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Purpose
The purpose of this document is to explain the necessity and value of careful planning and testing before upgrading a MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 farm to SharePoint 2010. The information gathered during the planning and testing stage will help assess the overall time, complexity and costs associated with performing the upgrade.
List each SharePoint Web Application & port used List all SharePoint Site Collections Document Content Databases list each by name & include size List any libraries or lists using custom forms o Identify any InfoPath forms in use List any Business Data Catalog usage or connections to external data Identify system criticality, down-time restrictions, and business expectations Identify key contacts for system/network access, dba, business and project leads List all Workflows custom, SPD, 3rd party, and standard SharePoint workflows Indicate the number of audiences and how they are being used.
Who created the solution (and who supports it)? How to regression test the solution.
Typically, research is needed by a SharePoint administrator to properly document this information. The SharePoint administrator may find only a small percentage of the many solutions deployed are actually in use. Removing solutions that are not being used, will simplify the upgrade process dramatically.
In addition to the properly deployed solutions, many production SharePoint servers have various ad-hoc customizations created in SharePoint Designer and in some cases unofficial (rogue) web parts or other modules that were deployed without using SharePoints solution framework. While these customizations are more difficult to track down, it is important to identify all customizations for inclusion in the inventory. The completed inventory of customizations will help determine the overall complexity of the pending upgrade.
The test farm should be running the same version of SharePoint and use the same versions of Windows OS and SQL Server as the production environment. However, it is not critical to match the number of servers in your production farm. For example, if a SharePoint farm contains multiple web front end (WFE) servers, it is typically fine to create a test farm with only one WFE server. In some cases, a test farm can be staged on a single server combining multiple roles (WFE, SQL, APP). The most common
scenario is to have a two-server test farm, with one web front end and one database server running, SQL Server 2008 R2. When planning an upgrade from SharePoint 2007 to 2010, if a test farm does not exist, the first step is to plan a test farm. The specific requirements for each test farm will vary depending on the project budget, the complexity of the production SharePoint farm and the type of upgrade that is planned (InPlace vs. Database attach). In addition to the inventory of customizations, the level of complexity to create a test environment will depend on numerous factors, including: 1. Number of web applications, site collections and content databases 2. Size of content databases 3. Number of SSPs 4. SSP Content (Audiences, Search rules, Profile mappings and MySites) Tip: Using a virtual server (VMWare or Hyper-V) is highly recommended for staging a SharePoint test environment. This reduces hardware acquisition costs and provides the ability to create snapshots of the test environment throughout the testing process. Should the testing process encounter a problem, the server can be restored to a previous, known-good snapshot.
Pre-Upgrade Checker
With the release of Service Pack 2 for MOSS and WSS, SharePoint includes a specific utility called the Pre-Upgrade Checker (technically, this utility is simply a new command available in STSADM). The Pre-Upgrade Checker will compile a detailed report about the readiness of the SharePoint system to be upgraded. If your existing SharePoint 2007 farm has SP2 installed, your administrator can run the Pre-Upgrade Checker command at any time to identify any major issues with the current configuration. The Pre-Upgrade Checker reports on data that is global to the entire farm as well as unique to the current server, so this command should be run on every WFE or APP server in your SharePoint farm.
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The report produced by the Pre-Upgrade Checker identifies major show stopping issues that will prevent the upgrade outright along with warnings of potential issues that may or may not be serious, depending on any number of factors. Note: The purpose of the Pre-Upgrade Checker is not to determine that your MOSS or WSS farm is completely ready for an upgrade, but only that it is ready for detailed upgrade testing.
Unsupported customizations (only those that will prevent the upgrade from completing) Orphaned Objects Invalid Configuration Settings Unsupported Database requirements Unsupported Hardware/operating system October 17, 2011
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As each error or warning is resolved, you should re-run the Pre-Upgrade Checker to confirm that the problem is no longer reported. You can run this command as many times as needed. Depending on which upgrade approach you plan to use, some of the reported errors may not be relevant. In some cases, you may use the results of the Pre-Upgrade Checker to determine which upgrade approach to utilize.
