Welcome and thanks for joining us for SharePoint 2010 Migration webinarIn next 30 minutes we will share with your our findings and experiences from number of migrations we have done and various methods we have tried
The agenda for today’s webinar includes: A quick intro to who we areDiscussion of migration considerations and if it is worth the painSP migration planning, preparation, and executionANDStrategies for boosting adoption rates
Overtime we have gone through a number of CMS migrations, both involving SharePoint and other CMSWe would like to share with your our findings and experiences from those migrationsLets face it migrations can be pretty painful and costly and pushed by the IT depart, so why would anyone want to go through thatNeed to understand what , if any, are the benefitsIs it driven by user demand or IT Are there any specific benefits or goals your organization is driving to achieve from itMake sure that benefits out weigh the costs and pain Have you identified a killer feature or application
Each organization is different and uses SharePoint differently therefore it is hard to identify a standard set of benefits (BI, Business Porcess, Collaboration). But in general everyone can benefit from some areasFor a vast majority migration can be much more than a simple software upgrade:It is a great time to clean up old and orphaned content and reorganize existing one to better align with the way you workJust like when we move from one house to another there are some box that always remain unopened and simply moved from place to place. You don’t have to do the same to your content. Enhancements like the social features, mobile platform support, and better collaboration support can be compellingBrowser support is a big help for organizations that support multiple browsers … other browsers support is now on par with IEThere is a ROI and cost savings aspect as well by standardizing on SharePoint for collaboration, content management and public website platformYou can get the benefits and avoid the migration pain if you plan and execute the migration rightEdgewater’s example, -- Quick (over the weekend), set the stage to move to the next gen of collaboration using Workspaces, MySites, Social features, etc.Diversified Communications Example – Clean platformOther?
Edgewater went through its own internal migration recently and we tried various different methods to find out:What are differences What works and what doesn’tPros and cons We would like to share with you our experience of trying out these different methods and tools for migrations and lessons learned from the approach we took. Remainder of the material is divided out into 4 sections:PlanningPreparationActual MigrationUser Adoption
Migrations are a multi-dimensional and involve lot of different moving parts. Make sure you have essential roles defined and all the stake holders involved. To be successful you need to manage the migration like other major projects. Make sure you have informed and lined up support from other teams you will need support from: including infrastucture, content owners, etc. A high-level project plan will help you communicate critical migration milestones, outages, procurementGet content owners onboard and have them survey their own content document, critical functionality. Discuss minimal go live requirements, etc.Think of ways to minimize disruptions:Third-party tools can helpParallel Db upgradesRead-only mode can help reduce impactWeekends and non-business hours provide an opportunityDb-attach and 3rd party migration methods allow you standup a parallel environment
Clean the environment as much as you can before you start the migration – a clean environment is much easier to migrate and will help you avoid the migration painClean you contentBefore you actually start the migration process it behooves us to simplify the environment as much as possible. Look for old content, orphaned sites Content that doesn’t get used Use SharePoint usage tracking to identify content that can be removedThird-party tools can helpSharePoint usage reportsClean your features and customizationsCustomization and broken controls, links etc. are probably the biggest hurdle you will have to overcomeFree PreUpgradeCheck tool can help you identify, there are third-party tools as well that can help identify the problems before you startWorst things: Orphans, modified schema, pretty awesome reportYou need to have a clear picture and understanding of the existing content and functionality of the system so that you can test what is working and what is notKnow who has access to what contentOtherwise you won’t be able to tell after migrations
Look for customizations in layouts, featuresm solutions, workflows, etc. You will most likely need new hardware so order it ahead of time and get the production environment readyThere will be problems after the migration so:Create a place and procedure for users to easily report any issuesDefine a procedure and guidelines for triaging themCreate a plan to fix critical issues quickly – make sure resources are available
Know and understand the pros and cons of the different methods and tools available: right migration method will be key to the migration success and minimizing disruptionsMicorosft provides two methods : in-place and db-attachIn-place does not allow much room for experimentation but allows farm and server settings to be maintainedNext, next -> finish, Restartable, timeouts removed, handles site locks, previous version manually removed, Fab 40?Db-attach allows for experimentation and 64-bit migration but requires you to reconfigure the farm Third-party tools Can help migrate content selectively, minimize down-time, allow you to reorganize content, etc. But most are still pretty green and have issuesHave a plan-B readyIf migration does not go as planned or if you run out of time or if it turns out to be more complex what is your fall back strategy. Have a clear and test back out strategyMake sure users are aware and know what you are going to be doing and when and how it will impact them … give them time to plan their own mitigation strategy
There are some gotcha in Microsoft's migration document and also in 3rd party migration tools useMake sure you understand them and avoid themFor example user profile …????Db-attach method allows you to experiment so do a test migration, qa, it understand it before you actually go to productionDon’t forget about the post production support … you will need a lot of the same resources available after the migration that you needed before the migration
MSOFT Supports only WSS v3 SP2/Moss 2007 SP2PreScan not good but PreUgradeCheck is:good, Read-only (do no harm)
Entire migration effort is of no use if people don’t use it so make sure you have a planMigration is an opportunity to drive the user adoption higher. You know your organization better than other work with the daily users, content owners to identify the killer app for you organizationNext gen collaborationBusiness process automationApplication and data integration etc.Show people how it can make their work easy, show them what common usage paradigms are … don’t wait for them to come to youPower and vocal users are your key assets so leverage them and make them your megaphoneMySite’s can help get masses involved describe to people how mysites can be used and what they are capable ofLet users feel like they are in charge help them customize and manage their own site.
Not a onetime thing but a continuous effortEA case study (recruit influential users and get them to get their friends)Host lunch & learns, demo, success stories and make sure you are doing some activity on a regular basis to promote and get the base excited.