TechEd 2013: Microsoft SharePoint 2013 and Office 365 Upgrade and Migration: Strategy and Tactics

Session by Dan Holme (@danholme)

This is one of my most anticipated sessions at this years TechEd. Part of my job is it to consult my clients why, when and how they can migrate to SharePoint 2013, so this is a perfect session for me. Here are my notes from Dan’s Session – with many quotes because they rock and have totally influenced my decisions in the past!

SharePoint 2010 or SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2010 was designed 2006 – at least the specification:

So the answer should be SharePoint 2013.

Upgrade projects have delivered little to no value

A simple upgrade does not deliver value – no adoption of the new function and alignment of the new features to business needs: no value.

We wait for Service Pack 1

That’s ancient, new versions are tested with Million customers in the cloud / Office 365.

Should I skip SharePoint 2010 starting from SharePoint 2007?

Picture tells more than 1000 words – I like the decision tree because of its simplicity:

Upgrade is dead – migrate and move forward

Upgrade Experience

The goal should be to provide a smooth upgrade experience with upfront information – similar to the information you got from Office 365 upgrading from SP2010 to SP2013.

All it takes is good planning and automation

Great one! I love automation.

On Prem

Replace the word on premises and build a private cloud. This enables a smoother upgrade experience to Office 365 – and to scale depending on the business needs.

Apps

Apps are the new self-service solution – you want and need this. The end users are used to “there is an app for that” - we should deliver this.

True stories!

No data goes to the cloud!

True story: New Zealand prohibited to utilize the cloud. Then there was an earthquake and they lost a lot of data. Now cloud is cool.

How can I prevent my organization to migrate to the cloud?

That was a question Dan was asked – the motivation behind the question was: afraid of job loss. Jobs are being transformed not lost. <= Agreeing with that.

My evaluation

When ever there is a session by Dan Holme I try to attend – I like the style of the presentation and they “payload”. Dan covered so many aspects why and how you should migrate/move forward and even gave reasons why not. Definitely worth watching the recording – I am 100% certain that I will reference the slides in the future.