Visual Upgrade
With the introduction of the Ribbon Bar, SharePoint 2010 introduces a major change in the fundamental user interface design compared to MOSS and WSS. As a result, most custom branding elements from
SharePoint 2007, such as master pages, page layouts and CSS will not work as expected in SharePoint 2010. The good news is that SharePoint 2010 provides an option called Visual Upgrade, which allows web site owners to choose between two options: 1. Switch to the new SharePoint 2010 user interface 2. Retain the look and feel from SharePoint 2007 The Visual Upgrade option can be enabled for each Site Collection. When enabled, site owners can choose either option for each site and SharePoint 2010 allows them to test the look and feel of the site under both options and then choose whichever one is preferred.
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Additionally, sites with custom branding can still be briefly tested in this mode, and if the results are acceptable then the new UI can be enabled permanently without any changes to the branding.
In-Place
The In-Place approach is used when you want to upgrade the existing SharePoint servers to SharePoint 2010. This approach is only valid if the hardware and operating system meet SharePoint 2010s minimum requirements (64-bit, typically with Windows 2008 R2). With the In-Place upgrade, the SharePoint 2010 installation is run on each WFE and APP server in the farm. The installer detects that MOSS or WSS is previously installed and presents the user with the appropriate options to upgrade.
This approach absolutely requires a greater level of up front planning and testing, because if the upgrade process does not go smoothly the production server could be unavailable for an extended period of time. However, once thorough planning and testing is complete, the In-Place upgrade is the easier of two upgrade options. For the In-Place upgrade, the test environment is used to stage a replica of the production MOSS or WSS farm, with Service Pack 2 and the October 2010 CU is installed. After resolving any issues reported by the Pre-Upgrade Checker, an actual test of the In-Place upgrade can proceed on the test server. The purpose of this test process is as follows: 1. Verify that the core upgrade completed successfully 2. Verify that the content databases upgraded successfully 3. Test the Visual Upgrade 4. Regression test the upgraded SharePoint 2010 environment to identify any components that do not function as expected.
Database Attach
The Database attach option is used when you need to install SharePoint 2010 on a new server(s) that do not already have MOSS or WSS installed. In this scenario, a new SharePoint 2010 farm is created with clean installation of SharePoint 2010 on at least one WFE server. Once the new SharePoint 2010 farm is created and the existing SharePoint 2007 system has been updated with SP2, any custom solutions that need to be used in SharePoint 2010 should then be installed.
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At this point, the existing content databases can be backed up from the production SQL Server and restored to the test SQL Server. After the content database(s) are restored to the test database server, they can be attached to the SharePoint 2010 farm one at a time. When each content database is attached, it will be automatically upgraded to be compatible with SharePoint 2010. If the SharePoint 2007 farm makes use of SSPs, Audiences and/or MySites, the SSP database(s) can also be backed up, restored and upgraded to SharePoint 2010. The actual upgrade process for the Database Attach option contains a few additional steps compared to the In-Place upgrade. Compared to the In-Place upgrade, the benefits of this approach are: 1. The ability to leave the production MOSS or WSS farm operational (in read-only mode) during the upgrade process. 2. Lower risk because you can resume use of the MOSS or WSS farm should the SharePoint 2010 upgrade not work as expected. With the Database Attach approach, you should expect to test a complete upgrade at least one time and then assess the results: 1. Verify that the content databases upgraded successfully 2. Test Visual Upgrade 3. Regression test the upgraded SharePoint 2010 environment to identify any components that do not function as expected. With the Database Attach approach, often the test farm will become the production farm once the upgrade process is complete. In this case, there is no difference between the testing process and the upgrade process if the upgrade test process works perfectly the first time, then the upgrade may be considered complete. In reality, there are likely to be some issues uncovered during the testing process that will need to be remediated and re-tested in order to complete the Database Attach upgrade process. With careful analysis and regression testing, this process should only be repeated once. But the benefit of the Database Attach option is that the process can be repeated as many times as necessary.
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