Database Migration Checklist: 47 Things to Verify

Pre-Migration (Items 1-18)

Schema & Data Assessment

1. Document all source schemas, tables, views, and materialised views
2. Catalogue all stored procedures, functions, triggers, and packages
3. Map all data types to target equivalents — flag any without direct mapping
4. Identify all sequences and auto-increment columns
5. Document all foreign key relationships and cascading rules
6. List all indexes — primary, unique, composite, partial, and expression-based
7. Measure total data volume per table and per schema
8. Identify tables with LOB/CLOB/BLOB columns exceeding 100MB

Environment & Infrastructure

9. Provision target database with equivalent or greater resources
10. Set up staging environment that mirrors production topology
11. Configure network connectivity between source and target (VPN/peering)
12. Verify sufficient disk space on target (2.5x source data size minimum)
13. Set up monitoring and alerting on both source and target

Planning & Risk

14. Define success criteria — what constitutes a "completed" migration?
15. Document rollback procedure with estimated time for each step
16. Test rollback procedure on staging — end to end, timed
17. Identify all applications connecting to the source database
18. Create communication plan for all stakeholders

During Migration (Items 19-32)

Execution

19. Run schema migration first — verify all objects created successfully
20. Validate row counts on each table after data load
21. Run checksum validation on a sample of rows per table (minimum 1%)
22. Verify all sequences are set to values higher than max existing IDs
23. Confirm all indexes are created and match source definitions
24. Run all stored procedures/functions against test data
25. Verify trigger execution order matches source behaviour

Monitoring

26. Monitor replication lag if using CDC — must be under threshold before cutover
27. Track source database load during migration — watch for performance impact
28. Monitor target database resource utilisation (CPU, memory, I/O)
29. Log all errors and warnings — classify as blocking vs non-blocking
30. Verify no schema changes occur on source during migration window
31. Confirm backup of source database completed before cutover
32. Validate that application read-only mode is enforced during cutover

Post-Migration (Items 33-47)

Validation

33. Re-run full row count comparison — source vs target
34. Execute top 20 business-critical queries — compare results
35. Run application integration tests against target database
36. Verify all scheduled jobs and cron tasks are migrated and running
37. Confirm all reporting/BI tools connect and return expected data
38. Validate audit trail and logging on target database

Performance

39. Run ANALYZE/statistics update on all tables
40. Compare query execution times: source baseline vs target
41. Monitor P95 query latency for 48 hours post-cutover
42. Tune connection pooling settings for new database driver

Compliance & Cleanup

43. Verify encryption at rest and in transit on target
44. Confirm access controls and roles are correctly migrated
45. Update disaster recovery documentation with new database details
46. Schedule source database decommission date (minimum 30 days post-migration)
47. Document lessons learned and update migration runbook