November 20, 2008, 6:42 PM — Let Business Users Manage their Content Migration via a Drag-and-Drop GUI.
If you have ever worked on the team responsible for SharePoint migration, you no doubt have seen how a single initiative of content consolidation within legacy systems instantly becomes a “nightmare†project with many failed migration attempts. There are various approaches you can use, depending on your need, systems and hardware involved.
For example, you can utilize existing hardware, assuming you are migrating from SharePoint 2003 to SharePoint 2007, whether with an in-place or gradual upgrades. Or, if you are migrating to new hardware, you would probably reserve to either database upgrade, or utilize third-party migration tools, such as Tzunami, Quest and Metalogix. They all offer administrator-based migration solution that do provide some piece-of-mind.
Another option one of the companies shared with us is user-powered, manual migration. Simply put, SharePoint Administrators configured new hardware with MOSS 2007 and allowed power users to manually recreate documents.
Why would organization decide to put control into the hands of the users? For different reasons: the content in SPS2003 was mostly outdated and out of control, required large storage capacity within new infrastructure, plus SharePoint administrators refused to migrate unorganized content (“garbage in-garbage outâ€).
The company decided to give migration control to owners of the content. They created a dedicated power user group, provided extensive training by outsourcing it to a professional training company, put power users in charge of recreating and organizing their new sites and content, and set deadlines on content migration (the company had plans to disassemble and reuse old hardware). This, however, became a long process and while users were constrained by the timeline, they were overwhelmed by the amount of information they needed to sort through and migrate. Not a bad thought though…
Now there is a new product that helps business users migrate and consolidate content: PathBuilder Migration Studio by Vital Path. It allows end-users to quickly and easily move content, calendars and tasks at the file, folder or repository level, while insuring content integrity by retaining all associated metadata. All using the power of their desktops. This approach not only speeds up the migration, it greatly maximizes ROI.
PathBuilder Migration Studio used customer content migration experience and industry best practices and wrapped it all up in a cool Drag-and-Drop GUI. End-users now have the ability to migrate content between various Enterprise Content Management repositories including SharePoint, schedule events, and receive real-time reporting related to the migration/integration actions.
Though the GUI itself may look a little clunky, your IT department should definitely appreciate its benefits. No longer they will be burdened by the overwhelming content migration and integration projects. With its integrated security model, PathBuilder Migration Studio users have access only to the content that matters to them, with “modifyâ€-only security permissions.
Best part? Auto Repository Build Out feature - PathBuilder Migration Studio lets users build out repository metadata schema and folder structures, on the fly, during the migration process, eliminating the need for an error-prone process before hand.
How PathBuilder Migration Studio works:
PathBuilder Migration Studio is powered by PathBuilder, an integration product that creates a two-way bridge between disparate content repositories such as SharePoint, File Systems, Documentum, eRoom, Livelink, FileNet, Lotus Notes, HP Trim, Oracle, Hummingbird and others. This vendor-neutral approach is designed to answer both one-to-one and many-to-one repository migrations. PathBuilder is delivered with validated, non-custom connectors for each content repository and a set of rules designed to fully automate the migration process.
One more feature of PathBuilder worth mentioning: With seamless integration for all supported repositories, PathBuilder works in conjunction with existing records management solutions allowing organizations to implement and enforce standard information policies in compliance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (also known as eDiscovery). By integrating with existing solutions, businesses are not required to throw away previous investments in records management. Also, in some situations, it is not in the best interests of a company to make drastic changes to records management solutions.
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