On the Bright Side of Data Migrations

Abstract

Let us be very clear from the very beginning: I do not consider data migration a good thing at all for the archive community. On the contrary, it costs a lot of time, money, and effort to be achieved accurately. But it cannot be avoided. I will discuss here how data migrations can be used efficiently for modifying, where necessary, the archive’s containers, codecs, data and metadata. During the two dozen of data migrations we have carried out for ourselves and our clients, we could actually fix errors in the structure and metadata of the archive, and also we could replace obsolete or endangered formats with current ones. This allows us to change or adjust the strategy when needed. We could update the data and therefore realise maintenance of the digital archive.