In the recent times, with Microsoft launching SharePoint 2013, a large number of businesses are considering migration to this new edition to enhance their business processes. In fact, this new version of SharePoint is anticipated to revolutionize the way in which companies are building links amongst their knowledge workers, business processes as well as business-related content worldwide. This platform includes novel features such as enhanced document management capabilities with respect to sharing and contributing content, enhanced social features along with a renewed search experience. SharePoint 2013 is speedily positioning itself as one of the much sought after technology for the introduction of crucial organizational initiatives in the areas of social collaboration, enterprise content management and web content management.
The advanced features of Sharepoint make it vital for organizations to take certain points into consideration prior to adopting this latest platform. Let us discuss some of the guidelines that should be followed in order to achieve effective migration to SharePoint 2013.
1. Take care of hardware requirements: In case of SharePoint 2013 servers, minimum of 8 GB RAM and four 64-bit cores is needed for small environments while medium environments require 16 GB RAM. For every server operating in SharePoint 2013, location within a single data center is essential.
2. Operating system requisites: The ideal operating system incorporates 64-bit edition, R2 SP1 Windows Server 2008. The 2012 Windows Server operating system can also be utilized. You must consider migration to 64-bit servers before any other upgrade or migration.
3. Decide upon the destination before starting off: Doing this gives you a clear-cut idea of where you are heading to and this allows you to go for proper channelization of the resources at hand. For example, if you are using SQL 2012, use Windows 2012 along with an Office Web Application Server.
4. Divide current customizations into categories: It is advisable to categorize the customizations into three categories. The first category constitutes items such as custom authentication provider that would stop the project. You need to have solutions for this, or else the migration would not be a success. The second category comprises items that would not put a halt to the project but are required to be completed. It is good to address them once the migration is completed. Items that need to be eliminated make up the third category.
5. Realize environmental alterations: When you are deciding to go for Windows 2012, the environmental change that takes place needs to be taken into consideration. The SMTP server role has been deprecated by Windows 2012 and depending on the information, decision needs to be taken as to whether to use a more intricate configuration or go for installation of the deprecated feature.
6. Get every migration step scripted: This task involves restructuring site hierarchy, mounting content databases.
7. Conduct dry runs: While performing dry runs, you must follow a sequential guide. Through the dry runs, it is quite convenient to identify the disk space and timing requirements.
8. Go for proper space and time planning: Once the disk space and the upgrade time required are identified depending upon the dry runs, you can take necessary action. For instance, by adjusting the SQL server memory, the time for mounting as well as upgrading SharePoint can be decreased.
9. Follow dry runs with test: The only thing that separates a live run from a dry run is that the data is not updated, hence the end result should simulate the live migration. Taking this into account, through utilization of an alternate access mapping, it can be opened up to selected end users for testing, in order to validate the overall usability and the basic functionality.
10. Set up destination environment: It is advisable to configure and prepare to the maximum extent prior to migration. Once the configuration of the environment is done, the same will ensure smoother migration.
The above mentioned tips would go a long way in helping you plan your SharePoint 2013 migration. They will definitely help you enhance the overall efficiency of your SharePoint application development team.
We provide custom SharePoint development services. If you would like to know more about the expertise of our expert SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
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