SharePoint 2010 Readiness & Upgrade Webinar Q & A

This webinar included several live demonstrations and discussed:

• Who should upgrade, why & when
• An overview of the major differences between SharePoint 2007 & 2010
• How to assess existing SharePoint deployments and identify upgrade risks and opportunities
• Specific tasks that need to be done to plan and prepare for SharePoint 2010
• Best Practices for supporting parallel environments, migration, preserving the investment in your existing SharePoint deployment, etc.
• Avoiding common pitfalls

Whether staring with a new deployment or upgrading from a previous version (2003 or 2007), gain a thorough understanding of how to tactically and strategically deploy SharePoint 2010 and take advantage of this ground-breaking enterprise platform.

Webinar was presented by:

SharePoint MVP Paul Papanek Stork of ShareSquared
and
SharePoint MVP Gary Lapointe of ShareSquared

• Question: Will a recorded version of the webinar be made available?
  
  Answer: Yes, it is available here - please note that there was a technical difficulty with the recording of one of the demos which we hope to correct/release at a later time.
  
  
• Question: Will the slides be made available?
  
  Answer: Yes, they are available here.
  
  
• Question: Is it possible to get help on PowerShell scripts?
  
  Answer: Please contact us and we'd be happy to help you build out any PowerShell scripts you need. Alternatively, please take a look at SharePoint Composer, a new product for SharePoint 2010 that enables you to visually design and build out your SharePoint infrastructure, from a single server configuration to a multi-farm configuration, without writing code or complex deployment scripts.
  
  
• Question: What are the differences between designer and server?
  
  Answer: SharePoint Designer (SPD) is a client tool for end-users and administrators used to customize individual site collections and webs. SharePoint Server is the actual server product installed on servers.
  
  
• Question: Does claims based authentication rely on ODBC connectivity to the third party system?
  
  Answer: Not necessarily. Some form of connectivity to the third party system will be required, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be ODBC. For example, if the third party system allows retrieval of information via web service you could use that to get the information necessary for validating the claim.
  
  
• Question: Best ways to migrate from MWSS3 to SharePoint 2010?
  
  Answer: Migrating from one version of the 2007 product to the equivalent version of the 2010 product is basically the same for all products. Your upgrade approaches are all the same with all the same issues and benefits.
  
  
• Question: Should minor tweaks to the master page in a site collection deter an upgrade?
  
  Answer: No. Once you switch to the new UI you'll have to redo those tweaks.
  
  
• Question: Is one content database per Site Collection considered a customization? We have 28 Site Collections, with each having a separate content database.
  
  Answer: No. The number and configuration of content databases does not affect your upgrade options. If your content databases are really large (over 100GB) you may want to consider archiving content out.
  
  
• Question: Can you define "significant customization"?
  
  Answer: The term is relative. It depends on what you are able to recreate on a new farm. What may be extremely difficult for me to migrate may be easy for you - it's the time, difficulty, skills, and risks associated with recreating the customizations that affect what upgrade approach you should consider.
  
  
• Question: Is this presentation specifially for SharePoint 2010 Enterprise version? Is the licensing model changing? Is it still WSS, MOSS Standard and MOSS Enterprise, etc.?
  
  Answer: The demo showed the Enterprise version but the information is appropriate to all versions of SharePoint. There are new licensing options for Internet sites but otherwise there's still just Foundation (which is the new name for WSS), Standard, and Enterprise.
  
  
• Question: Are the managed tags stored as their own service application?
  
  Answer: The managed tags are stored in a Managed Metadata Service Application. As with other SharePoint service applications you can create multiple instances of the Managed Metadata service.
  
  
• Question: Can only the creator see the tags?
  
  Answer: Depending on where you enter the tag you have an option to mark them as private. Tags not marked as private can be viewed by other people.
  
  
• Question: In 2007, there were several caveats about MySites (e.g. have to carefully manage MySite and resource requirements). Are they still as much a potential management headache or does 2010 do a better job of providing mysite management tools?
  
  Answer: Like the 2007 product you can use quotas to constrain the size of mysites and usage alerts to cause a delete if no longer used. Beyond those capabilities there are no additional new features that I'm aware of.
  
  
• Question: SQL Server 2005/2008 Standard Edition? Or, do you have to use Enterprise Edition?
  
  Answer: Both Standard and Enterprise are supported.
  
  
• Question: Our organization is currently running Office 2003. Will users be able to update files and use checkout options with SharePoint 2010?
  
  Answer: I've not tested this but I believe that you can use Office 2003 to update and check out files.
  
  
• Question: If we wait to upgrade how long can we run on MOSS 2007?
  
  Answer: Microsoft products have a 10 year support guarantee so you'd be supported until 2017. But you'll find that the support you get from the community will rapidly decrease within 1-2 years after 2010 releases.
  
  
• Question: What is your recommendation moving from sp 2003 to sp 2010? Fresh installation and migrate data?
  
  Answer: It depends on the complexity of your 2003 environment. You can upgrade that environment to 2007 and then upgrade to 2010 or you can migrate the data. There are 3rd party tools that can help with migrating from 2003 to 2010. If you don't have a lot of unique security, version history, or metadata then you might be better off migrating rather than upgrading.
  
  
• Question: I have a client, who has Exchange 5.5 for Public folder worth about 400 GB and we want to migrate to SharePoint 2010. What path is recommended, which third party should we use?
  
  Answer: There are a few companies that provide tools to help migrate from Exchange Public Folders to SharePoint - I would start by looking at Quest and Metalogix.
  
  
• Question: Is SharePoint supported in a VMWare environment?
  
  Answer: Yes.
  
