How to Best Prepare for Migrating Your Server’s Data

When the time comes, the process of migrating your data from one server to another is a considerable commitment. In order to ensure a smooth and uneventful data migration that results in the greatest benefit to your business, it helps to dive in with a few procedures at the top of mind.

Why a Migration May Be Necessary
There is a wide range of circumstances that can contribute to a server migration being a business necessity. Whether your existing server is suddenly prone to malfunction, or your business has simply outgrown it, a new server is likely your best move, which means you will have to move your data over. This will also be the case if the manufacturer of your current server is ending support for it, or if you have managed to fill it with data.

Whatever your motivation, a server migration can be a pain to manage, but there are ways to simplify it through the right preparations.

Properly Preparing for a Migration
To put yourself in the best position for a successful server migration, there a few practices to subscribe to during the process.

Spring Cleaning
It is almost a certainty that your server has outdated data somewhere on it, as well as unnecessary redundancies that are not serving any other purpose than to take up valuable space. Your migration provides the opportunity to run an audit of the files on your server to eliminate data that is no longer applicable.

Backing Up Before Packing Up
Like any process that involves your data, the repercussions should something go wrong can be catastrophic. If your data is damaged, or worse, destroyed, you could find your business in serious trouble very, very quickly. Taking and testing a backup before beginning the migration process ensures that, even of something does go wrong, your data is safe.

Seeing to Your Security
While successfully transferring your data is a huge consideration of a migration, it is also crucial that you protect that data once it has been migrated. Your new server should already have comprehensive security measures in place when your data is migrated, so that you aren’t leaving it vulnerable for any amount of time. These protections should include basic security tools, like firewalls, as well as measures against specific kinds of attacks, like Distributed Denial of Service campaigns.

Keeping Your Old Server in Action
Just because your data migration seemingly went off without a hitch doesn’t mean that you won’t encounter an unanticipated problem. Therefore, it is a better plan to keep your original server up and running for a while, giving you something to fall back on if an issue with your new server arises. As a result, you can mitigate the downtime you might have otherwise experienced.

Need more help migrating your server? Reach out to us! Give us a call at (509) 534-1530 for more assistance.