What this resource covers
Integration and migration connect systems and move important information. Planning must address ownership, contracts, data quality, security, failure handling, reconciliation, cutover, and support rather than only the happy-path transfer.
- Inventory source and target systems, owners, environments, and access methods
- Define API contracts, authentication, limits, error handling, retries, idempotency, and monitoring
- Map fields, codes, identifiers, relationships, formats, and transformations
- Profile data quality and define cleansing and exception ownership
- Rehearse migration with representative data and measure reconciliation
- Plan cutover, freeze periods, rollback, communication, and post-release support
Information to prepare
Prepare source and destination schemas, interfaces, credentials, ownership, volumes, schedules, mapping rules, data quality findings, reconciliation, cutover constraints, and failure scenarios.
- Source and target schemas or documentation
- Sample messages and representative data approved for testing
- Authentication and network requirements
- Data volumes, quality findings, and ownership
- Cutover constraints and continuity expectations
Expected planning outputs
Produce field and code mappings, transformation and validation rules, integration sequence, migration rehearsal plan, reconciliation reports, exception handling, cutover, and rollback procedures.
- Integration contract and sequence design
- Field and code mapping specification
- Error, retry, audit, and monitoring plan
- Migration rehearsal and reconciliation report
- Cutover and rollback plan
Practical example
How it can be applied
A customer migration may map legacy customer IDs, addresses, account status, balances, and transaction history into a new ERP. Rehearsal identifies invalid codes and duplicates, while reconciliation compares record counts and control totals before approval.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Starting integration without confirmed access or contracts
- Assuming source data is clean
- Ignoring retries, duplicate messages, and partial failures
- Migrating all history without a business reason
- Planning cutover without reconciliation and rollback
FAQ
Common questions
What is reconciliation?
It compares source, transferred, rejected, transformed, and target results using counts, totals, samples, and business controls.
Why perform migration rehearsals?
They reveal data quality, timing, mapping, environment, and operational problems before the real cutover.
Should every integration retry automatically?
No. Retry behavior depends on failure type, idempotency, business impact, provider limits, and duplication risk.