Data Migration Glossary

A framework that classifies migration strategies as Retire, Retain, Rehost, Replatform, Refactor, and Repurchase.

Short for Interface: a data connection between systems, including files, APIs, and database links.

Key Performance Indicator: a quantitative measure used to assess achievement of an objective.

A matrix of Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed roles.

Extract, Transform, Load: extracting data, transforming it, and loading it into the target system.

Extract, Load, Transform: loading data into the target first and transforming it there.

A contract that lets systems exchange data or functionality. Migration checks include authentication, rate limits, retries, and error responses.

Statistical analysis of real data to identify counts, nulls, duplicates, distributions, formats, and outliers.

Correcting, excluding, or holding missing, duplicate, inconsistent, or invalid values according to defined rules.

The mapping of source fields to target fields, including type conversions, code conversions, defaults, and exceptions.

Short for Database: a system for structured storage and retrieval of business data.

Structured Query Language, used to query, aggregate, and update relational databases.

Open Source Software whose source code is available for use and modification under license terms.

A repeatable procedure that records prerequisites, actions, checks, error handling, and rollback steps.

The decision and criteria for proceeding as planned or stopping, postponing, or rolling back a migration.

The changeover of business users from the legacy system to the new system.

Returning to the last stable state when a migration or change causes a problem.

The period immediately after go-live when the migration team provides enhanced monitoring and support.

Service Level Agreement: an agreement on availability, response time, and support levels.

Comparing source and target data to identify differences in counts, totals, keys, hashes, and important fields.

Storing data outside the migration scope according to retention, access, and future-reference requirements.