AvePoint

AvePoint is a third party tool that enables the final stage of migration from SharePoint Server 2010 to SharePoint Online and Office 365.

The AvePoint tool offers the following advantages:

  • Seamlessly migrate existing enterprise content from more than 14 legacy systems to SharePoint Online with a single install.
  • Minimize business disruptions caused by the migration or the deployment of change to sites, content, configuration, and solutions by maintaining co-existance of on-premise and online SharePoint deployments.
  • Reduce risks associated with migration from various disparate repositories or managing hybrid SharePoint environments.
  • Simplify testing, course correction and rollback during migration, deployment or publishing processes.
  • Publish content from the on-premise staging farms to the cloud for global scalability and seamless hybrid management.
  • Staged approach for migrating and publishing enterprise content reduces the number of connection paths required, helping to control bandwidth utilization and ensuring all network resources stay fully optimized.

More details can be found at: http://www.avepoint.com/sharepoint-online-migration-docave/

Planning an upgrade from SharePoint 2003 to 2007

From research, it has become clear that the most common way to upgrade from SharePoint Server 2003 to Microsoft Office 365 (SharePoint Online), is to first upgrade to MOSS 2007. However there are some third party tools available to facilitate the migration, this will be discussed in another post.

Good planning in advance seems to be the key thing when upgrading a large portal and there are a handful of analyses that should be conducted which are detailed below..

Type of Analysis Measure Description
Logical Implementation Number and Type of existing sites Understanding this will enable the orgaisation to determine usage and whether or not the sites are used etc.
Logical Implementation Audiences for existing sites Understanding the audiences will help to determine the configuration to support the security and access structure.
Logical Implementation Site access methods and requirements Understanding methods of access, both current and future desired state enables requirements to be met with MOSS.
Logical Implementation Site feature usage and requirements A list of utilized features should collated to ensure that the current site templates are appropriate and satisfy requirements.
Physical Implementation Size of existing sites content database organisation Once numbers and types of sites has been established, a primary input to the planning of migration and organistion for MOSS will be how the physical structure of SPS exists.
Physical Implementation Size and placement of existing server farm infrastructure Both the physical layout of the servers within the farm as well as the physical implementation of sites within the virtual servers inside SPS Virtual Servers to newly design MOSS Web Applications.

In a further blog post we will be looking at the next steps required when migrating.