Migration is a roadblock to moving forward with your SharePoint strategy. Migration is phased, iterative, and error prone. But migration itself is not the goal – an optimized and user-friendly environment is your goal. Beyond the Microsoft-provided overview of how to plan for an upgrade and migration, there is a lot of room for error. This presentation outlines 11 critical strategies for migration planning that no project should move forward without. (based on article published in ECM Connections 11/2/2010) Attendees will walk away with a detailed action plan for their migrations to SharePoint 2010.

1. 11 Strategic Considerations
for SharePoint Migrations
Christian Buckley
cbuck@axceler.com
@buckleyPLANET

2. My Background
Christian Buckley, Director of Product Evangelism at Axceler
•
Most recently at Microsoft
•
Microsoft Managed Services (now BPOS-Dedicated)
•
Advertising Operations, ad platform API program
•
Prior to Microsoft, was a senior consultant, working in the software, supply chain, and grid
technology spaces focusing on collaboration
•
Co-founded and sold a collaboration software company to Rational Software. Also co-authored
3 books on software configuration management and defect tracking for Rational and IBM
•
At another startup (E2open), helped design, build, and deploy a
SharePoint-like collaboration platform (Collaboration Manager), managing
deployment teams to onboard numerous high-tech manufacturing companies,
including Hitachi, Matsushita, Seagate, Nortel, Sony, and Cisco
•
I live in a small town just east of Seattle, have a daughter in college and 3 boys at home

3. Axceler Overview
• Improving Collaboration for 16+ Years
–
–
–
Mission: To enable enterprises to simplify, optimize, and
secure their collaborative platforms
Delivered award-winning administration and migration
software since 1994
Over 2,000 global customers
• Dramatically improve the management
of SharePoint
–
–
Innovative products that improve security, scalability,
reliability, “deployability”
Making IT more effective and efficient and lower the total
cost of ownership
• Focus on solving specific SharePoint problems
(Administration & Migration)
–
–
–
–
–
Coach enterprises on SharePoint best practices
Give administrators the most innovative tools available
Anticipate customers’ needs
Deliver best of breed offerings
Stay in lock step with SharePoint development and market trends

4. Why is this presentation important?
• Most content focused on the technical aspects of migration
• Migrations are not so much about the technical act of moving the data
(although very important), but more about the planning that goes into
preparing for the migration

5. This is your technical
migration, i.e. the
physical move of
content and “bits”
Email
cbuck@echotechnology.com
Cell
425.246.2823
Twitter
@buckleyplanet
Blog
http://buckleyplanet.net

6. This is the bulk of your
migration – the planning,
reorganization, and
transformation of your
legacy SharePoint
environment
10/5/2011
6

7. What is migration?
•
Microsoft defines migration as three separate activities:
Move
• Use the procedures for
moving a farm or
components when you
are changing to different
hardware. For example,
use these procedures if
you move to computers
that have faster
processors or larger hard
disks.
•
Migrate
• Use the procedures for
migrating a farm or
components when you
are changing to a
different platform or
operating system. For
example, use these
procedures if you
change from Microsoft
SQL Server 2005 to SQL
Server 2008.
The reality is that a single migration may include
all three concepts
Upgrade
• Use the procedures for
upgrading a farm or
components when you
are changing to a
different version of
Office SharePoint Server
2007.

8. What is migration?

9. Why migrations are difficult:
Migrations
are phased
Migrations
are iterative
Migrations are
error prone
Migrations are
not the end goal
• How and what you
migrate should not be
determined by the
technology you use – it’s
about matching the needs
and timing of your content
owners and teams. A
migration should be
flexible, moving sites and
content based on end user
needs, not the limitations
of the technology.
• Your planning should not
be limited by the number
of migration attempts you
make, or by the volume of
content being moved. A
healthy migration
recognizes the need to
test the waters, to move
sites, content and
customizations in waves,
allowing users to test and
provide feedback.
• There is no “easy” button
for migration. You can run
a dozen pre-migration
checks and still run into
problems. Admins and end
users do things that are
not “by the book.”
Customizations. Third
party tools. Line of
business applications that
run under the radar.
• Proper planning and
change management
policies will help you to be
successful with your
current and future
migrations. The goals
should be a stable
environment, relevant
metadata, discoverable
content, and happy end
users.

