Are You Choosing the Right IoT Data Migration Service

Data migration is never a small task, especially if you have a lot of data to manage. Thankfully, there are numerous companies that offer Internet of Things (IoT) data migration services at reasonable rates. The only hard part is: How to choose the best one from a wide range of options. Let’s talk about the criteria by which you can measure a data migration service.

1. Proper Certifications

IT technicians must learn a wide variety of skills, but it’s impossible for everyone to learn everything. Since no one person can learn it all, you need to make sure that your data migration service is using people that are properly trained for data migration procedures. In most cases, techs who specialize in data migration will have some sort of certification to prove that they completed a course on this subject.

On a more general note, it is very important to make sure that you are dealing with qualified and competent IT workers. You are paying for these services, so you have every right to demand professional-level personnel.

2. Emphasis on Data Migration

If you are utilizing a dedicated IoT data migration service that doesn’t really do much of anything else, you can skip this section. However, if you are obtaining these services through a company that also offers other IT services, you need to ask yourself: Is this company putting a heavy emphasis on data migration, or is it more of a side project? Companies that focus on data migration are likely to do a better job than those that simply have generalized IT knowledge. Partially qualified people might be able to do a halfway decent job, but their services won’t really be worth the money.

3. Type of Software Used

It never hurts to ask a lot of questions when you are obtaining new services of any kind, and data migration is no exception. In particular, you should ask what sort of data migration software they will be using. If they blow you off with a generalized answer, that is a bad sign. Oftentimes, people do that sort of thing to cover up a lack of knowledge on their part. In any case, you want to evaluate that software and make sure that it will be thorough, versatile, secure, and effective for your needs.

4. Good Communication

Responsiveness is another key factor that will be very important when choosing a data migration service. If your company is hard to reach and/or slow to respond, it can cause a lot of problems. In general, you want to employ a company that is eager to keep you informed and consult with you regarding any problems that might arise. What you don’t want is a company that simply flies through the job without stopping to consult you on the specifics.

All of this is important because data migration always involves a possibility of data loss. If something goes wrong, and crucial information is lost, it can cause a whole host of problems. For instance, if important tax documents are lost, it could cause some issues with the IRS. If personal information is lost, then an investigation will have to be done, and that investigation will surely cost you something. Good communication as a part of IoT Security, allows you to avoid most of these potential problems before they arise.

5. A Sensible Testing Plan

As you already know, data migration always carries some risk of data loss. This is why a large data migration project should not be done without some testing. This is usually done by moving small subsets of relatively unimportant data around, just to see how things will work.

Needless to say, you should be involved in this testing process. The results of these tests will need to be analyzed before the full migration procedure can happen, but you shouldn’t leave that strictly to the IT company. Make sure that your data migration service is willing to provide you with detailed results for analysis and review.

6. Proper Security Procedures

In most cases, we are talking about large amounts of data here. Since we are talking mainly about business data, there will surely be some sensitive information. This might include personal identifying information for employees, customers, and vendors. It might also include payment information such as credit card numbers or bank account numbers. Business records might also contain information that is damaging to the public’s image in some way, so good IoT security is a must when migrating all that data.

Practices vary, but you mainly need to make sure that your data has been separated into levels of sensitivity, with the more sensitive information placed in the top category. Special care should be taken when dealing with information that has potential value and/or potential for harm. If the data migration service isn’t making any distinction between these different levels of sensitivity, they aren’t doing their jobs correctly.

When speaking of IoT security, we should mention the importance of encryption. Any sensitive data that you have should be encrypted by default. Those passwords should be stored in a safe location, perhaps with a physical copy under a lock and key. If that data is encrypted beforehand, you won’t have to worry so much about the data being intercepted or otherwise poached. Even if they should happen to intercept your data in transit, they wouldn’t be able to “unscramble” its contents.

Downtime Estimates

When you are asking about data migration services, make sure to get a downtime estimate. This will give you an idea of how long the entire process will take, and that is highly important. Your entire IT infrastructure will probably be non-functional while all of this data migration stuff is happening. Lost operating time equals lost revenue, so you want to minimize that downtime as much as possible. If possible, you should try to get some kind of guarantee regarding downtime. Such a document is usually called an SLA (Service-Level Agreement).

Conclusion

We hope that this article has been helpful to you and that you will be able to use this information wisely. Using these criteria, you should be able to sort the bad from the good and find the data migration service that is right for you. That being said, if you cannot find a company that suits your needs, you can always have your in-house IT workers do the job using specialized software. As long as they know how to use the software properly, that can be just as good as the employment of a dedicated data migration company. They will also need to implement IoT security measures. However, we leave that distinction up to you.