11 Strategic Considerations for SharePoint Migrations

9/14/2010 1

11 Strategic Considerations for SharePoint Migration

Christian BuckleyDirector, Product Evangelism

Axceler (echoTechnology)

@buckleyplanet http://buckleyplanet.net

Content

Why this presentation is importantThe “standard” answers to upgrade and migrationWit and humor, obscure references to bad 80’s movies11 strategies you should consider as part of your planningOnline and offline resources

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

Why is this presentation important?

It’s not about the minutia of scripting methods to execute a hybrid database attach upgrade of your environment

We’re here to discuss the sometimes technical, but much more “hip” exercise of proper migration planning

This is the Jack Bauer of migration presentations, people

My weapon today…….PowerPoint

What is migration?

Microsoft defines migration as three separate activities:

The reality is that a single migration may include all three concepts

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.

Upgrade• Use the procedures for

upgrading a farm or components when you are changing to a different version of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

What is migration?

•Intranet•Extranet•New hardware•More social media tools

•Dashboards•Search

Expanding your SharePoint footprint

Moving to the latest, greatest

platform

Transforming what you did with 2003/2007 to

meet your organizational vision

Why migrations are difficult:

Migrations are phased

• 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.

Migrationsare iterative

• 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.

Migrations are error prone

• 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.

Migrations are not the end goal

• 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.

Dammit Jim! I’m only a doctor!

What are the Microsoft options?

In Place Upgrade

Database Attach

I’m my own best friend!

Email Cell Twitter [email protected] 425.246.2823 @buckleyplanet http://buckleyplanet.net



1. Understand the as-is and to-be environments2. Conduct proper capacity planning 3. Understand the customizations on your source system4. Understand the migration schedule5. Plan for the right kind of migration6. Plan for file shares 7. Plan for tagging, metadata, and taxonomy 8. Understand centrally managed and decentralized environments 9. Stage your platform for migration 10. Decide where and when to involve the users11. Determine that your migration is successful

11 strategies you should consider as part of your migration planning


Strategy #1:Understand as-is and to-be environments

Strategy #1: Understand as-is and to-be environments

A migration is an extensive business analyst activity

• Prior to any system redesign, understand your environment goals and purpose:

• Based on these requirements, you need to model out the “to be” environment

• What works• What doesn’t work

• What are the organizational “must have” requirements

• What are the “nice to have” features

The tendency is to jump to solutions before you understand the problem


Learn•Find out about requirements, prerequisites, documentation, the upgrade process, downtime mitigation, common issues

Prepare•Document environment thoroughly, upgrade existing documentation, find and manage customizations, choose upgrade strategy, performance test existing hardware

Test•Build a test farm using real data, evaluate migration techniques, find issues early

Implement•Upgrade farms, deploy customizations, minimize downtime, monitor progress

Validate•Upgrade event failures, U/UX issues, data issues

Anders Rask, Upgrading SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010


What is your goal?What is your mission statement (Just kidding)What are you key use cases?What are your priorities?


• 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

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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


Map out your:• Hardware• Topology• Performance requirements• Security requirements• Scalability• Disaster recovery• Business continuity


Think about your future needs:• User growth• Estimates on site creation• Estimates on database growth• Security and Search needs

9/14/2010 23

Strategy #3:Understand the customizations on your source system

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

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

• 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?

9/14/2010 26

Strategy #4:Understand the migration schedule


• What are the business drivers, not just the technology drivers?

• Cost• Time• Resources/People

• 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?


• Don’t forget to add to your schedule:• Time to backup your systems• Tasks to update the latest services packs• Communication plans for your end users and partners, including what

is being migrated, and (hopefully) how long it will take• Time for ample testing• A lock down period when no servers should be added or moved

9/14/2010 29

Strategy #5:Plan for the right kind of migration

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?

9/14/2010 31

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?


• 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?


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

9/14/2010 35

Strategy #7: Plan for tagging, metadata, and taxonomy


In Biology, taxonomy is the science dealing with the description, identification, naming, and classification of organisms. “however, the term is now applied in a wider, more general sense and now may refer to a classification of things, as well as to the principles underlying such a classification.”

“Metadata provides context for data. Metadata is used to facilitate the understanding, characteristics, and management usage of data. The metadata required for effective data management varies with the type of data and context of use.” Wikipedia.org

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



What is your broader strategy for tagging, metadata and taxonomy?

Managed Metadata

Service

Term Stores

Improved Governance


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

9/14/2010 40

Strategy #8: Understand centrally managed and decentralized environments


Where does innovation come from in your organization?

What is the intent of your system?

How you architect your solution will impact how you migrate your current environment


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


Common Topics around Centralized / Decentralized

Do we implant

microchips in their palms?

Do we deploy MySites?

Do we lock down team site

creation?


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 / service owners

Define your governance model / change control board

9/14/2010 45

Strategy #9: Stage your platform for migration

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

9/14/2010 47

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


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

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Strategy #11: Define what success looks like

(probably not this)

Strategy #11: Define what success looks like

• Fist waving is good• Double-fist waving is even better• Possible success metrics:

• 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

Online and offline resources

Upgrading SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010, Anders Rask http://andersrask.spoint.me/2010/03/22/whitepaper-on-sharepoint-upgrade/

Migrating to SharePoint 2010, Randy Williams http://www.windowsitpro.com/print/sharepoint-server-2010/Migrating-to-SharePoint-2010-104619.aspx

Upgrading to SharePoint 2010 (Microsoft)http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303420.aspx

Hardware and software requirements for 2010 (Microsoft) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485.aspx

SharePoint 2010: Best Practices to Upgrade and Migrate (O’Reilly, Safari)http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781449390457/

Migrating to MOSS 2007, Stephen Cummins, www.echoTechnology.com

Planning to Upgrade to SharePoint 2010 (Joel Oleson)http://www.slideshare.net/joeloleson/preparing-for-upgrade-to-sharepoint-2010-today

What’s New in SharePoint 2010 Capacity Planning (Joel Oleson)http://www.sharepointjoel.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=0cd1a63d%2D183c%2D4fc2%2D8320%2Dba5369008acb&ID=332

ReadyPoint migration planning tool for 2007 to 2010 migrations, Axceler http://www.axceler.com/SharePointMigration/ReadyPoint.aspx

Preupgradecheck, Microsoft http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd789638(office.12).aspx

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products Upgrade Approaches http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e8b66eb3-27c7-4a39-a2e1-3e7d18b12ee1&displaylang=en

http://andersrask.spoint.me/2010/03/22/whitepaper-on-sharepoint-upgrade/

http://www.windowsitpro.com/print/sharepoint-server-2010/Migrating-to-SharePoint-2010-104619.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303420.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485.aspx

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781449390457/

http://www.echotechnology.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/joeloleson/preparing-for-upgrade-to-sharepoint-2010-today

http://www.sharepointjoel.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=0cd1a63d-183c-4fc2-8320-ba5369008acb&ID=332

http://www.axceler.com/SharePointMigration/ReadyPoint.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd789638(office.12).aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e8b66eb3-27c7-4a39-a2e1-3e7d18b12ee1&displaylang=en

Drop me a line at [email protected]

Visit my blog http://buckleyplanet.netFollow me @buckleyplanet

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