10. What are the Microsoft options?

11. Email
cbuck@echotechnology.com
Cell
425.246.2823
Twitter
@buckleyplanet
Blog
http://buckleyplanet.net

12. 11 strategies you should
consider as part of your
migration planning
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Understand the as-is and to-be environments
Conduct proper capacity planning
Understand the customizations on your source system
Understand the migration schedule
Plan for the right kind of migration
Plan for file shares
Plan for tagging, metadata, and taxonomy
Understand centrally managed and decentralized environments
Stage your platform for migration
Decide where and when to involve the users
Determine that your migration is successful

13. A migration is an extensive business analyst activity
• Prior to any system redesign, understand your
environment
goals and purpose:
• What works
• What doesn’t work
• What are the organizational
“must have” requirements
• What are the “nice to
have” features
• Based on these requirements, you need to model out
the “to be” environment
Strategy #1: Understand as-is
and to-be environments

14. Strategy #1: Understand as-is
and to-be environments
• Migration is about transforming
your existing system to meet
operational needs.
• It’s as much about retooling current sites and
content as it is about deploying new
technology
• Don’t just tear down and rebuild if there’s
something to be saved. Understand what you
have to work with, have a vision for what it
should look like, and move the pieces that
should be moved

15. Strategy #2: Conduct proper
capacity planning
• Understand your current environment:
Number of users
Number of sites
Number of site collections
Database size
Geographical needs of your organization
(how many sites, what are their usage patterns)
• Line of business application integration
•
•
•
•
•

16. Strategy #2: Conduct proper
capacity planning
• Think about your future needs:
• User growth
• Estimates on site creation
• Estimates on database growth
• Security and Search needs

17. Strategy #2: Conduct proper
capacity planning
• Map out your:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Hardware
Topology
Performance requirements
Security requirements
Scalability
Disaster recovery
Business continuity

18. Strategy #3: Understand the
customizations on your source system
• Pre-Upgrade Check provides some of the analysis:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Searches content sources and start addresses
Outlines Office Server topology
Identifies servers in the current farm
Lists SharePoint version and list of components running in the farm
Outlines supported upgrade types
Provides Site Definition and Feature information
Details language pack information
Identifies Alternate Access Mappings that will need to be recreated
Outlines Customized List Views (these will not be upgraded)
Outlines Customized Field Types (these will not be upgraded)
Identifies WSS Search topology
Provides list of Content Databases and SQL server location
Joel Oleson, SharePoint 2010: Best Practices to Upgrade and Migrate

19. Strategy #3: Understand the
customizations on your source system
• What kinds of customizations are on your source system?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
UI design
Web parts
Workflows
Line of business applications
3rd party tools
Custom features
Site definitions
Field types
Custom SharePoint solutions
Any changes to the file system on your SharePoint servers
• Pre-Upgrade Check provides some of the analysis
• How many of those customizations are
outside of the SharePoint framework?
• Are there any customizations which can
be replaced by out-of-the-box functionality?

20. Strategy #4:
Understand the migration schedule
•
What are the business drivers, not just the
technology drivers?
•
•
•
Cost
Time
Resources/People
•
Do you have a defined project methodology?
•
How long per phase, what is moved,
what are the priorities?
•
The schedule should be defined only after you understand the future state, set
priorities, and get management buy-in.
•
In short, what is the scope?

21. Strategy #5:
Plan for the right kind of migration
• Does the migration plan include content, sites, metadata,
and/or solutions?
• Each one brings with it a set of requirements and decisions
• What is the end goal? Is it a straight dump of everything, and
you’ll clean up later, or do you need to restructure?
• Is your strategy the same for various organizations, different
site collections, or farms?

22. Strategy #6:
Plan for file shares
• Most file shares have become a dumping ground.
• Is the plan to move
as-is and
decommission old
systems, or is this a
clean up process?
• Are users driving, or is it an administrative effort?
• Are you planning to apply metadata and taxonomy?

23. Strategy #6:
Plan for file shares
• Understand what is
out there
• Who owns the content?
• Does it need to be moved?
• Does it need to be
indexed/searchable?
• Is the folder structure important?
• Do you need to maintain historic metadata?

24. Strategy #6:
Plan for file shares
• Users generally have three options:
• Move content, as-is, into SharePoint and clean up there
• Clean and organize content first, then move to a new structure in SharePoint
• Migrate content in waves, using the iterations to sort through and organize your content
while in transit, moving some content as-is, reorganizing and transforming others
• To be honest, option 3 is very difficult to manage in
SharePoint, but 3rd party tools do a great job here

25. Strategy #7: Plan for tagging,
metadata, and taxonomy
Common Migraines
Ad-hoc content migration leads to junk in portal
Legacy content gets migrated slowly, if at all
Inconsistent taxonomy across farms and site collections
People author locally - multiplies problems globally
Authors don’t apply metadata= “shotgun” approach to search OR Authors
apply metadata without common classification = better search, but worse
authoring experience
• Portal lacks high fidelity search
• User can’t find the right content
• As a result, poor portal adoption and low user satisfaction
•
•
•
•
•

