In a previous post, we introduced the Infinitive Databricks Data Migration Accelerator, a strategic framework designed to fast-track your move to a modern lakehouse architecture. However, a successful migration isn’t just about speed; it’s about anticipating and mitigating the inevitable complexities that arise when moving foundational business data.
Migrating financial or customer data, or any other type of sensitive data, can introduce risk to the operation efficiency of any organization. At Infinitive, we leverage Databricks tools and our deep experience to proactively address these risks, transforming them from potential roadblocks into managed checkpoints.
Data Quality & Testing
Risk: Inconsistent or poor-quality source data is the primary cause of downstream errors. Furthermore, verifying that millions of records have been accurately moved and transformed is often the most time-consuming part of the process.
Proactive Solution: Part of our meta-data driven framework is performing automated data profiling and cleansing before the migration begins. Post-migration, Infinitive deploys our augmented Lakebridge data validation system to certify the data was not corrupted in transit. When put together, these rigorous quality checks ensure that your company’s data is clean and consistent at key parts of the migration process. Additionally, our automated testing process reduces the amount of time spent manually validating records.
Data Scalability and Latency
Risk: Migrating petabytes of data can overwhelm a target system, leading to performance degradation and cost spikes. Additionally, any disruption in data synchronized during the cutover window (data latency) could derail business operations.
Proactive Solution: This is where Databricks Platform Capabilities shine. We utilize the platform’s massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture and open-source Delta Lake data storage to handle large datasets efficiently without compromising performance. For minimizing data latency, we implement Change Data Capture (CDC) strategies, using Databricks’ streaming capabilities to keep the old and new platforms in sync right up to the final, low-impact cutover.
Data Transformation and Dependencies
Risk: Source and target schemas are rarely identical, making Data Transformation and Schema Mapping complex. Adding to this complexity, data rarely exists in a vacuum; understanding Data Dependencies & Referential Integrity is vital to ensure related records are moved in the correct sequence.
Proactive Solution: One of the greatest advantages of an automatic, meta-data driven pipeline is that the process of building data pipelines is streamlined. We only need to update the metadata files and configurations for multiple pipelines can be updated all in one place, streamlining ongoing maintenance. To tackle data dependencies, we apply decades of experience in granular process mapping and documentation. This experience, along with Databrick’s robust processing engine, allows Infinitive to execute complex, multi-stage transformations efficiently, ensuring referential integrity is maintained throughout the process.
Downtime
Risk: The fear of a prolonged outage during cutover and downtime is a major deterrent for many organizations.
Proactive Solution: Infinitive can prevent outages by provisioning the lakehouse as a parallel system to your company’s current data solutions. We then replicate your data and dependencies in Databricks until your systems are fully functional in the new environment, at which point we will seamlessly cutover. This methodology ensures little downtime and no outages, so your company can still work as usual while the migration takes place.
Data Security & Compliance
Risk: Data security & compliance with regulations like GDPR or HIPAA already cause many companies headaches, even without trying to migrate data systems.
Proactive Solution: For security, we utilize Databricks Platform capabilities like Unity Catalog that are compliant with HIPAA, FEDRAMP High, IRAP, and many other regulatory standards. Additionally, Databricks itself is a GDPR compliant organization, and their platform can easily be configured to provide GDPR compliant services.
Conclusion
Migrating your company’s foundational data doesn’t have to be a high-stakes gamble. At Infinitive, we understand that minimizing risk, from ensuring data quality and managing scalability to preserving referential integrity and guaranteeing compliance, is just as important as the speed of your transition.
By combining the powerful features of the Databricks Platform with our decades of practical industry experience and automation framework, we transform data migration from a daunting challenge into a predictable, managed process. Stop letting the fear of downtime and data inconsistency keep you tied to legacy systems. Take the first step toward a more secure, efficient, and scalable lakehouse architecture and contact Infinitive today.
