Data Migration Services Estimation

We are often asked to bid the migration of data from an old system into CatDV Pro. Here's what we generally look for when bidding a job.

• 1. Estimate of total number of records. (10k, 100k?)

  2. Is there is a standard export format. (CSV, XML, etc)

     1. If you can get an example export of any kind, please send it.

  3. Does the original system have data relationships? And if so, do you actually need them or can we ignore them?

• • 1. CatDV has no real relational data to speak of for import, however many other systems (like Filemaker Pro) have data that spans across many assets, whereas CatDV fields typically relate to a single asset only.

• 4. Is the data clean or do they need a lot of "corrections"

• • 1. For instance, some clients have a ton of records that say things like "approximately 45 minutes" as opposed to Duration In Minutes=45 or 00:45:00:00.

• 5. Extra Points if you need to link to files

• • 1. Are the files named in plain english or did the system hash them in some way upon import?

       1. If they are hashed, do they need to be renamed based on a naming schema or metadata?

    2. Is there a useable path in the database or do we need to re-ingest them all?

Notes: If there is no standard export format, then know that dumping the SQL is possible but would require a lot of info from a developer or the client to recreate the records. (This could cost many thousands of dollars to do, if possible at all.) As you may know, internally an SQL db has many ways to store the data and the schema and total dataset is seldom as simple as the output records we need.

Typically, we try to get a tour or some screenshots of the system and some test exports, if possible.

Know that NSA has done deep recovery where we took a system that had been abandoned and had no developer information and we recreated and migrated 18,000 assets and imported them into CatDV for a major university med school. This took 6 weeks and was not inexpensive, obviously.