26. Strategy #7: Plan for tagging,
metadata, and taxonomy
•
What is your broader
strategy for tagging,
metadata and taxonomy?
•
Map out your high level
taxonomy (web applications
and site collections) and
schemas (Content Types)
•
Understand the as-is and tobe, and how it relates to
your metadata
Manage
d
Metadat
a
Service
Term
Stores
Improved
Governanc
e

27. Strategy #7: Plan for tagging,
metadata, and taxonomy
• Map out your high level taxonomy (web applications and site
collections) and schemas (Content Types)
• Understand the as-is and to-be, and how it relates to your
metadata
• With Managed Metadata Service in 2010, it is critical that you
set up a governance model to guide this process, or it will
quickly get out of hand

28. Strategy #8: Understand centrally
managed and decentralized environments
CENTRALIZED
• PROS
• Improves consistency
• Reduces metadata duplication
• Easy to update
• Easy to support and train on
• Allows document-level DIP, Workflow,
Information Policies, and document templates
• CONS
• Requires planning
• Requires upfront work
• Hard to manage across site collections and
portals
DECENTRALIZED
• PROS
• Requires no planning
• Requires little upfront effort
• Works across site collections and portals
• CONS
• Decreases consistency
• Increases metadata duplication
• Hard to update
• Hard to support and train on
• Only allows list-level Workflow, Information
Policies and document templates
• Difficult to reverse

29. Strategy #8: Understand centrally
managed and decentralized environments
• Use of services greatly improves concerns over the
decentralized model:
• Services can be centrally managed
• Sites and Site Collections can consume these services, within certain
boundaries
• You still need to understand the administrative impacts
• You need to clearly define roles and
service owners
• Define your governance model / change control board

30. Strategy #9:
Stage your platform for migration
• Understanding your requirements:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Hardware / software
Network
Virtual environments
Hosting / datacenter
Downtime / end user impacts
Communication
Location of your teams
Backup/recovery
• Coordinate your planning with the operations team

31. Strategy #10:
Decide where and when to involve users
• This is the most fluid of the strategic
considerations, as it really just depends
• At a high-level, end users who participate in the
creation of a system are more likely to accept /
support that system once deployed

32. Strategy #10:
Decide where and when to involve users
• Where end users should be involved:
•
•
•
•
Creation of use cases
Creation of as-is documentation
Prioritization of requirements for to-be environment
They know their content – let them drive
•
•
•
•
File share migrations, or organization
Taxonomy development
Metadata assignment
Signoff on overall project plan

33. • Possible success metrics:
Strategy #11:
Define what success looks like
• Target number of end users migrated
• Target number of sites migrated
• Databases migrated
• File shares migrated and decommissioned
• 2010 live, users able to manually migrate their content

34. Strategy #11:
Define what success looks like
Words of Wisdom:
If you fail to plan, then plan to fail.
Then again…
There is nothing you can’t accomplish
if you put the bar low enough

35. Online and offline resources
•
11 Strategic Considerations for SharePoint Migrations (Buckley), http://slidesha.re/d3RHNH
•
Upgrading SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 (Anders Rask), http://bit.ly/bjWXMS
•
Migrating to SharePoint 2010 (Randy Williams), http://bit.ly/bNgX0U
•
Upgrading to SharePoint 2010 (Microsoft), http://bit.ly/dm2kDO
•
Hardware and software requirements for 2010 (Microsoft), http://bit.ly/bTGe2b
•
Capacity Planning and Sizing for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, http://bit.ly/eXf0Cy
•
SharePoint 2010: Best Practices to Upgrade and Migrate (O’Reilly, Safari), http://oreil.ly/chSHli
•
Migrating to MOSS 2007 (Stephen Cummins), http://bit.ly/9Ismfp
•
Planning to Upgrade to SharePoint 2010 (Joel Oleson), http://slidesha.re/16iiUX
•
What’s New in SharePoint 2010 Capacity Planning (Joel Oleson), http://bit.ly/9cT9aa
•
ReadyPoint migration planning tool for 2007 to 2010 migrations (Axceler), http://bit.ly/9GgDuY
•
PreUpgradeCheck (Microsoft), http://bit.ly/cIHIlA
•
SharePoint 2010 Products Upgrade Approaches (Microsoft), http://bit.ly/dphQ2W

36. For more information
•
Contact me at
– Christian Buckley, cbuck@axceler.com, 425-246-2823
– On Twitter at @buckleyplanet
•
Additional Resources available
– White papers
• The Insider’s Guide to Upgrading to SharePoint 2010
• What to Look for in a SharePoint Management Tool
• The Five Secrets to Controlling Your
SharePoint Environment
– Tools
• ReadyPoint (free)
• Davinci Migrator
• echo for SharePoint 2007