This document provides various tips and best practices for planning and executing a successful SharePoint migration. It discusses the importance of testing, having a well-defined plan and process, cleaning up old content, communicating with site owners, and minimizing downtime through scripting and balancing tasks. Key steps include testing thoroughly, having detailed implementation lists, reviewing governance plans, knowing the upgrade path, and considering deprecated features. The overall message is that migrations require careful planning, testing, and following a process to avoid issues.

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@davidfrette
#sptechfest
MIGRATION CONCENTRATE

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• Local to Houston
From Iowa
via Chicago
• Actuary turned
.NET Developer turned
SharePoint Developer
• 20 Years of Developing Solutions
About Me

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• Houston-based organization
• We provide Consulting, Solutions, and Development
• Microsoft Stack
About Moss Delight

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• Technology
• Energy, Oil and Gas
• Chemicals, Plastics, Manufacturing
• Medical
• Investment Banking, Commodities Trading
• Housing, Property Management, Transportation
Industries

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SUCCESSFUL MIGRATIONS
Are more about the PROCESS
than about the TECHNOLOGY

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AGENDA
Planning
Testing
Pre-GoLive, GoLive, and Post-GoLive
ProTips

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PRO TIPS

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PRO TIPS
• Script as much as possible
• Use Excel to create numerous little scripts and
watch them, don’t walk away
• Execute scripts simultaneously
– Upgrade databases
– Upgrade site collections’ schemas
Minimizing Downtime

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PRO TIPS
Step 1 - Build multiple scripts
Scripting Tips

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PRO TIPS
Step 2 – Balance the Scripts
Scripting Tips

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PRO TIPS
Step 3 – Balance the Scripts Better
Scripting Tips

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PRO TIPS
Use Excel to Generate Scripts

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PRO TIPS
Use Excel to Generate Scripts with PROD, QA, TEST

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PRO TIPS
• Keep multiple sets of scripts
• I prefer TFS over SharePoint
• Pipe the output to files
• Separate out the Go Live scripts!
– Practice them in DEV and QA
Script Tips

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PRO TIPS
Add hardware
• SP servers to run scripts
Minimize Downtime

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PRO TIPS
Add hardware
• Keeping SQL Busy means Keeping SQL Beefy
• SQL RAM is necessary for serving content
• SQL CPU is necessary for upgrading the content
Minimize Downtime

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PRO TIPS
Pre-Migrate Sites that can afford downtime
• Split them into new databases if necessary
• Remember, content is upgraded by DB
Minimize Downtime

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PRO TIPS
• Minimize dependency time
– Ask SQL DBAs to script their work if they don’t already
– Have separate teams working at the same time
• Reconfigure Load Balancing as soon as SP goes off-line
Minimize Downtime

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PRO TIPS
• Pick the right dates
– You depend on support of others
– Keep key resources dedicated to your project
Minimize Downtime

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PRO TIPS
• Remember to put these tasks in Pre-Go Live
– Deploy Solutions
– Build web applications
– Configure authentication
– Set policies
– Service Application Associations
– Create the AAMs
Minimize Downtime

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PRO TIPS
• Remember to put these tasks in Pre-Go Live
– Test authentication and access (update hosts file on
test PCs)
• Create a site collection
• Take an existing SQL Backup, upgrade it, and test
authentication and access
Minimize Downtime

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PRO TIPS
• Remember to put these tasks in Pre-Go Live
– Build non-upgradeable service applications
– Build upgrade service applications that aren’t subject
to change, ie, SecureStore
Minimize Downtime

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PRO TIPS
• Remember to put these tasks in Post-Go Live
• Keep them from running during rollout
– Timer Jobs
– Start Search
– Start UPS Sync
Minimize Downtime

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PRO TIPS
• Use a Migration Tool for specific sites
– Isolate these to separate databases
– Consider migrating them after Go Live
• Migrate them from 2010 to 2010 before Go Live
Minimize Downtime

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PRO TIPS
• Create separate migration paths for InfoPath
Forms and/or custom applications
– IE, migrate the Time Entry System at a later date
Minimize Downtime

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PRO TIPS
• Limit your scope
– Phase new features in Releases
– Create Releases in your governance plan
Minimize Downtime

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PRO TIPS
• WYPFIWYG
• Make decisions quicker
• Use an experienced PM
• Get Executive Buy In
– Don’t get caught in power wars
– “We’ve never configured SQL this way”
– “We’ve never given people this permission”
Minimize Cost

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PRO TIPS
• Greater tolerance for errors, possibly lost content
• Place more ownness on the users
– Specifically Site Owners or Site Administrators
– And QA Testers
Minimize Cost

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PRO TIPS
• Consultants have an advantage beyond
experience
• We have a proprietary stock of documents,
worksheets, project plans, scripts, OneNotes, etc.
that we start out with.
Consultants

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Click to edit Master title style
PRE- GO LIVE!

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PRE- GO LIVE > The Plan
• Review your architecture
• Review your Go Live plan
–PPP P PPP
– Verify the technical requirements of each step
• Remember to include Change Orders in Project
Plan
• Review Change Order Schedule
• Review Ticketing System Schedule

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PRE- GO LIVE > The Technology
• Verify your service account passwords are correct!
• Ensure your crawlers and indexers are turned off!
• Check those database growth sizes!
– Set the initial files size close to the original’s.
– Set the growth to something reasonable, say 500MB.

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PRE- GO LIVE > Example Steps

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Click to edit Master title style
GO LIVE!

