20 years of migration-center:
How it all began, milestones & the road ahead

Thumbnail | Blog post | 20 years of migration-center

Author
Florian Piaszyk-Hensen
Director fme Products

March 5, 2025

How time flies! Over 20 years ago, a small idea sparked the creation of what would become a trusted content migration solution for organizations worldwide: migration-center. This year, as we celebrate migration-center’s 20st anniversary, let us take you on our journey so far, reflect mentionable milestones, and share where we are heading next.

The beginning of migration-center

In the early 2000’s, content migration was a complex, manual process. Organizations needed a robust, efficient, and secure way to manage and migrate their growing volumes of content in the rapidly changing digital landscape. This is how migration-center came into play.

Dirk Bode
CEO of fme AG

“We originally developed a migration solution within a project, and the project manager quickly saw its potential as a product. Around the same time, we built a strong partnership with a development team in Romania. They played a key role in shaping the product approach. My first trip to Romania in 2005 – before the country joined the EU – was an exciting experience. Everything felt new, and the enthusiasm in that small office was truly inspiring.”

A timeline of achievements

Over the past two decades, migration-center has grown from a niche solution to an industry leader – constantly evolving with the dynamic market and customer needs. Do you remember these milestones?

2005: First product release
Launched migration-center 1.4, enabling document migration from FileSystem to Documentum with support for up to ten predefined system attributes.
2005: Receipt of first product certification – EMC certified
2006: Foundation of fme SRL & expansion of product engineering in Romania
2008: Rearchitect migration-center to allow multiple migration paths
Besides providing a flexible architecture centered on migration paths, version 3.0 also introduced a powerful transformation engine for metadata. There were two supported migration paths: FileSystem to Documentum and Documentum to Documentum.
2009: First international consulting partner eurodoc (today AmeXio)
2010: International trademark registration & free Trial Version release
2011: Go-live of migration-center.com product website
2012: Major feature update with version 3.2
Introduced standalone adapters for a variety of systems, including Documentum, eRoom, Filesystem, Box, Alfresco, SharePoint, and FirstDoc. This allowed for more flexible combinations of supported source and target systems.
2015: migration-center’s 10^th anniversary
Also, we accomplished the first project that exceeded 500 million documents migrated with a single instance of migration-center.

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fme AG celebrates migration-center’s 10^th birthday at EMC World Las Vegas

2016: First strategic service partnership
Tieto became a technology partner for migration-center for an improved document migration service offering in the Nordics region.
2015-2019: Enhanced compatibility
Expanded platform compatibility to include Documentum D2, IBM Domino, SharePoint Online, InfoArchive, OpenText Content Server, D2 Life Sciences Solution, Veeva Vault, Generic CARA, and Hyland OnBase (releases 3.2.4 to 3.17).
2021: Adoption of AI-driven features
Introduced the Amazon Comprehend Enrich Scanner in version 3.17, enabling smarter and more automated content enrichment during migrations.
2022: Modernized WebClient launch
migration-center 22.1 introduced the new WebClient, replacing the desktop client and eliminating Oracle dependency. Added features like multi-column mapping lists, copy-paste transformation rules, and analytics for improved migration planning and execution. Transitioned to a calendar-based versioning system.
2023: Support for PostgreSQL & Azure Blob Storage
migration-center 23.2 added PostgreSQL database support, while release 23.3 introduced the Azure Blob Storage Importer for cloud-based migration.

Mark Deckert
Head of Product Development @ fme AG from 2011 to 2021

“We have always worked in a very customer-oriented way, paying attention to quality and performance in all developments. In general, migrations were not allowed to take long, and it was always a priority to avoid data loss for the client. The biggest challenge, however, was the development of the new version migration-center 4.0 respectively migration-center 22.1, which required several attempts until we found a viable WebClient solution.”

migration-center then and now

Looking at migration-center today, it’s exciting to see how far we have come. Back in 2005, we launched with just one migration path. Today, the software supports over 250 migration paths, connecting some of the most widely used ECM systems, and is a recognized partner officially certified by vendors like Box, Hyland, OpenText, Generis, and Veeva.

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User interface of migration-center 1.4

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Vs. user interface of migration-center 24.3

Together with our global Service Partner network, we’ve successfully migrated more than 1.5 trillion documents for customers in 27 countries, delivering around 2.100 migration projects across 30 industries.

The impact on customers

One of the things we’re most proud of is the value migration-center has added to our customer projects. From a multinational companies like Hess or Uniper streamlining global operations to government agencies preserving decades of historical data, our software helped many clients succeed in their migration goals.

Even in sensitive and highly regulated industries – such as Life Sciences or financial service – migration-center has proven itself as an accurate, efficient, and secure solution to migrate critical content and documents.

Looking ahead

As we celebrate this milestone, we remain focused on the future. Emerging trends such as cloud-native migrations, AI-powered content insights, and increasing regulatory requirements are shaping the next chapter for migration-center.

Vasile Gavrila
Head of Product Development @ fme SRL since 2021

“Our mission is to evolve migration-center to empower our customers and partners with a robust, efficient, and user-friendly data migration experience. We’re set to introduce new testing and validation tools, streamlining project execution, and minimizing risks. Strengthened security will remain a top priority, safeguarding every migration project. We also aim to incorporate a new AI-driven document classification module for smarter and faster data organization”.

Finally, to our employees, partners, and customers: thank you for being part of two amazing decades! Here’s to the next 20 years of innovation, trust, and excellence in content migration.

Do you have questions about migration-center?

For more information on how migration-center can help you with your upcoming migration project, just reach out to our team or request a free Trial Version and test its capabilities yourself.