move files across NAS and CAS.

  • Rainfinity introduces files into the environment through simple and light-weight solutions offering an excellent solution to its customers.

  • Its prime features include scalability, availability, and flexibility.


#9) Configero Data Loader

Configero’s Data Loader for Salesforce is a web-based data loader application. It speeds up the activities of inserting, updating, and deleting Salesforce data. It has much-improved error handling as errors are displayed in the grid, thereby allowing direct editing of errors.


Key features:

  • External ID support and ability to save field mappings.

  • Comes with integrated error handling and provides basic support for mass editing.

  • Powerful multi-column filtering allows users to perform final edits prior to data loading.


#10) Brocade’s DMM (Data Migration Manager)

DMM by Brocade is an innovative, powerful and performance-oriented solution for high – performance data migration activities. It works efficiently in heterogeneous storage environments. It stands among the top 15 products of the year.


Key features:

  • DMM is a rapid and easily deployed data migration software for enterprise environments

  • It gives a high-throughput speed of up to one terabyte (TB) per hour.

  • It optimizes migrations across Storage Area Networks (SANs) with an easy setup facility.

  • It has a unique feature to determine the migration time in advance. This feature allows the clients to plan time, budget, and resources associated with the migration activity.


#11) HDS Universal Replicator

Hitachi Universal Replicator software provides enterprise-level storage system replication while delivering business continuity at the same time. It is capable of working with heterogeneous operating systems.


Key features:

  • It provides powerful data management and recovery solutions and has the ability to replicate data to one or more remote sites.

  • HDS replicator reduces resource consumption and provides significant data protection.

  • It permits data to be copied from any supported device to any permitted device regardless of the operating systems or protocol differences.


#12) Informatica Cloud Data Wizard

Informatica Cloud Data Wizard is a flexible next-generation data loader for any type of user.

It is an excellent Salesforce app that allows its users to easily synchronize common as well as custom Salesforce objects with CSV files, with SaaS applications such as NetSuite and cloud storage like Box.


Key features:

  • It comes with Prebuilt integration templates that allow the users to select Salesforce objects.

  • Salesforce admins can establish connections with external applications and conduct on-the-fly transformations.

  • It provides in-app integration in order to enhance its user productivity.


#13) Apex Data Loader

The Apex Data Loader is a Salesforce product. It is a java based application that can process bulk insert, update and delete commands on all the data objects. Users can build queries to extract data using the Apex Web Services (SOAP) API.


Key features:

  • Data Loader is a graphical tool that is easy to use and helps users to get their data into Salesforce objects.

  • It is an easy-to-use wizard interface that supports large files with up to millions of rows.

  • Provides support for local as well as custom objects.

  • It has a built-in CSV file viewer and is supported on windows7 and XP.


#14) Talend Open Studio

Talend open studio is an open architecture product that provides unmatched flexibility to users to solve migration and integration challenges in a better way easily. It is quite easy to adopt for data integration, big data, application integration, etc.


Key features:

  • It simplifies ETL processes for large and multiple data sets.

  • Maintains the precision and integrity of data throughout the migration.


#15) Rocket Data Migration

Rocket Data Migration solutions include all aspects of data migration comprehensively. It is designed to boost the established migration procedures with the least manual effort. This tool simultaneously provides any level of support required throughout the migration.


Key features:

  • Ensures data integrity by safeguarding against data corruption or loss.

  • Reduces storage costs and thereby improves return on investment.

  • Minimizes the interference of migration activities in meeting the daily objectives.



#16) Data Migrator

Data-migrator is another excellent and powerful automated tool that simplifies ETL processes (extract, transform, load) in a comprehensive manner.


It is a product of information builders organization.


Key features:

  • It is capable of working with data from all the platforms and is the most flexible tool.

  • Proficient in the expansion of data warehouses, operational data stores, and data marts.

  • Enables fast and end-to-end heterogeneous data migration and thus provides seamless integration.

  • It comes with a brilliant feature of the management of ETL processes in a secure environment. Administrators can easily monitor and review job statistics, job logs, job queues, start, and schedule jobs. It ensures efficient remote review and administration of migration activities.



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