If, like many of the folks who are attending SPTechCon SF (beginning Sunday) have indicated, you’re either moving or planning to move soon to SharePoint 2010, you’ll need some good information.
Let’s start with Microsoft’s own tips for upgrading, in which the company recommends—among other things—using a trial upgrade to find errors and troubleshoot.
In a webinar I moderated with AvePoint’s Mary Leigh Mackie back in May 2011, she said that people considering an upgrade to SharePoint 2010 must first know WHY they are moving. What do you want to accomplish by migrating to SharePoint 2010 that you can’t do now? The information is excellent, and I highly recommend anyone still in the planning stages of a migration to listen in.
From the “SharePointers” archives on SPTechWeb comes “Building the Right Road Map” for migrating to SharePoint 2010. Building the right road map and support team for SharePoint must be part of a larger governance plan, and not just SharePoint governance, but the organization’s IT governance.
Finally, a number of third-party solutions can help with the migration. Alphabetically speaking, software providers AvePoint, Idera, Metalogix, MetaVis and Quest Software all offer migration software. Others will be on hand as well. As MetaVis’ Peter Senescu told me in a conversation at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference in October, organizations should “customize [their migrations] and do it right, or don’t do it.” It’s one thing to move a document from one file to another; it’s quite another thing to capture workflows and remap metadata.
If you’d like to speak to someone on the subject, there’s still time to register for SPTechCon SF (Feb. 26-29), or plan on joining us this summer at SPTechCon Boston (July 22-25). Each event offers numerous classes on making the move to 2010, and you’ll have the chance to sit and talk either one-on-one or in groups of folks facing the same problems you are, to learn what you need to do your migration most effectively.
— Dave
