1. Issues in Content Migration
Deane Barker
Blend Interactive

2. They’re painful.
[The End]

3. Blend Interactive
! Based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota
! Specialize in large-scale content
management implementations and
migrations
! EPiServer
! eZ publish
! TerminalFour

4. Definition:
The one-time movement of
content from one publishing
platform to a different publishing
platform.

5. “Migration” vs. “Implementation”

6. Editorial Process
vs.
Technical Process

7. The Four Phases
1. Inventory
2. Mapping
3. Transfer
4. QA

8. Phase #1: Inventory
! What content is moving?
! What content can we get rid of?
! How can it be grouped?
! What content requires special handling?
! What content requires changes?
! How volatile is the content?

9. Don’t move bad content.
This is the time for
spring-cleaning.

10. Start your inventory as early as
possible.
Before you start development.
Even before you pick a new
platform.

11. Be prepared for this process to
get highly politicized.

12. Keep your inventory systematic
and organized.
Have a central point of focus and
record-keeping.

15. Inventory Outputs
! List of content that will migrate divided into
logical groups
! List of content that will require special
handling
! List of content that will require changes
along with scope

16. Phase #2: Mapping
! How is content going to “fit” and work in the
new platform?
! What changes will be required to rich text
content?
! How is the overall structure of the content
going to transfer?

18. What HTML is templated and
what HTML is embedded?

21. Content has different levels of
“geography”
Some content is very specifically
placed, while other content is
automatically organized.

22. Home
Products About
Product Product
History
A B

23. Press
Release

24. Highly-geographical content is
much harder to migrate.
You have to migrate both the
content and the placement.

25. Stub Mapping
Home
Products About
Product A Product B History
Existing Home New
Products About
Product A Product B History

26. Mapping Outputs
! An understanding of where all content is
going in the new platform and why
! Page stub structure

27. Phase 3: Transfer
! How are the actual bytes moving from one
system to another?
! Key Questions
! Repository or publication extraction
! Embedded URL resolution
! Markup transformation
! Automated vs. manual migration

28. Migrating out of a CMS is a lot
easier than the alternative.
CMS enforces at least some
consistency.

29. Are you going to extract from the
repository level or the
publication level?

30. Repository vs. Publication
Extraction
HTML
Repository
Processing

31. How will URLs change on the new
platform?
How interlinked is your content?
How are you going to keep all
those links valid?

32. Embedded URL Resolution
! If you have embedded URLs, they are now
broken.
! How do you “re-connect” these URLs to the
correct content?
! Usually performed as some kind of batch job.
! You rarely get 100% accuracy.
! Prepare to catch the remainder in QA.

33. Embedded URLs

34. Always store the old URL for a
migrated page of content.

35. Once migrated, use the old URL
to do a lookup in your 404
handler.

36. If you can preserve binary file
URLs, do so. Your new CMS will
likely make this easier.

37. Content Transformation

38. Common Transformations

39. Common Transformations

40. What is the actual mechanism of
movement?
Copy-and-paste?
Automated?

41. When Copy-and-Paste Works
! When you don’t have a lot of content
! When you have access to cheap labor
! When your content is highly geographic
! When you cannot automate transformation
! When you have enough resources for
sufficient QA

42. When Automated Migration Works
! When you have large volumes of content
! When your content is not highly-geographic
! When you have sufficient technology and/or
development resources

43. You don’t have to use the same
method for your entire project.

44. Automated Migration Tools
! Great answer to the Transfer phase
! Less of an answer to everything else
! They still have to be configured and tested

45. Transfer Output
! Content ready for QA
! Outputs from this phase will likely be
segmented

46. Phase 4: QA
! How much content is going to be reviewed
for compliance?
! All of it?
! A representative sample?
! Who has the authority to clear individual
content, and the site as a whole, for release?

47. The Dreaded Content Freeze
! Once you start migrating from A to B,
content changes on A need to stop
! Length of the freeze window depends on the
volatility of the content

48. Types of QA
! Technical QA
! Did this content transfer well?
! Does it look broken?
! Does it comply with the style guide?
! Editorial QA
! Is this content valid and correct?
! Where any errors introduced during transfer?

49. Ideally, track the QA process
inside the CMS itself.

52. During QA, reporting is key.
You should have access to a daily
number showing the percentage
of content cleared.

53. The Four Phases
1. Inventory
2. Mapping
3. Transfer
4. QA

54. ! WEB
http://gadgetopia.com
! TWITTER
@gadgetopia
! EMAIL
deane@blendinteractive.com