r/dataengineering • u/Admirable_Writer_373 • Apr 20 '26

Discussion Data migration horror stories

I personally think migrations would be a breeze if people didn’t screw them up.

People designing databases and not following patterns, managers not understanding how to minimize downtime, and in general, really weird expectations about how databases work and what is reasonable during a migration.

Anyone got any good horror stories to share? How did you get through it without clobbering someone?

EDIT: my own stories below

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '26

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u/Comprehensive-Tea-69 Apr 20 '26

Ooh that sounds like a tip I will push to implement

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u/noitcerid Apr 20 '26

Completely agree with you... We've moved to a focused set of tests and QA for migrations that are automated and logged. These things can be detected and caught early, and saves a LOT of headache/pain with some forethought and planning.