SharePoint 2016 Migration Checklist. Step-by-Step Guide to Migration Success

Transcription

1 Checklist Step-by-Step Guide to Migration Success

2 Table of Contents Before You Get Started 3 Step No. 1: Know Your Content 4 Step No. 2: Selecting Your Upgrade or Migration Strategy 5 Step No. 3: Time to Clean House 6 Step No. 4: Designing Your New Environment 7 Step No. 5: Don t Forget Security and Permissions 7 Step No. 6: Post-Migration Clean-up 8 Step No. 7: Considering Hybrid for SharePoint Step No. 8: Review Hardware Requirements 9 Step No. 9: Watch for Retired Features 9 2

3 Before You Get Started Making the move to SharePoint 2016 can provide a lot of benefits to your business, including improved scalability, easier patching, durable links and the agility of a hybrid environment that embraces both on-premises and cloud content. But planning and executing a successful SharePoint migration can be a daunting task that can easily go awry, if you don t take the right steps in your planning. Following this checklist will ensure your next SharePoint upgrade or migration goes smoothly. Though we understand that each organization comes with its own set of unique challenges and circumstances, the team at Portal Solutions has put this checklist together in order to empower you with knowledge you need, based on years of experience and time-tested best practices. This checklist outlines common needs - from content and migration strategy develop, to hardware requirements and permissions - that will ensure your next SharePoint upgrade or migration goes as smoothly as possible. 3

4 Step No. 1: Know Your Content Before you can move your content from one platform to another, you first have to understand the depth and breadth of what you re working with. Gather a detailed inventory of your current SharePoint environment - this should include technical dependencies, as well as content assets. A thorough audit of this kind lays the foundation for better understanding around the path, constraints and timeline of your migration, and should include: Site Collections and Settings Sub-Sites Content Type and Site Columns Workflows Libraries (Include the Size and Type of Content, as Well as When Content was Last Updated) Pages and Web Parts Custom Solutions (Web Parts, Event Handlers, Custom Coding, etc.) A content audit can be a complex process unto itself, so you may want to consider leveraging a third-party, commercial tool, such as ShareGate or Metalogix. For reference, our team at Portal Solutions also uses a tool we ve developed internally for content analysis. 4

5 Step No. 2: Selecting Your Upgrade or Migration Strategy Historically, Microsoft has only allowed you to upgrade to a new version of SharePoint if you re using the version that immediately preceding it. That has not changed with the unveiling of SharePoint So if you are currently on SharePoint 2010, and you wish to jump to SharePoint 2016, you will first need to upgrade the databases to SharePoint 2013, and then SharePoint This might work for a small deployment. But if you are overseeing a large deployment, you will face significant downtime as you navigate your way through multiple versions. If you want to skip a version - going from SharePoint 2010, directly to SharePoint or you re migrating from a different legacy content management system (CMS), you will need a third party migration tool. At Portal Solutions, we use several tools - including ShareGate, Metalogix Content Matrix or MetaVis. The marketplace is filled with different tools suited to different organization types, variables and situations. However, these tools will fall into three categories: manual, automated or hybrid. Automated tools run scripts to perform recorded actions. Manual tools involve copying and pasting by hand. Hybrid tools leverage both scripts and manual copying and pasting. But wait, there is a new option, our partner SkySync offers a tool that keeps content synchronized between environment and thus would minimize any downtime during the transition. Which one is the best choice for you? It depends. And in reality, you are likely to use a combination of all types, rather than selecting only one. There have been cases where we have combined an upgrade, migration and a manual copy/paste strategy. 5

6 Step No. 3: Time to Clean House When you move to a new home, it often signals the perfect opportunity go through all of your old storage boxes in the basement - all of those old records from high school you swore you d never get tired of, but haven t played in at least 10 years. It is a critical best practice to review what content you have and only migrate what s being used. The same thing holds true for content. An upgrade or migration is the best time for you to figure out which content is making the move with you. And though it may be tempting to just move it all over, resist the urge. We all like to keep content forever, but too much content creates noise in an intranet environment. So once you complete your audit, we consider it a critical best practice to review what you have and only migrate what s being used. This is made easy by the fact that most migration tools do have an option for selective migration of assets and content. But don t forget to keep yourself compliant with any industry regulations you are subject to! 6

7 Step No. 4: Designing (or Redesigning) Your New Environment Like most new SharePoint versions, SharePoint 2016 not only has new features, it s also retired a few that were available previously. So take the time to learn and understand the limitations of the new SharePoint. In addition, this is a great time to review your usage of the platform and assess if you need to make any changes - this will depend on the current state of your environment. In our experience, most organizations will need a redesign after a few years. And even though SharePoint 2016 isn t exactly revolutionary, it does present a valuable opportunity to redesign your intranet to take advantage of its new features. Step No. 5: Don t Forget Security and Permissions While in-place upgrades will preserve preexisting security settings and options, you need to take additional steps to ensure your security and permissions are preserved, if you are using a migration tool. Also, as with design considerations, upgrades and migrations are another opportunity for you to reevaluate your current security parameters. If you do choose to do so, we recommend evaluating your securities and permissions at each step, to ensure those changes are carried through. 7

8 Step No. 6: Post-Migration Clean-up No migration progresses without a few bumps in the road. And unfortunately, most organizations do not implement any sort of post-migration plan or governance strategy. No matter which approach you use (in-place, migration or hybrid), you will always need a plan for clean-up around your solution. If you are working with a custom solution, you will more than likely have a plan, but be aware that custom solutions introduce complexities and maintenance costs beyond the migration. So with each upgrade, review how you can reduce your complexity. Step No. 7: Considering Hybrid for SharePoint 2016 As Microsoft has said time and time again, the future of SharePoint is in the cloud. The cloud is no longer a passing fad that you can ignore; it is where this technology is going. So a migration presents an opportune time for you to migrate or upgrade to a hybrid solution. SharePoint 2016 offers many hybrid enhancements that will make the connection between your on-premises environment and the cloud seamless. In short, if you have not considered hybrid, now is the time. 8

9 Step No. 8: Review Hardware Requirements Make sure you learn more about what has changed with the new SharePoint While a cloud deployment may seem to shield you from having to make decisions about your hardware, SharePoint 2016 has new software and hardware requirements that should be considered. Review the system requirements published on Microsoft Technet before initiating an upgrade or migration, to ensure you re prepared. Step No. 9: Watch for Retired Features With any new version, Microsoft will unveil new features. They will also, however, remove some. We ve discussed this at length previously, but other retired features include SharePoint Foundation, limited single-server installation, Excel services, limited SharePoint BI capabilities, tags and notes. Learn more about what has changed with the new SharePoint

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