Behind the Scenes of Migration: Insights from our Product Owner

It's no secret that a company's success is determined by its employees. That is why we are excited to launch a new series on our blog—interviews with the Ispirer people. We will take you behind the scenes of our company and introduce you to the people who drive our company and its products forward. Through these interviews, you’ll get insights into how we work, the challenges we tackle, and the innovations that keep us moving.

To kick things off, we sat down with Alex Kirpichny, a Product Owner and one of the key people shaping our product’s vision and direction. In the interview, we discussed data migration as one of the most critical business processes.

Moving data from one system to another is complex, but our tool is designed to make it seamless and efficient. In this conversation, Alex shares insights on the common challenges of data migration, how SQLWays Wizard addresses them, and his future vision for data migration.

Let’s start!

1. Can you introduce yourself and describe your role as a product owner?

My name is Alex, and I’m a Product Owner at Ispirer. My core responsibility is to guide the development of our products in a way that aligns with customer needs. I work closely with developers, customers, designers, and business teams to ensure our solutions effectively address customer issues.

A key part of my job is to define and prioritize features. I base this on user feedback, market research, and business goals. I translate these insights into precise product requirements and collaborate with our development teams to bring them to life. I focus on making our products easy to use. I want customers to integrate them smoothly into their workflows.

My job is to maximize the value of our products. I do this by adding new features and refining and improving them.

2. From your perspective, what are the most common obstacles companies encounter in data migration?

The two biggest challenges customers face in data migration are downtime and large data volumes.

One key issue is that during migration, the database often needs to be temporarily taken offline. Even minimal downtime can have significant consequences for businesses in industries like banking and finance, where system availability is critical. We have improved our solution to speed up the migration process. In some cases, we have cut downtime by ten times.

Another major challenge is handling large-scale data transfers efficiently. To solve this, we have used multi-threaded migration, which allows data to be migrated in parallel. As a result, we greatly reduce the time needed for migration.

3. What are the main use cases where SQLWays Wizard is especially valuable?

SQLWays Wizard supports seamless database migration across various environments, including on-premises to on-premises, on-premises to cloud, and cloud to cloud. The tool is designed to be location-agnostic, meaning it doesn’t matter where the database is hosted—as long as the system running SQLWays Wizard can establish a connection to both the source and target databases.

SQLWays Wizard uses ODBC to connect to the source database and a database client to connect to the target system. It is also platform-independent, supporting migrations on Windows, Linux, CentOS, and other operating systems.

4. How does SQLWays Wizard simplify this process, and what key features ensure a smooth and efficient migration?

I would highlight the following features of SQLWays Wizard:

• Comprehensive data type support. The tool fully supports all data types, including columns containing large volumes of data (LOBs).
• Flexible data mapping. Provides default data type conversion, allowing users to review how each type is mapped and modify conversions as needed.
• Computed column support. Automatically processes and consolidates data from multiple columns, ensuring accurate migration of computed values.
• Conversion of indexes, primary and foreign keys by default.
• Advanced query migration. If a customer needs to modify the table structure in the target database, SQLWays Wizard enables table adjustments or generates queries to select specific tables for migration.
• Granular data migration. Supports table and data migration separately and partial data migration using queries, allowing organizations to transfer only the necessary records.
• Parallel processing. Enhances performance by enabling multi-threaded migration, significantly reducing downtime.
• Can be utilized as a powerful ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tool. It allows users to modify data, restructure tables, and merge datasets during migration.

5. Suppose a company is migrating data from Oracle to PostgreSQL. Can you walk us through a typical data migration process using SQLWays Wizard?

The key stages for data migration from Oracle to PostgreSQL using SQLWays Wizard are:

• Tool setup. SQLWays Wizard offers various configuration options to optimize migration quality and adapt to specific project requirements.
• Initial testing. We perform test migrations to assess data conversion accuracy and ensure compliance with the client’s requirements.
• Issue resolution at the core level. If any issues arise, we refine and enhance the tool’s core functionality to address them effectively.
• Test migration. A subsequent test migration is conducted to validate the implemented improvements and confirm seamless data conversion.
• Validation algorithm development. We create a custom validation algorithm to systematically verify migrated data integrity.
• Final test and production migration planning. A detailed migration strategy is developed, outlining key steps, contingencies, and risk mitigation measures.
• Final test migrations. We execute test migrations that replicate the production migration scenario to ensure a smooth transition.
• Production migration. The final migration is conducted following the approved plan, including comprehensive validation to guarantee data consistency and accuracy.

Here is the example of options for data migration SQLWays Wizard has:

6. How does SQLWays Wizard ensure accuracy and prevent data corruption?

To help our customers trust our tools, we offer a demo version of our product. It lets them test and see the quality of data conversion for themselves. The demo version provides full functionality and limits the data volume you can migrate.

Additionally, we conduct comprehensive post-migration testing to ensure data integrity and accuracy. If the database has connection issues, the tool will find and mark the affected objects and show them in a detailed report. Once the connection is back, users can restart the conversion for the objects with errors. This ensures a smooth and efficient migration process.

7. Can the tool migrate data from an on-premises database to the same database engine hosted in the cloud?

Sure! As I said before, the tool works anywhere. It doesn't matter where the source and target databases are. In addition to migrating between different relational database management systems, SQLWays Wizard facilitates homogeneous migrations, allowing users to migrate within the same database family. For example, it helps move data from Oracle 9 to Oracle 21. The tool ensures a smooth transition from old systems to modern ones.

8. Is downtime inevitable during data migration? Can SQLWays Wizard help minimize it?

We often use a strategy of splitting data into hot and cold data to determine the data migration order. In addition, we have had complex cases where we migrated 12 TB of data in 12 hours. In such projects, we combine testing with migration to reduce downtime even more.

9. AI hype didn’t pass by the migration industry and Ispirer as well. How does the AI assistant change the user experience in SQLWays Wizard?

Recognizing the growing impact of artificial intelligence in data migration, we have integrated an AI-powered assistant to enhance post-migration optimization. Our AI assistant significantly streamlines tasks such as error correction, optimization suggestions, code refactoring, and documentation generation. Our analysis shows that using AI to fix errors can cut time spent by up to 80%, which is much faster than manual processes.

10. How do you see the future of database migration evolving? Do you think AI could eventually replace commercial data migration tools altogether?

Technology is evolving unprecedentedly, and artificial intelligence is no exception. However, while AI continues to make significant strides, it cannot fully replace commercial migration tools. AI does not fully have the ability to manage complex migrations. Businesses need more precision and control than AI can provide.

Additionally, many organizations remain cautious about trusting their data to AI-driven solutions. Data privacy and security are paramount. Businesses often hesitate to use this "black box" to migrate their data. AI gives them little insight into how their data is handled.

Will AI eventually replace traditional migration tools? The answer is no for now, but as technology advances, the future may hold surprises.

Conclusion

Data migration is a critical yet complex process, and as we’ve seen in this discussion, overcoming its challenges requires the right combination of technology, expertise, and strategic planning. With solutions like SQLWays Wizard, businesses can minimize downtime, handle large data volumes efficiently, and ensure a seamless transition to new environments - all while maintaining data integrity and security.

As Alex highlighted, innovation in this space continues to evolve, with AI-driven optimizations, enhanced automation, and advanced validation methods playing a growing role in making migrations faster and more reliable. However, trust, transparency, and security remain top priorities for organizations.

Thank you for reading our first team interview! Stay tuned for more insights from our experts as we continue to explore the technology shaping the future.