Tag: Microsoft

Microsoft Use Third Party Tool To Help Their Own Migration

Michael Bratley / / Migration, Office 365

In an article published by SharePoint Pro Mag, Microsoft themselves have used a third party tool to assist them with an upgrade from SharePoint 2007 to 2010.

“Just this week, it was announced that Microsoft itself, the Microsoft Technology Centers, migrated from dedicated SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 on an internal cloud hosted by MSIT (Microsoft IT), and even the MTC’s turned to a third party migration tool (by AvePoint) to migrate content to the cloud while maintaining metadata and configuration.”

I am very surprised that Microsoft has turned to a third party tool to complete their migration. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but it does not give their customers much confidence in what they (Microsoft) do, if they have to turn to another company for help regarding one of their own products. This potentially shows that using a third party tool to help with a companies migration should not be considered as shameful or cheating or using the ‘easy’ option.

The full article can be found at: SharePoint Pro Mag.

Migrate from SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to SharePoint 2007 Server to SharePoint Server 2010 (that’s quite a mouth full)

Robert Everatt / / Migration, Office 365

We now have a migration check list!

I have recently found an extremely useful document on Microsoft’s TechNet page that details the transition from Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Server to SharePoint Server 2010. This document can also be used to aid our transition in to Microsoft Office 365.

The document can be found here:  http://lncn.eu/jx7

If we are to upgrade to Office 365 by first upgrading to SharePoint 2007 and then to SharePoint 2010, these are the steps we would take:

  • Prepare to upgrade to SharePoint 2007
    • Determine how to handle customizations
    • Develop new custom site definitions and create upgrade definition file
    • Run the Pre-upgrade scan tool to determine compatibility
  • Prepare to upgrade to SharePoint 2010
  • Perform Pre-upgrade steps (see http://lncn.eu/hjz)
    • Install all perquisites
    • Run and test a full backup in SQL Server
    • Deploy upgrade definition files and new site definitions
    • Upgrade custom Web Parts packages
  • Create the temporary Office SharePoint Server 2007 farm
    • Download the software for the temporary farm (a trial version of SharePoint 2007 can be used if we do not have a full version as a trial version will last 180 days)
    • Prepare the 2007 environment (see http://lncn.eu/fp26)
  • Create the temporary SharePoint Server 2010 farm
    • As SharePoint Server 2010 is not our final destination we will only be setting SharePoint 2010 up as a temporary virtual server much like SharePoint 2007
    • As our method isn’t covered by the document mentioned earlier we will not be creating a full SharePoint Server 2010 farm but a virtual temporary one instead
  • Perform first upgrade (full details see http://lncn.eu/jvx5)
    • Ensure that the pre-upgrade scan has been used, the upgrade will not work otherwise
    • Back up the content databases
    • Restore the backed-up copies to temporary farm
    • Add the databases to the Web applications to start the upgrade process
    • Profile information will also need to be imported (see http://lncn.eu/guw2)
  • Verify the first upgrade
    • Review the upgrade log file
    • Review the transferred sites to ensure they have transferred properly
  • Perform the second upgrade
    • Use the pre-upgrade checker this time
    • Carry out the same actions as before to upgrade to 2010
  • Verify the second upgrade
    • Same as before

Once this is complete, the system will be ready to migrate into Office 365. Unfortunately I could not find any documentation for migrating to Office 365 amongst Microsoft’s documentation. I asked on the community website, one guy said that Microsoft have a list of partners that offer Migration services, these are people that will guide the user through the planning and migration to Microsoft Office 365.

Alternatively a third party application could be purchased such as AvePoint, Quest or MetaVis. These applications have the ability to migrate data from SharePoint Server 2010 to SharePoint Online, retaining all the customization and security settings. If the user were to migrate manually they may lose all content and security settings.

This document has been extremely helpful; it may have taken some time to find all this information without. Anyone considering upgrading their SharePoint server, I strongly recommend giving it a thorough read.

RE