SharePoint 2010 migrations, part 1

This is the first post in a series about SharePoint 2010 migration. The goal of the series is to provide some guidance on SharePoint migrations, where each post will focus on a different aspect of the possible scenarios. I will try not to go into too much detail, because this will reduce the change of being applicable in different situations or environments. This first post will focus on the functional differences between the possible scenarios. You will not read much about technology in this first post; but this will definitely be discussed later.

The first step into migration is to understand the options you have. Once you understand these options, you can plan for the right actions to take. Only then you can have an idea what to expect.Later on we’ll get to the four options Microsoft has outlined (and the fifth option, being 3rd party tooling), but even before that I’d like to suggest taking the following into consideration:



Do you want to move everything you have gathered in the past years, as-is? Or do you want to apply some filters to what you want to migrate? This really depends on how well the environment is controlled (or set free, from a work21 perspective). In some situations your environment is in perfect condition, both information-architecture-wise and technologically. On the other hand, it might be very good to take this opportunity to reevaluate both (information and technology) aspects of SharePoint.



I’m a big fan of the filter & migrate option, but I’m not the one fighting for bigger budgets and more time :). This approach will take more time and therefore costs more money. On the other hand: this should be a clear case of long-term investment. If you are using SharePoint as a platform for the entire company, everybody will greatly benefit from accessibility and findability. I could write multiple books on the benefits of making information (and/or knowledge!) easily accessible, but hopefully you get the picture.



Moving on, here are the four approaches outlined by Microsoft, supplemented by a fifth (3rd party tooling). Basically Microsoft provides two options: upgrade your existing environment (provided you have the right hard- and software) or move your content to a new environment. Moving to a new environment usually means you will lose some information like search indexes and history. Since both upgrading and migrating can be a dreadful process, there are two creative options which combine certain aspects from these two in order to minimize downtime. Route 3 comes down to this: in order to upgrade you current environment, you temporarily use a second environment to speed up the upgrade of each content database. Route 4 comes down to this: while migrating a specific content database to the new environment, you keep it accessible (but read-only!) on the old environment. These two variations will make the process more complex, but of course this is something we would love to help you with.

The fifth option really gives you a lot of freedom: 3rd party tooling. In another post I will share some experiences with a couple of tools, but the possibilities seem endless. You can move single items, lists, libraries, sites or sometimes entire farms. You can reorganize all sites any way you see fit, simply by drag-n-drop or copy-paste.



I like to see my options visually, so here is a simple representation of the choices you have. There are some things to keep in mind:

1. The filter & migrate option is not the only way to start fresh. The filter process can easily be moved forward in the process. You can start deleting old sites right now! How fun is that, right? In some cases it may be hard to initiate a new project to facilitate this, so combining it with the upgrade to SharePoint 2010 might be your best shot.

2. 3rd party tools are not only valuable during the upgrade process. I have (not yet) seen any licenses with an expiry date (only trials should do that trick). They should come in handy in many situations, like when a project site needs to be archived, or large sets of data need another location. Some 3rd party tools also support migrating data from a file share (file shares keep popping up from everywhere). It’s like having a Swiss Army Knife at hand…

3. Regardless of the option you choose (or consider): e-office can help you in the process. Regardless of the stage (considering, planning, execution, troubleshooting, evaluation) or perspective (business, human, IT, development).

I hope this information can prove to be useful and help you better understand your options. I will be focusing on some more technical details in the following days, and hope to share my findings very soon. The slides embedded in this post are also available on Slideshare. If you have any questions (or feedback!), feel free to contact me by email or any of the options listed on the top right of my site.