Use Migrat to Make the Move to Node

Plan and protect your migration to Node.js-based application development with the open source Migrat tool.

Whenever there is a new wave in information technology there is a rush of enthusiasm for adoption. But then sober voices start asking the inevitable, often difficult question about how existing assets will be migrated. No doubt, issues like this are behind Gartner’s famous Hype Cycle “Trough of Disillusionment.” You know, that time during technology adoption when reality sets in and we all get down to the hard work required.

A lot of us have been on the rising tide of excitement surrounding Node.js—a very cool technology that can address so many challenges. However, there have been those who are, quite correctly, worrying about challenges like migration.

Fortunately, we have smart people in the industry thinking about this challenge, too. Meet Brian Reavis, a developer based in Cody, Wyoming who, in addition to tackling Node.js challenges, is now working to create a sort of “wiki” map of the outdoors open to everyone and editable by anyone! Sounds like very cool idea.

Migrat is a Recommended Pluggable Migration Tool for Node.js

Brian Reavis’ contribution to the Node.js ecosystem is his recently created Migrat, a pluggable Node.js migration tool that is “designed for diverse stacks and processes.” On GitHub, Migrat is further described as not being tied to any particular database engine with support for multi-node environments. Specifically, Migrat can differentiate migrations that should run on one node from migrations that should run on all nodes.

The availability of Migrat means that migration isn’t such a challenge after all. Some of the other features Reavis mentions for Migrat include:

• Support for global locking during migration runs to prevent multiple servers attempting to perform global migrations at the same time
• Passing context through to each migration. This can be a logging interface, a set of database connections
• Custom hooks throughout the migration process
• Dry run performance to see the migration plan before it's executed

Capabilities like Migrat, which are starting to pop up as the Node.js environment grows and matures, are essential to its fulfilling the potential of Node.js to help power up IoT, wearables and an increasingly rich, mobile-centric application world.

Get Started with Node.js Migration

More information on Migrat is available at GitHub. And, of course, we always encourage those with a nose for Node.js to spend some time with Modulus.