SharePoint Pre-Migration Considerations

Purpose

SharePoint Migration, a daunting task lies ahead? Yes, of course. There is no secret formula as such for successful migration, because every migration is different in its own ways. But to end up on a positive side we should work out exactly how and what content we are going to migrate, and when you are going to do it. Do a thorough analysis of our current environment and decide a strategy of your migration, with this you will minimize the risk ahead and loss of data.

This document will serve a purpose of about the things we should consider before we start with the actual migration.

Value Addition

Will help team to identify and analyze the current SharePoint environment against the factors which will have an impact over migration.

Business Scenario

SharePoint Migration

Target Audience

SharePoint Application Architect
SharePoint Administrator
SharePoint Developers

Technology

SharePoint 2007/2010/2013

Consider this for Pre-Migration Tasks

The key in migrating successfully to the new version of SharePoint, or migrating from an earlier version to a later version is ensuring that you have a clear, business goal-oriented plan before proceeding. Businesses need to define what business outcomes they wish to achieve. Moving everything onto SharePoint is not a business goal. Businesses need to examine what it is they want to achieve and see if the new platform can do that for them.

Enterprises failure to do so, or failure to implement a solid governance policy during the migration, can lead to major headaches later on. In terms of migrations, enterprises should keep in mind:

Set up clear governance objectives.
Communicate your migration strategy to everyone that needs to know.
Carry out a thorough analysis of what is in your environment, what you want to keep and where you want it to go.
Assess the different migration possibilities and decide on the one that works best for you.
Assess the technical requirements of the system you want to move from, as well as the SharePoint version you want to move to.

Before starting with Migration process, you must document things on the current environment, which includes, but not limited to:

Document Existing SharePoint Server's Topology (preferably in Visio format), Roles, Hardware/Software Specifications, Installed Updates, Software installed, Language Packs, etc.
Prepare a List of SharePoint Web Applications, Site collections, Host headers, Content - Service Application Databases, etc.
Document Central Administration Settings like User Policies, Quota Templates, Data connections, Zones, AAM, Quota Templates, Blocked File Types, etc.
Document All Third-party Software installed on top of SharePoint (Like Nintex/K2 workflows, Kwizcom etc.
Document Inventories & customizations like Solutions, workflows, Event Handlers, Web Parts, Features, Assemblies, Site Templates, Site Definitions, Custom Timer jobs, etc.
Document Active directory Domains/Forest details. This will help in configuring User Profile Import connection sources, People Picker configurations.
Document Current environment Out of the box Features enabled (Such as Publishing), Enterprise feature Enabled (such as InfoPath Farm Services)
Document Outgoing, Incoming E-mail settings of the SharePoint server
Document all IIS customizations made manually, like Web.config modifications, Add-ons installed in IIS (like Compression, URL Rewrite, HTTPHandlers etc.)
Document SQL Server configurations, Content DB sizes, Mirroring, Clustering configuration details
Document any custom solutions deployed in Layout's folder or BIN folder.
Prepare a report on User base with Total no. of users, avg concurrent users, etc.
Document custom scripts, automation tools you are running from SharePoint servers (like Monthly storage report generation script, scheduled with windows task scheduler)
Make a Note of current environment's Information Architecture, including Managed Paths, Top navigation, etc.
Document existing Farm's service accounts. Kerberos applied?
Document Search Settings, including content sources, schedules, Keywords, Best-bets.
Document Email Enabled Lists and Libraries
What is the current Disaster recovery plan? How often backups are taken? Third party software integrated with SharePoint (Like AvePoint, DPM, etc.)
Document Infrastructure details such as Load balancer, DNS, IPs, SSL Certificates, Publishing configurations (Like F5, TMG, ISA Server, etc.)
Document 12/14 hive Layout folder customizations, File system changes if any
Make a note of all InfoPath Form libraries. You have to update the Form Template URL and you may have to Change the data connections, etc.
Existing Branding Artifacts like Master pages, Themes, CSS Files, Logos, etc.
Document the custom authentication providers (Forms, LDAP, etc.) if any
Document the current Monitoring setups like SCOM.
Last but not least - Make sure you have the version control system (like CVS, SVN, TFS, etc.) which has all the artifacts including source code, installers, deployment guides.

References

http://www.sharepointdiary.com/2012/09/25-things-to-document-before-you-start-migration.html

3 Comments

Join the conversation! Your thoughts help the community grow.

Madhav Sharma9y ago
What would be the Directory structure when Sharepoint migrate to cloud, means which file or folder of onpremises sharepoint should be migrate to office 365 sharepoint folder or file
Ketak Bhalsing10y ago
Thanks Karthik
Karthik Elumalai10y ago
Good one ,Thanks for sharing..:)