Lotus Notes Migration

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Abbildung des Partnerlogos von Lialis B.V.
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Lia­lis was foun­ded in 2006 and for the first 10 ye­ars of its exis­tence fo­cu­sed ex­clu­si­ve­ly on the de­ve­lo­p­ment of IBM Lo­tus No­tes ap­pli­ca­ti­ons. But the cloud tran­si­ti­on shifted the fo­cus in 2016 to mi­gra­ting IBM No­tes ap­pli­ca­ti­on en­vi­ron­ments to dif­fe­rent tar­get plat­forms. With ex­per­ti­se, best-in-class tools and a de­di­ca­ted team, Lia­lis has hel­ped a lar­ge num­ber of com­pa­nies around the world ana­ly­ze and de­com­mis­si­on com­plex Do­mi­no plat­forms. The at­ti­tu­de of Lia­lis is al­ways ob­jec­ti­ve and goal-oriented.

The com­pa­ny has ad­van­ced ca­pa­bi­li­ties and tools to fa­ci­li­ta­te the mi­gra­ti­on of all re­le­vant Lo­tus No­tes con­tent to SQL. Sub­se­quent­ly, the data is edi­ted and im­por­ted into d.3 with the help of the d.3 im­port tool. This al­lows any or­ga­niza­ti­on that has his­to­ri­cal­ly ma­na­ged data in an out­da­ted Lo­tus No­tes en­vi­ron­ment to move to a mo­dern do­cu­ment ma­nage­ment so­lu­ti­on. Th­rough this mi­gra­ti­on, com­pa­nies can im­pro­ve their busi­ness pro­ces­ses and be­ne­fit from the ad­van­ta­ges of mo­dern do­cu­ment ma­nage­ment solutions.

Steps to migrate from Lotus Notes to d.velop documents (formerly d.3ecm):

Step 1 

De­ter­mi­ne the ob­jec­ti­ves of the mi­gra­ti­on — cla­ri­fy which sys­tems and which data are to be migrated? 

Step 2 

Ana­ly­ze in­ter­faces to the cur­rent sys­tem and cla­ri­fy whe­ther they also need to be ope­ra­ted in the new system 

Step 3 

De­fi­ne ro­les and re­spon­si­bi­li­ties in the mi­gra­ti­on project 

Step 4 

Con­sider mi­gra­ti­on pro­ject in va­li­da­ti­on plan 

Step 5 

Con­cep­tu­al de­sign of the re­qui­red ser­vices and time planning 

Step 6 

Per­form risk eva­lua­ti­on and de­ter­mi­ne roll­back strategy 

Step 7 

Exis­ting data must be che­cked for er­rors in the old sys­tem and cor­rec­ted if necessary. 

Step 8 

Data pre­pa­ra­ti­on by main­tai­ning miss­ing values 

Step 9 

De­ve­lo­p­ment of a ve­ri­fi­ca­ti­on stra­tegy and de­fi­ni­ti­on of ac­cep­tance cri­te­ria for migration 

Step 10 

De­fi­ning trans­for­ma­ti­on ru­les for a har­mo­niza­ti­on of data sets 

Step 11 

Im­ple­men­ta­ti­on of the trans­for­ma­ti­on rules 

Step 12 

Ex­port of Lo­tus No­tes databases

  • Use Lia­lis Notes2SQL soft­ware to ex­tra­ct all forms, fields and field ty­pes used in No­tes da­ta­ba­se. This in­for­ma­ti­on is ex­por­ted to Excel.
  • From this Ex­cel file, Lia­lis Notes2SQL ge­ne­ra­tes an SQL query.
  • Crea­te an SQL da­ta­ba­se for each No­tes database.
  • Run the SQL query from step 2 to crea­te ta­bles for each No­tes form and ta­ble co­lum­ns for each No­tes field.
  • For each No­tes form used, con­fi­gu­re a Quest NMSP mi­gra­ti­on job that maps all No­tes fields to their as­so­cia­ted SQL fields.
  • Run the Quest NMSP jobs to trans­fer all No­tes data to the SQL database.

Step 13 

Im­port of the data into the d.3 system 

  • Ap­pli­ca­ti­on of the trans­for­ma­ti­on rules
  • As­sig­ning a new do­cu­ment number
  • Lin­king of at­tach­ments and fur­ther ap­pli­ca­ble documents
  • Tech­ni­cal at­tri­bu­ti­on and re­lease of data
  • Mi­gra­ti­on of cur­rent pro­ofs of qua­li­fi­ca­ti­on if required

Step 14 

Data ve­ri­fi­ca­ti­on th­rough qua­li­ta­ti­ve and quan­ti­ta­ti­ve testing 

Step 15 

Coor­di­na­ti­on and im­ple­men­ta­ti­on as well as do­cu­men­ta­ti­on of mi­gra­ti­on activities 

Project with SCHOTT AG
Logo von SCHOTT AG

In co­ope­ra­ti­on with lia­lis, a Lo­tus No­tes mi­gra­ti­on has al­re­a­dy been car­ri­ed out at SCHOTT AG. This mi­gra­ti­on in­vol­ved mi­gra­ting over 17,000 do­cu­ments from six in­de­pen­dent Lo­tus No­tes da­ta­ba­ses and har­mo­ni­zing the qua­li­ty ma­nage­ment sys­tem in the process.

