Need computer science help with database migration project plan

Project Overview

One of the more common tasks facing CIS/MIS professionals is the need to migrate from one system (hardware and/or software) to another. This can be a daunting task with each case, more often than not, each being a unique effort with unique problems. Migration of a database system can be a complex problem that requires major considerations to software, hardware, database structure and user requirements to.

The purpose of this assignment is to give you insights into what it would take to plan a database migration effort. This project is a detailed planning project and will not involve an actual migration from one database management system to another. Your project is to develop a detailed implementation plan that would be presented to executive decision-makers and IT staff for approval consideration.  This document will be the initial starting point for the project that the implementation team will use and expand upon.

To successfully complete this project, you will need to complete many of the following activities:

• Gain sufficient background knowledge to provide a basis for understanding the requirements for implementing the migration
• Find relevant sources of information on the topic
• Assemble the information
• Present possible alternatives and weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each
• Present observations, conclusions or recommendations as appropriate
• Effectively communicate the technical knowledge in written form

Your text will not provide you with any concrete guidelines for the overall accomplishment of this project, therefore, you will need to accomplish additional research and formulate your individual plan. The plan is expected to be suitably detailed in as many areas of interest as possible. At the graduate level, students often discover that it is best to find and assimilate additional background knowledge before choosing a specific solution path. Professional journals and online resources are great sources of topics! This does not mean that you will have to be completely knowledgeable in all of the areas that will need to be addressed but you should be able to address each area at a reasonably detailed level and be as complete in your presentation as possible.

You must be able to understand all of the relevant technical information and be able to critically evaluate the information. You should gain a solid base knowledge of the specific database management systems involved in the migration and should be able to critically evaluate the database management systems with respect to user, data, and information system requirements.

At this stage in your educational career, you are expected to have gained proficiency in written communication. This assignment will require that you demonstrate that proficiency with respect to a technical topic. Your plan should clearly communicate the technical details and critical analysis of the migration problem in an organized and concise manner. At the same time, the plan should be understandable to business managers with little or no background in computer hardware and system software. It is a difficult balancing act!

Milestones and Deadlines

To ensure adequate and timely effort in completing your plan, three milestones will be required before you turn in the final version of your project.

Milestone #1:a formal memo using a standard memo formatdetailing your approach to the problem, which plan format you will use, your preliminary assumptions going forward, the initial references you have collected on the problem, and any problems you foresee at the beginning of your research. Submit as an attached Word document via the assignment tool. The memo should be two pages with no more than one attachment.

Milestone #2, Detailed document using one of the two templates, showing at least 50 percent completion effort toward the final implementation plan, findings that you will apply to the plan, and references/resources. This will be accomplished using your selected template.  Submit as an attached Word document via the assignment tool.

Milestone #3, Present To Fellow Students Via the Migration Project Discussion Board. Post your plan as an attached Word document to the designated discussion board during the assigned week. Moderate the discussion of your research.

Final Version of the Plan. Make any desired changes to your document based on the discussions with your fellow students, and then submit it as a Word document via the assignment tool to your instructor.

This plan is not prose or creative writing, it is a technical writing presentation but spelling, grammar and sentence structure is still important. Your document must clearly and concisely present all of the points in your selected template with a level of detail that indicates that you have considered as many aspects of the migration problem as possible.

Background and Requirements for Migration Plan

The Northwind Company is a small product shipping company that has grown to encompass multiple regions and territories. The company database system was established using Oracle 9e and was designed and maintained on a single Microsoft Server 2003 server by a contracted system provider. The users of the system are located at both the home office and at other sites scattered throughout their established regions/territories. The users currently access the system remotely through a Virtual Private Network (VPN). The various users of the system include:

•Home Office which utilizes the system for both employee tracking as well as customer, orders, product, shippers and supplier data and reporting and as an operational real-time database management system.

•Remote Region/Territory users use the system to input live data and to obtain needed sales and order information as well as using it as providing reports and information manually in response to customer, shipper and provider requests.

