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When moving to the latest version of SharePoint, Microsoft’s popular collaboration tool, is it best to upgrade-in-place or start fresh with SP 2010? That was one of the topics addressed during the recent SharePoint 2010 WebForum.
Topic: Migrating from MOSS 2007 to SP 2010
Moderator: Have you experienced any common issues in migrating from ’07 to 2010?
Mary F.: (consultant) Yes. Again, I am not sure where other clients have been, but 2010, when you upgrade, they are very fond of upgrade-in-place or using an alias over to a new server. You know, if you are on 2007, it depends on how you have developed 2007, your sites, etc. But, the easiest way--this is not considered the easiest way in the short run by many Microsoft documentation and TechNet consultants who really go for either the upgrade-in-place or the creating the aliases, but at the end of the day, the easiest way was really just to create a brand new server farm, create your configuration database on the new server farm, and then migrate the data over, and do it sequentially. They have a new thing where you can do it all at once, which was not allowed in 2007 and is allowed in 2010. The amount of bug fixes and issues that have developed from that have really taken their toll.
So, we end up just doing it one at a time, creating a brand new environment, and moving one database over at a time. Obviously, if you are in a single instance, you are in a different world. But we are coming into more and more clients who also open up SharePoint as an external collaboration tool with their clients. Creating that brand new instance and moving them over and testing it, and making sure you always have a fallback, is pretty much what we have found to be the safest and cleanest way to do it.
Paula C.: Mary, were you just describing the database detach and reattach method?
Mary F.: (consultant) Yes, I was.
Paula C.: OK, I just wanted to clarify that. Thanks.
Mary F.: (consultant) I just want to add that when you go through the documentation, you can detach and reattach. A lot of times, they say, when you actually leave it on the old server, you are creating an alias when you attach it to 2010. So, you are actually attaching to the old database. Yes, that does work to do the alias portion. But, basically, we move it over, and we found that to be the safest and cleanest bet, and particularly when you are dealing with customizations, which a large majority of people have done.
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