SharePoint 2013: Upgrading from SharePoint 2007 (Q&A)
This Wiki page contains a discussion of best practices surrounding the upgrade from SharePoint 2007 to 2013.
The recommended approach is this: don't upgrade directly from 2007 to 2013, but first follow documentation and upgrade to 2010, and only then upgrade to 2013.
Q: Moving from SharePoint 2007 using MS SQL2005 to SharePoint 2013, will there be any features from SharePoint 2007 that will be lost? Will it be a seamless migration? Please let me know of what to expect or foresee out of the migration.
A: I think it's hard to foresee everything that might happen in a 2-version migration, MS is doing its best to provide seamless upgrades, but in my experience expecting a seamless migration is living in a dream world.
Q: If there are customization done on top of the "out of the box" solution from SharePoint 2007 was using Microsoft Visual Studio around the year 2008, what are the challenges to move this customization to SharePoint 2013? This ties back to the first question, will there be any issues? Some of the customization is at the site collection/parents level.
A: Any custom code will have to be recompiled against the latest SharePoint bits, but code-wise I don't think there will be problems. Having said that, you should consider optimizing features to make use of the latest and greatest possibilities.
Q: If the entire SharePoint is running on 32bit, what will be the challenges when we move to SharePoint 2013?
A: It shouldn't matter, but your custom software needs to be rebuild using 64 bit.
Q: If 32bit can be retained in SharePoint 2013 environment, what will we as a company be losing out?
A: SharePoint 2013 only comes in a 64 bit version and customizations using 32 bit won't work.
Q: Will there be any problem with the migration of the data itself to SharePoint 2013?
A: No, but first migrate to 2010, only then to 2013.
Q: If the current SharePoint 2007 is running on a windows 2003 server 32 bit environment, can the server OS be migrated to the latest OS from Microsoft with retaining SharePoint 2007?
A: Personally, I don't like to do that. Later on, when there's trouble, it becomes such a mess ("I'm having a problem on this server that used to be Windows 2003 32 bit/SharePoint 2007 and upgraded it to 64 bit and SharePoint 2013, now I'm having this problem..."). Make it easier on yourself and don't go that route.
See Also
The SharePoint 2013 Best Practices Page at: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/12438.sharepoint-2013-best-practices.aspx
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