SharePoint Tip of the Month

August 2009: Getting Ready for SharePoint 2010

Last month’s tip provided a sneak peek into what is coming with SharePoint 2010. The timeline is still not publicly available, beyond a few things that are generally known:

• The October SharePoint conference in Las Vegas will be focused primarily on the new product, with many of the details on feature/functionality to be revealed there.
• A public beta will be available soon after that
• Official release will be some time in the first half of 2010

But there is no need to wait to get started. If you are anticipating early adoption of SharePoint 2010, then there are several things you can be doing now to get prepared. Abel Solutions is making plans to convert our own Intranet from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010, and we will be doing all of these things below over the course of the next few months.

First, the time is right to install Service Pack 2 for SharePoint 2007. The Expiration Date issue, first announced in June, has been addressed, and it is now recommended to install the service pack. There is an update you will need to install, on top of Service Pack 2, in order to address the Expiration Date issue. The service pack contains several new administrative tools, as well as a tool that will help in planning to upgrade to SharePoint 2010.

There are also a number of hardware procurement steps that you should take prior to moving to SharePoint 2010.

On the server side, you will likely need new servers in order to support the next version of SharePoint. Preliminary server requirements are for Windows Server 2008, the 64-bit variety. This applies to both the servers running SharePoint and to the SQL Server machines hosting the SharePoint databases.

On the desktop side, users will need upgrades if they are running older versions of web browsers. There will be no support for Internet Explorer 6.0. So any users still on that version will need an upgrade to at least 7.0. There will be support for Firefox 3.0, and even some support for the Safari web browser. Additionally, each new version of SharePoint has coincided with new releases of the Office client. Each time, additional functionality has been available to those running the newest versions. While the Office 2010 client will not be required, it’s a safe bet that not all features of SharePoint 2010 will be compatible with older versions of Office.

In order to start planning the migration, it’s a good idea to do a trial upgrade in order to see what issues you may encounter. While the earliest you can do a trial upgrade will be when the public beta is made available, you can still be ready by going through the following steps:

• Complete an inventory of your current SharePoint environment. Your inventory needs to include the following:
• Lists of all web applications, sites and sub-sites, along with sizes and ownership. Service Pack 2 includes some new extensions to the administrative utilities that will help with this.
• Identification of sites that are no longer needed or no longer used.
• Any customizations that are not part of the default SharePoint installation. These could include web parts, branding, workflows, timer jobs, and third party applications.
• Create a virtual version of your SharePoint farm, including copies of the content databases and all customizations identified above.
• Run the Upgrade Checker tool, which is included with the installation of Service Pack 2. This will help identify any issues that may prevent the upgrade from taking place.

This is as far as you’ll be able to get until SharePoint 2010 is publicly available in beta. But if you complete the steps above, you will be positioned to run a test upgrade as soon as it is available, which will get you on the path to early adoption.