Widespread migrations, downtime and AI uncertainty result in missed opportunities for cost savings and risk reduction for organizations
Caylent, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Tier Services Partner, today published the results of its 2025 Database Migration survey revealing significant challenges in enterprise database modernization efforts. The survey found only 6% of respondents said their organizations completed their most challenging migrations on time, with a mere 6% reporting zero downtime during the migration process. The survey found the top three most challenging migrations to be on-premises to cloud, database version upgrades, and cross-cloud migration. These findings underscore the urgent need for a smarter, faster database modernization strategy.
Despite growing AI adoption in data migrations, significant knowledge gaps persist. While 60% of survey respondents leveraged GenAI or data movement automation tools for their most challenging migration projects, a substantial 53% still lack clarity on which AI features and tools would best serve their needs. The survey polled over 300 IT leaders (non-Caylent customers) across industries including education, finance and financial services, entertainment and leisure, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, and utilities, energy and extraction. Respondents held senior roles ranging from IT managers to CTOs.
“The survey confirms what we see every day – modernization is imperative, but too often organizations are slowed by accumulated tech debt and outdated approaches that create unnecessary downtime and delayed returns,” said Lori Williams, CEO of Caylent. “At Caylent, we combine generative AI with deep engineering expertise to lower the barrier of entry for even the most complex projects and accelerate the time to savings. That means faster migrations, reduced legacy costs, and a stronger foundation for growth in a market defined by constant change.”
The report also examines migration timeline trends, the business impacts of downtime, and the effectiveness and concerns of using AI in recent migrations:
- Nearly half (46%) of respondents experienced 5+ hours of downtime during their most challenging migration.
- Downtime during challenging migrations led to customer experience issues (51%), lost revenue (49%) and operational slowdowns (44%).
- Top motivators as to why IT leaders migrated include removing vendor lock-in (34%), reducing spend on database licensing (28%) and increasing scalability (13%).
- Most respondents used AI during migration, with 77% reporting AI was effective or highly effective.
- Respondents said the top three time-intensive tasks in their most challenging migration were moving data from the source to target database, testing the target database (including all integrations), and converting the database schemas for the target platform.
The survey exposes the delays and uncertainty still present in database migrations while pointing toward AI-driven solutions as the path forward to more efficient database transitions.
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