A spe­cial fea­ture of lia­lis was to save all Lo­tus No­tes do­cu­ments (Lo­tus No­tes do­cu­ments = con­tai­ner of do­cu­ments and me­ta­da­ta) as PDF do­cu­ments. The­se PDF do­cu­ments were also stored and lin­ked in the do­cu­ment ma­nage­ment sys­tem du­ring the mi­gra­ti­on. Thus, all data and do­cu­ments were ad­opted. This was par­ti­cu­lar­ly em­pha­si­zed by auditors.

The suc­cess story

Minimum steps to be completed during implementation of a data migration:

Careful plan­ning is cri­ti­cal to suc­cessful data mi­gra­ti­on. Here, you should con­sider your goals, re­sour­ces, time­line, and risks. It would be ad­vi­sa­ble to per­form an in­ven­to­ry of your data to de­ter­mi­ne what data needs to be migrated.

The­re are se­ve­ral me­thods to mi­gra­te data, in­clu­ding using third-par­ty tools or de­ve­lo­ping a cus­tom so­lu­ti­on. It is ad­vi­sa­ble to weigh the dif­fe­rent op­ti­ons and choo­se the me­thod that best suits your needs.

Be­fo­re you start the ac­tu­al mi­gra­ti­on, you should make sure that your data can be mi­gra­ted cor­rect­ly. It is es­sen­ti­al to crea­te a test sys­tem and run your mi­gra­ti­on in a test en­vi­ron­ment to en­su­re that ever­y­thing works as ex­pec­ted.
Af­ter you have tes­ted the mi­gra­ti­on, you can start the ac­tu­al mi­gra­ti­on. In or­der for your data to be mi­gra­ted cor­rect­ly, it is ad­vi­sa­ble that you per­form all the re­qui­red steps.

Ha­ving com­ple­ted the mi­gra­ti­on it is re­com­men­ded to va­li­da­te your data to make sure that ever­y­thing has been mi­gra­ted cor­rect­ly. You should also en­su­re that all data in­te­gri­ty ru­les are fol­lo­wed and that all ne­ces­sa­ry se­cu­ri­ty me­a­su­res have been implemented.

Af­ter mi­gra­ti­on, it is im­portant to en­su­re that all sys­tems are func­tio­ning pro­per­ly and that all users can ac­cess the mi­gra­ted data. You should also en­su­re that all ne­ces­sa­ry main­ten­an­ce is per­for­med to main­tain the in­te­gri­ty of your data.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the Lotus Notes Migration 

In pre­pa­ra­ti­on for the mi­gra­ti­on, the scope of the mi­gra­ti­on and the re­qui­re­ments for the data and ac­cep­tance cri­te­ria to be mi­gra­ted should be spe­ci­fied pre­cis­e­ly so that a test of the mi­gra­ti­on can be car­ri­ed out against this spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on.

A mi­gra­ti­on plan must be crea­ted for the mi­gra­ti­on and ve­ri­fi­ca­ti­on of the data. It is re­com­men­ded to take a risk-ba­sed ap­proach and pro­vi­de an over­view of the soft­ware in use and the mi­gra­ti­on ac­ti­vi­ties. The data must be ve­ri­fied quan­ti­ta­tively and qua­li­ta­tively af­ter mi­gra­ti­on. Sam­pling is possible.

The im­ple­men­ta­ti­on of the mi­gra­ti­on must be coor­di­na­ted in the or­ga­niza­ti­on with all stake­hol­ders and well com­mu­ni­ca­ted. Sin­ce data is usual­ly still be­ing pro­ces­sed in the com­pa­ny, all work­flows should be com­ple­ted at the time of mi­gra­ti­on. The com­pa­ny must be in­for­med about the time when data can­not be edi­ted. In ad­di­ti­on, it is ad­vi­sa­ble to set up at least read-only ac­cess for ne­ces­sa­ry documents.

Ha­ving com­ple­ted the tech­ni­cal mi­gra­ti­on, the quan­ti­ta­ti­ve and qua­li­ta­ti­ve ve­ri­fi­ca­ti­on of the data is car­ri­ed out by the sub­ject mat­ter ex­perts. The ve­ri­fi­ca­ti­on of mi­gra­ti­on re­sults must be do­cu­men­ted and is com­ple­ted via the mi­gra­ti­on report.

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Do you have a ques­ti­on about Lo­tus No­tes mi­gra­ti­on?
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