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GO LIVE > Task List
• Do you have a task list?
– Work thru every issue and move as many as possible
from GoLive to Pre-GoLive
– Limit Your Risk
– Minimize Downtime

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GO LIVE > Sample Task List

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Click to edit Master title style
TESTING

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How to avoid the migration
migraines in 3 easy steps.
Step 1 – Test
Step 2 - Test
Step 3 - Test

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TESTING > Test, Test, Test
• Test your 3rd party solutions
• Test your custom code
• Test your workflows
• Test your custom forms
• Test your migration software
• Test your plan
• Test your timing
• Test your skills
– Seriously…. If you don’t know PowerShell by now…

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TESTING > Test, Test, Test
• Test your environment rights
– SQL Rights
– Server Rights
– Service Account Rights
– UPS Account Rights! Arrrrgh!!

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TESTING > Test, Test, Test
• Test your Service Applications
– User Profile Service
• Profiles
• Synchronization Process
– Managed Metadata
• Term Stores, Groups, Term Sets, Terms
• Keywords
• Content is tied to the right terms
– Others, too
• They don’t contain content

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TESTING > Test, Test, Test
• Test your browsers
– Does drag and drop work with all browsers
– Does the grid view work
– Can you use tablets and mobile devices
– Does the VPN work

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TESTING > Test, Test, Test
• Test your clients
– Do your files open in the client?
– Do your files open in the browser when needed?

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TESTING > Test, Test, Test
• Test your migrated content
– Are webparts working (Content Editor?)
– Are the views working?
– If conflicts with site owners arise, refer back to the QA
site

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TESTING > Claims Authentication
• Move-SPUser
• Find the ones that don’t move over. Remove
them.

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TESTING > Some Issues

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TESTING > Refine your plan
• Try to follow your plan as best as possible.
• Note the changes and determine if you need to
change the plan in QA.

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Click to edit Master title style
PLANNING

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PLANNING > Know your scope
• SharePoint migration is not just an upgrade
• It’s a new platform
• It’s a rollout
• It’s a mess of decisions

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PLANNING > Know your architecture
• Every SP migration contains a new build, with new
features, and new configurations
• Architecture is more than hardware
• Configuration is
critical to performance,
security, and stability.

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• 1 – to – 1
• 1 – to – Many
• Many – to – 1
• Many – to – Many
• On Premise – to – Cloud
• Something – to – Hybrid
• Something – to – Something
PLANNING > Farms

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PLANNING > Review your governance plans
• Who are the business owners / project sponsors?
• Who are the decision makers?
• What processes need to be updated?
• Ask these questions now. Don’t let someone
surprise you.

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PLANNING > Contact your site owners
• Let people know change is coming.
• Get people on board
– Give people something to look forward to
• Require each one to sign off on QA. No
exceptions.
– Document the approval, then set the site to Read-
Only
• Ask Site Owners to clean up some of their sites

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PLANNING > Know your message
• Remember, users are not moved or migrated
– Sites are migrated.
– Might be phased. Might be all at once.

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PLANNING > Review your growth plans
• Check the sizes of your site collections
• Check your database FILES!
– Ask DBAs to shrink those log files
– Check those database names while you’re in there!
• Review your Site Topology

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PLANNING > Review your Topology
Site organization transfers right over.
Migration is a great time to re-organize.
It’s time to split up sites and change URLs.

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PLANNING > Review your Content
• Redundant copies don’t vanish.
• Obsolete content doesn’t become relative. Nor
does it become valuable.
• Search doesn’t unclutter itself.
• Don’t waste valuable time on unused InfoPath
Forms or obsolete solutions or obsolete third-
party products.
• Check deprecations on technet.

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PLANNING > CLEANUP
Those who fail to clean up the past
are condemned to migrate it.

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PLANNING > Purge Sites

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PLANNING > IMPLEMENTATION LIST
• Do you have an implementation task list?
– Use Excel =)
• Maintain this list from start to finish
• As you build Test, keep everything documented
• As you build QA, refer to the Test list
• As you plan for Go Live, use QA list

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PLANNING > IMPLEMENTATION LIST
• Work thru every item and move as many as
possible from GoLive to Pre-GoLive
• Limit Your Risk
• Minimize Downtime

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PLANNING > Upgrade Process
General Process:
• Build Farm
• Migrate Databases
• Create Web Applications
• Customizations
• Upgrade Content Databases
• Upgrade Site Collections
But this isn’t a real process.

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PLANNING > Upgrade Process
If Production is specially hardened, follow this process
DEV TEST
QA QA UAT PROD

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PLANNING > Know Your Upgrade Path
Solutions and
customizations
Service
Applications
Content
3rd Party
products
What’s
deprecated
InfoPath
Forms

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PLANNING > What’s Deprecated
Document
Workspace
Meeting
Workspace
Personalization
Site
Tweak to Excel
Services
Web Analytics
service
Foundation
Search
Some FAST
connectors have
been replaced
A few others

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PLANNING > Upgrade Service Applications
Managed
Metadata service
application
PerformancePoint
Services service
application
Secure Store
Service
application
User Profile
service
application
Search service
application,
maybe

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PLANNING > Decisions
• Are we forcing people to new UI?
• Are we purging old sites?
• Are we migrating MySites that probably should
have been purged by cleanup?
• Are we migrating sites with near-deprecated site
templates?
• Sites with deprecated templates obviously won’t
migrate.
• Can we rebuild Search or is upgrade required?
• Will custom applications be 15 or 14?

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D a v i d F r e t t e
dfrette@mossdelight.com