Highest-rated Data Migration Tools to Have On Your Radar

Organizations today are using vast amounts of data. As 5G networks roll out and edge computing and IoT takes center stage, this is a trend that’s only going to continue to accelerate in the coming years. As a result, it’s becoming increasingly important for organizations to make data actionable. To do that, they need to be able to move it efficiently between different systems and technologies. The good news is that recent advancements in data migration technology make this process fast and easy. Read on to learn more about what data migration is, how it works, and some of our favorite data migration solutions you may want to explore.

What is data migration?

Just as the name suggests, data migration involves moving data from a source location to a different location or converting it from one format into another.

This is a multi-step process, which includes discovering, selecting, extracting, analyzing, and migrating data from one place to another (e.g., an application). Data migration requires careful planning and care in order to avoid losing or damaging critical information during transit. 

Suffice it to say that this is not something that you want to rush through or manage haphazardly. Careful preparation — and the right tools — are critical for success with data migration efforts.

Why companies migrate data

At a high level, there are a few different reasons why companies migrate data, which we’ll examine in this section.

Remain agile

Most businesses today are going through digital transformation and are adopting differing applications and platforms. Data migration enables you to move from one platform to the next and upgrade technologies without losing access to mission-critical data. This is incredibly important for organizations that wish to remain agile and flexible.

Improve collaboration

Companies are increasingly looking to break down data siloes. Data migration makes it easier to share data across different teams and systems while ensuring integrity and stability. This, in turn, improves the organization’s collaborative capabilities — leading to better decision-making, increased productivity, and better business outcomes. 

Move to the cloud

Companies often need to move data from on-premises servers into the cloud. For example, this may involve migrating data into services like Amazon S3, Snowflake, or Google BigQuery. Thanks to data migration, organizations can easily move data to the cloud and take advantage of lightning-fast analytics, increased availability, and faster performance. 

Integrate data between clouds

Sometimes, it’s necessary to migrate data within or across public and private clouds. This is important for businesses using multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environments. 

Enable disaster recovery

Unfortunately, disasters can happen at any time. And when they do, it pays to have a plan in place to avoid data loss. Disaster recovery involves replicating data and processing off-premises at a secure location, and data migration can play a key role in this process.

Top data migration tools to know about

As you can see, data migration is critical for success. Luckily, the market is full of cutting-edge tools that you can use to transfer data from one source or format to another with relative ease. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few tools purpose-built for streamlining data migration. 

1. Fivetran

Fivetran  is a popular exchange, load, transform (ELT) tool. This solution makes it possible to pull data from third-party applications for advanced processing, visualization, and analysis. Fivetran currently has a  4.4-star rating  on Gartner Peer Insights.

The Fivetran platform comes with connectors for many different data sources. In other words, you can use Fivetran to connect with third-party services like Zendesk, LinkedIn, Zoho CRM, and many others.

Fivetran recommends migrating in phases in order to move without any reporting or analytics. You can access a full breakdown of  Fivetran’s migration recommendations  here.

What customers have to say about Fivetran

• Fivetran is intuitive, consistent, and efficient for  ETL . However, while there are a variety of connectors available, it doesn’t support every platform. 
• Fivetran is simple to set up. It’s also easy to  connect to available data sources .
• It’s not hard to  access Fivetran support  when you need help.

2. Dell EMC Intelligent Data Mobility 

Dell EMC offers  Intelligent Data Mobility , which streamlines the entire data migration process from end to end. To clarify, Dell EMC is a member of the Dell Technologies line of business. Dell EMC, which currently has a  4.5-star rating  on G2, offers key supporting IT infrastructure for companies.

Intelligent Data Mobility streamlines data migration through the combination of automation, technology, and expertise. It reduces the time, complexity, and cost of data migration and enables you to focus on other priorities while the platform handles migration. Additional benefits include in-region and remote resources and continuous availability of data and applications. 