•Customers, shippers and suppliers currently have no direct access to the system.

The reports and queries generated from the system are written using various applications including Visual Basic.NET, Java, Crystal Reports, C++ and C#. All reports are custom built by the current provider. All updates, additions and deletions are accomplished by the Home Office and regional employees.

Database backup and recovery is accomplished through a full backup run once weekly to a tape system that is maintained onsite in a corporate vault.

Database security is provided by the current provider and was set up to meet minimum security needs for a semi-closed system. There are no restrictions on user roles.

The current provider has decided not to renew their contract with Northwind and will cut off all support for the system and the licensed Microsoft SQL Server software at the end of the next six months.

The company has made some preliminary decisions for migrating their system.

•A financial and operational decision has been made to port all data structures and current functionality from an Oracle 9e DBMS to MSSQLS 2012.

•The current database tables and relationships will remain intact

•The migrated system will be hosted on a Microsoft Server 2008 server

•The migrated system will allow regional employees to access the system through the web

•The migrated system will restrict all users to roles specific to their needs and access requirements

•The migrated system will allow customers, shippers and suppliers to access limited and customized reports

•All current reporting and applications will be migrated

•System backups will be scheduled on a more frequent basis but should not detract from system availability and performance

•The migrated system which accommodates 200 users must be scalable in order to accept up to 2,000 users of all types over the next five years

The following links provide two different ERD views. One is a Microsoft SQL Server diagram and the other is a Visio diagram of the system. There is also a .sql script containing the Microsoft SQL Server DDL that would be used to create and populate the tables depicted in the ERD. It is suggested that you might want to obtain Visio from DreamSpark ( Academic Alliance) in order to view the Visio ERD which also contains information on data types, constraints and keys in a more viewable format than the DDL file. There are also a couple of documents that present some examples of best practices.

instnwnd.sql

MSSQLS_diagram.docx

northwind.vsd

NGS_migration.pdf

softek-best-practices-data-migration.pdf

The following links are provided as starter sites for your research:

http://www.datamigrationpro.com/data-migration-articles/2008/12/3/data-migration-project-checklist-a-template-for-more-effecti.html

http://www.swissql.com/

Templates for the project

The two templates linked below are suggested as the best templates to follow. Select one., For either plan template you choose include most if not all of the areas covered in the template. Some sections may not be applicable and you may annotate them as N/A but be very careful if you do that because there are very few items in either template that do not merit at least some level of consideration.

EPLC_Implementation_Plan_Template.doc 

The plan you present should cover in as much detail as possible the following:

•All assumptions and constraints

•References you used to develop your plan

•System hardware and software component considerations (think in terms of what the new system will use)

•Possible application component migration requirements such as migration and testing tools

•System components to be integrated

•How data conversions will be accomplished and how the table/relationship structures will be migrated

•How the implementation will be validated

•General personnel support

•Impacts of implementation

•Performance monitoring and evaluation

•Any site changes or requirements

•Estimated cost of the migration to include any new software or hardware you are recommending

•Any risks and problems you foresee in the implementation plan

•System backup and recovery

•System, data, and user security

•Rollback plan – (I recommend including a section for what to do if the implementation plan fails, will there be an option to back it out or roll it back?)

This is an academic project and the details given are purposely high level and vague. It will be up to you to make general assumptions about the basic infrastructure used to support the current system and of greater interest are your proposed best recommendations for what hardware and software might be required. I want you to put your plan emphasis on migration requirements and implementation plan. Assume that any estimates of costs will be consistent with company budget constraints for this project.

Again, you are developing a migration plan. While you will need to be reasonably detailed in your presentation points and should document your sources of information in developing the plan, you do not have to provide specific implementation details on setting up any new software, hardware or actual migration steps. Remember that you are presenting this to executive and IT staff and not providing an overall checklist for each step in the execution of the plan.