  
• Question: How will maintenance functions, such as backup/restore transfer in the upgrade... or will new backup jobs need to be created (using PowerShell functions)?
  
  Answer: Your existing backup jobs will be upgraded but I recommend that you review those jobs post upgrade as there are several new options for you to consider.
  
  
• Question: If upgrading from SharePoint Services 3.0, would I have to upgrade to SharePoint 2007 first before upgrading to SharePoint 2010?
  
  Answer: Yes.
  
  
• Question: Is there any way to control DB name conventions when upgrading?
  
  Answer: When doing an in-place upgrade there is no option to control how the database names are assigned. Your only option will be to delete the associated service application and recreate the databases.
  
  
• Question: How effectively does 2010 run on virtual servers?
  
  Answer: SharePoint 2010 will potentially demand more resources (memory and IO) so proper planning and testing will need to be done. That being said, because of the ability to distribute services beyond what SP2007 could do there is the potential for it to run more efficiently in a virtual environment.
  
  
• Question: We have a significant BI environment in conjunction with SharePoint, including Reporting Services. How will the migration/upgrade affect these reports? Will the individual reports need to be re-deployed...or will they migrate as well?
  
  Answer: Your reports will migrate and shouldn't need to be redeployed but I believe you will need to upgrade the SSRS add-in. We've not tested this scenario yet so cannot say for sure.
  
  
• Question: Did Gary say workflows won’t come across without recompile and what about data view web parts? Any advice on those?
  
  Answer: Because workflows run outside of the web context these will need to be recompiled and redeployed after upgrade so that the assemblies point to the new 2010 assemblies. Note that this only applies to workflows created using Visual Studio; workflows created using SharePoint Designer (declarative workflows) will come over just fine. Also, this guidance is for the public beta 2 - the way the bindings work is expected to change for RTM so, re-compilation may not be necessary. The data view web parts should work fine as well.
  
  
• Question: What is the biggest hurdle to watch out for in the migration?
  
  Answer: It depends on your environment but in general you will want to make sure all your custom code is thoroughly tested. Also watch out for things like Audiences which, if used heavily to target content, could create numerous issues for your end-users if the mapping is broken.
  
  
• Question: We are considering a new installation of SharePoint 2010 for a community practice scenario. Much of the presentation today looked at migration. Any 1st timer pointers?
  
  Answer: Read all of the planning documentation found on TechNet, test your installation with numerous different configurations and script your installation so that it is repeatable. We do also recommend getting expert help if you are new to the product as it is extremely complex and difficult to get right the first time.
  
  
• Question: With regards to the look/feel, and the ribbon style, did Microsoft decide to restrict the design to this layout for the entire SharePoint environment? What about using SharePoint 2010 as a CMS for public facing web sites that have more design factors for marketing purposes?
  
  Answer: You have full control over the look and feel of the site. In fact you have more control than you did with the 2007 product as the HTML that is output is now much more CSS friendly. The ribbon can be configured to only show when and where it's needed through the use of your masterpage settings and CSS.
  
  
• Question: Does 2010 include improved search capabilities? Does it include the FAST search engine?
  
  Answer: Yes. FAST is included with the Enterprise version of the product. This page on the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 site provides more information.
  
  
• Question: Do 2007 Designer Workflows come over fine? Do Visual Studio 2008 workflows migrate easily?
  
  Answer: Declarative workflows created using SharePoint Designer will upgrade without any additional work. For beta 2, workflows created using Visual Studio will need to be recompiled and redeployed - this is expected to change for RTM though. You'll also want to make sure any supporting components are installed and registered correctly (e.g., custom assemblies, features that define the coded or declarative workflow, custom actions and custom conditions installed as an authorized type in the web.config files and action files).
  
  
• Question: Does Claims based Authentication replace the need for Kerberos Authentication?
  
  Answer: No, not necessarily. You use claims for authorization but you still need a way to authenticate a user which is why "Windows Claims (Kerberos)" is one of the claims options. Also, while SharePoint can use claims internally (e.g. Web Apps speaking to Excel Services) there are still some services that are not claims aware yet, such as SQL Server (e.g. an Excel workbook that talks to SQL Server would need Kerberos).
  
  
• Question: Best upgrade approach if you have 32bit architecture?
  
  Answer: Migrate your 2007 servers to 64bit first and then upgrade.
  
  
• Question: Do Permissions come over including broken inheritance throughout a site when upgrading?
  
  Answer: Yes.
  
  
• Question: Why can’t I manage MOSS 2007 sites using SharePoint Designer 2010???
  
  Answer: It was a design decision made by Microsoft so that they could focus on improving the product rather than backward compatibility. SharePoint 2010 provides numerous new management mechanisms which the SPD team wanted to take advantage of. You can still run both SPD 2007 and SPD 2010 side-by-side.
  
  
• Question: Are there any changes to the way SharePoint syncs with Active Directory for the security groups, etc.?
  
  Answer: For user profiles you now have the ability to do a 2-way sync, so changes made by users to their profile data can update AD. Beyond that, there is no change to how security groups and users are used throughout the product.
  
  
• Question: What would the migration experience be for libraries that have workflows, either custom or built-in workflows? Specifically I am concerned about the task list that stores the status of the workflows.
  
  Answer: These workflows will upgrade without issue. If you are using the 2007 approval workflow these will upgrade but will use the old code based approach and not the new declarative approach.
  
  
• Question: We are still using SharePoint 2003. Is there a direct upgrade path to 2010, skipping 2007 altogether?
  
  Answer: There is no direct upgrade path from SharePoint 2003 to SharePoint 2010. You will either need to upgrade to SharePoint 2003 SP2 first or do a clean install of SharePoint 2010 and migrate your content manually.