Rapid technology change in the information management space is creating a fundamental tension for organizations.
On the one hand, as organizations make their plans for the next 18-24 months, they can clearly see the attractiveness of cloud content management solutions and the imperative of making these solutions a more important part of their infrastructure.
On the other hand, they likely have older legacy ECM systems – likely multiple systems – performing critical functions that can’t just be turned off without suffering lots of business disruption.
It all sounds so simple to those outside of IT – “For crying out loud, just move the stuff from the old system to the new, make sure everything works OK, and then turn off the old system and get rid of it.”
And therein lies the rub.
AIIM reports that 52% of organizations have three or more ECM/DM/RM systems and 22% have five or more systems. The problem is even more challenging at the largest organizations, with 38% reporting more than five ECM/DM/RM systems in operation. Of course, the information that is officially in ECM/DM/RM systems is only part of the information management story in most organizations.
So given this, what are the top four ways to create a true file migration mess in your organization – and how can you avoid them?
1. Just assume that “someone” will do it.
Figuring out a migration strategy from something older to something newer is the most exciting project an IT person can have. Said. No. One. Ever.
This is particularly the case when it comes to content management projects. A new generation of content management solutions is hitting the marketplace. Due to technological advancements made in workplace collaboration, many businesses are investing in new, cloud-based enterprise file sync and share (EFSS) services to store their data. This has created pressure in many organizations to take advantage of these solutions.
Before realizing a return on those investments, however, it’s important that existing business content be properly imported into those new cloud systems. Content management platforms are complex, with different rules for managing file conventions including name and length requirements, user and group permissions, extended metadata, document versioning and other file artifacts.
Most organizations contain a number of on- premises or legacy enterprise content management (ECM) platforms with vastly different file management systems which often complicates their intended storage migration. Once that process starts, IT departments suddenly become painfully aware of the technical challenges involved with transferring large volumes of content and users across such a diverse array of platforms.
2. Disregard the needs of the users clinging to the old ECM platform.
Traditional ECM was a game of doing one thing – usually a very large scale, complicated, and important thing – extremely well. Examples of initial “breakthrough” ECM processes included the new drug application process in the pharmaceutical industry, claims processing in the insurance industry, and check processing in the banking industry. These initial breakthroughs were then extended to many back-end core business processes.
When it comes to deploying a new system, user adoption often poses one of the largest obstacles to a smooth transition. Forcing users to adopt new processes or tasking them with migrating their content can backfire, but letting them move at their pace can cause a migration to drag out for months. Most legacy systems have been in place for years and as business develops, a lot of content becomes stale and is no longer necessary to store. But the process of identifying which content and systems are no longer needed, and convincing the owners of these systems to let go is not a trivial undertaking.
3. Just throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Where do you want to rip and replace and where do you want to leave things alone? How do you leverage your existing ECM investments? How do you allow existing mission-critical legacy systems to continue AND invest in new customer-centric initiatives? Most organizations have many more systems and repositories than they think. Understand the purpose of each major content system, how current it is, its cost, whether there are opportunities to consolidate suppliers, and whether there are more modern and flexible solutions available.
Updating your infrastructure to take advantage of the benefits of a more modern-cloud-based structure requires a migration strategy – and one that is flexible enough to evolve over time. One solution is to adopt a two-stage “information logistics” strategy, first SYNCING with the newer system, and then eventually MIGRATING into the new system.
4. Assume file migration is a DIY (do-it- yourself) project.
Because we’ve all moved files from one computer to another, there is a temptation to think that migration from one content management system to another is nothing more complicated that a bit of copy/paste. Granted, at large scale, but certainly not something that requires purchasing a third-party product to make the journey more manageable. But there is a reason that content management systems are more than just glorified shared drives.
- How will you automatically map user permissions from the old system to the new one?
- How will you extend metadata and versions from the old systems to the new?
- How will you replicate the process functionality from the old system in the new one?
- How can you minimize manual work?
The sheer scale of content migration projects also is not something to be taken lightly. Moving large volumes of content requires extensive processing and network capacities. How can you control this process to optimize processing times and decrease migration time-frames.
And given #1 and #2 above, how can you do all of the above with a minimum of IT and user disruption?
Conclusion
A new generation of content management solutions is hitting the marketplace. This has created pressure in many organizations to take advantage of these solutions. However, given that most ECM solutions perform a mission-critical function, simply yanking them out and replacing them is not a decision to be taken lightly. Forrester notes, “Most organizations struggle with migrating legacy content from old ECM systems.”
The core Enterprise File Logistics issues have not changed – but they have become more complex and more strategic to the long-term success of the organization.
- SYNC: When – and why -- should I sync information between repositories?
- MIGRATE: When – and why -- should I migrate information from one repository to another?
- ARCHIVE: How can I best archive information onto less expensive storage once its “active” phase is completed?
- DISPOSITION: If 60% of the information we’re collected is “ROT” (Redundant, Obsolete, Trivial), how do I determine which is ROT and which is not, and responsibly destroy the junk?