What customers have to say about Dell EMC

• Dell EMC is a  scalable and secure  platform.
• The  Dell EMC migration process  is easy for anyone to adopt.
• It’s  easy to administer  and works with many configurations.

3. Matillion

Matillion  is a cloud-native extract, transform, load (ETL) platform with a  4.4-star rating  on G2. This platform pulls data from different sources and loads it all into a cloud data warehouse for ease of access and storage. The platform also helps to transform data for business intelligence reporting, data science, and operational analytics.

Additionally, Matillion leverages low- and no-code data integration, making it useful for novice and advanced users alike. It’s built for the cloud and comes with enterprise scalability and security.  

What customers have to say about Matillion

• Matillion helps seamlessly  integrate data between cloud-based services  using a variety of APIs. It’s also user-friendly and features an intuitive user interface. 
• Matillion lets you  transform data into multiple formats .
• This tool is great for visual learners, as  jobs and transformations  come with diagrams.

4. SnapLogic

SnapLogic  offers an intelligent, no and low-code integration platform as a service (iPaaS) solution that makes it fast and simple to move data into data lakes and create data pipelines. The platform currently has a  4-star rating  on G2.

What’s more, SnapLogic lets you connect applications and data with click-button ease using visual ETL and ELT. It features the Fast Data Loader, which enables you to quickly and efficiently load data from endpoints into SAP, Snowflake, and Amazon Redshift data warehouses.

In addition, SnapLogic features Iris AI for automating highly repetitive, low-level development tasks. Iris AI applies machine learning to enterprise data integration, reducing time and manual effort for data migration and integration. 

What customers have to say about SnapLogic

• Anyone with a minimal amount of  coding and analytical ability  can use SnapLogic to perform complex integrations.
• The platform is a bit slow when working with  large datasets .
• SnapLogic makes it easy to  schedule tasks .

5. AWS Data Pipeline

AWS Data Pipeline  is a web service for processing and transferring data between different AWS storage and compute services and on-prem data sources. The platform has a 4.4-star rating on  Gartner Peer Insights .

Key features include dependency tracking, scheduling, and error handling. In addition, customers receive access to Amazon’s distributed, reliable, and fault-tolerant infrastructure. The platform is highly scalable and affordable and gives organizations full control over computational resources. 

What customers have to say about AWS Data Pipeline

• You don’t have to worry about  resource availability , retrying transient failures or timeouts in individual tasks, or managing inter-task dependencies. 
• This platform is great for executing tasks after a  stack deployment , such as tests and data migration.
• AWS Data Pipeline doesn’t support  multiple versions of the same pipeline .

6. Stitch Data

Stitch Data  is an extensible ETL pipeline for data teams, with an impressive  4.7-star rating  on G2.

This platform lets you extract data from a variety of sources, including MongoDB and MySQL, and load the data into multiple destinations. In addition, Stitch enables you to track data through the pipeline and view progress using powerful orchestration features. 

What customers have to say about Stitch Data

• Stitch is  simple to implement  and operate.
• Stitch makes it possible to  replicate data  from an external source to your company’s internal database on a schedule.
• There is no option to do  data filtering or transformation  in Stitch.

How Datameer supports data migration

Datameer provides a purpose-built data transformation tool, which you can use to transform data using SQL and no-code development. It’s the perfect complement to any of the above-mentioned data migration tools. 

With the help of Datameer, you can analyze datasets, prepare and enrich data, publish models, and deploy pipelines — all from a single intuitive location. Datameer also integrates with many different data sources and contains over 300 out-of-box functions. You can create complex data pipelines without any coding knowledge.

In addition, Datameer includes enterprise security and governance features, making it ideal for organizations in highly regulated industries. Additionally, Datameer provides the governance and security that companies need to maintain active and compliant big data pipelines. 

Check out the transformative nature of Datameer by  requesting a free demo today . Better yet, jump right in with a  free trial  and start exploring right now.