Gleaned from SharePoint experts, these questions are intended to get you jump started as you plan and prepare for your SharePoint 2010 migration or upgrade. And when you’re ready, check out “Migrating to SharePoint 2010” by SharePointPro Connections magazine’s Randy Williams, who wraps it all up in a neat package.
1. Do you know what you have?
If you know what you have, it’s easier to manage—especially during a migration. Before a migration to SharePoint 2010 moves from possibility to reality, it’s worth taking a moment to consider how well you know the answers to these questions: How many sites do I actually have? How many terabytes do I have in there?
So how can you find out all the sites you have and all the content your organization has stored? One way to calculate the size of your content databases and get a list of sites in a site collection is to use STSADM and enumsites:
stsadm -o enumsites -url http://yoursharepointsite
For more information on enumsites see the Microsoft article “Enumsites: Stsadm operation (Office SharePoint Server).”
You can also configure usage reporting that will tell you a lot about your sites. The Microsoft article “Configure usage reporting” can help. You can also get usage information for each site by going to its Usage Page in Site Settings: http://yoursharepointsite/_layouts/spusageweb.aspx
Just make sure you’ve activated "Office SharePoint Server Standard Site features" for the specific site. To do so, go to the Site Settings page, and under Site Administration click Site Features and activate that feature. And finally, Codeplex has a tool you can use to list sites to xml and put on Microsoft Excel as well.
2. Are you currently running SharePoint 2007 on 64-bit hardware?
SharePoint 2010 runs on Windows Server 2008 x64 or Windows Server 2008 R2 x64. If you’re not ready to move to SharePoint 2010, consider deploying any new SharePoint 2007 servers on one of those OSs to help admins get ready for changes in administration. To upgrade Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to a 64-bit environment, you must migrate existing servers to a new farm. The TechNet article “Migrate an existing server farm to a 64-bit environment (Office SharePoint Server 2007)” offers details.
3. Did you upgrade to at least IE 7?
Internet Explorer 6 isn’t supported for SharePoint 2010. Even the SharePoint masters who can show you what you will be able to see on IE 6 (see SharePoint Master Maxime Bombardier’s MSDN blog post “What can work with Internet Explorer 6 and SharePoint 2010?”) do not support it. The Microsoft article “Plan browser support (SharePoint Server 2010)” tells what is supported in what browser version. And finally, the Internet Explorer page for IT pros offers information on upgrading.
4. Did you upgrade to SP2 of SharePoint 2007?
SP2 contains functionality improvements, hotfixes, and the extensions to the STSADM command-line tool that let you check farms for upgrade readiness. You install SP2 on all farm members. Make sure that you download the proper updated versions of WSS and MOSS SP2, because there was a critical licensing fix after June or July 2009 (see the SharePoint team's blog post about it).
5. Did you run the PreUpgradeCheck tool?
Learn more about this tool at “Run the pre-upgrade checker (SharePoint Server 2010)” at the Microsoft website. This extension to STSADM is available only after upgrading to SharePoint 2007 SP2. Running the PreUpgradeCheck tool on a SharePoint server validates whether your farm is ready for a SharePoint 2010 migration.
6. Can you fine-tune your environment?
A migration is a perfect time to clean up, rethink, and re-architect. At the farm level, you might consider deploying multiple farms for test and development environments. The Microsoft article “Cleaning up your environment before upgrade (SharePoint Foundation 2010)” can help you delete stale sites, remove extraneous document versions, and cleanup templates and Web Parts.
And finally, 6a. Got any SharePoint jokes? Because short of cracking open a can of beer at work, you're going to need some way to relax. Here's a mini sampling of what I've found:
Have U Rebooted Yet? from nogeekleftbehind.com
Dilbert on Collaboration Software
For more information on SharePoint 2010 migration, check out "SharePoint 2010 Deployment Calculator Helps Future-Proof Your Migration."
