echo4sharepoint

What is a “Granular” Migration?

Among SharePoint migration vendors, you will often hear their tools described as “granular,” but what does the term really mean? Why is granular control more important than drag-and-drop when it comes to migrations? How granular do you need to go?

For most platforms, granular means that the tool allows you to filter through your SharePoint environment, selecting only those components - sites, lists, content, solutions - that you want to migrate. Not all tools provide the same level of granularity. The right migration solution should provide visibility, support iterative activities, and give you complete control:

• Visibility. You should be able to easily navigate your environment, discover your sites and content based on permissions, and apply the necessary filters and rules. While migrating, your tool should provide a view into what is happening so that, should something go wrong, you can quickly identify changes to be made and update.
• Iterations. Migrations are phased activities. They are rarely successful the first time through due to their complexity. Your tool should support an iterative process, allowing you to test, improve, and test again without forcing you back through a complicated UI each phase.
• Control. Ultimately, your tool should give you complete control of your migration. Move what you want and need, when you want to move it, and allow you see what is happening along the way. Control is about planning, and intended results.

echo is the leader in granular migrations, giving our users more visibility into the process, the ability to iterate as many times as you need (no volume-based pricing), and most importantly, giving you complete control over your SharePoint migrations. Let us show you how.

Sign up now for one of our online demonstrations, and see what echo can do for your environment.

Updated echo for SharePoint 2007 datasheet

We’ve refreshed our echo 2007 datasheet and made it available on our website. You can view or download here. The datasheet provides positioning, benefits, and a feature over of the current platform (2010 offering to be announced at TechEd!)

Creating Site Collections in a Specific Content DB with echo

I was giving a demo earlier this week to a prospective customer who is in the process of migrating their SharePoint environment from 2003 to 2007 (they’re not planning to move to 2010 any time soon), and in the process they are also transforming different aspects of their environment, such as promoting some of their more prominent webs to site collections, and then merging content from different farms under these new site collections. (wow. long sentence) As part of this transformation, I was able to quickly demonstrate one of the cool features of echo for SharePoint 2007 -- the ability to target a specific content database when creating site collections, and thought I’d reprint this tip from the echoTechnology archives.

As you are probably aware, SharePoint does not have this functionality out of the box. This is especially important for corporations that want to enforce governance controls and charge back based on storage usage per content database. If you want to achieve this with SharePoint, you have to ensure that you “trick” SharePoint into thinking that all the content databases are full except the one that you want to target. To do this, follow these steps:

• Go to Central Administration > Application management > Content Databases
• Be sure to select the right web application from the drop down
• Edit each of the databases (except the one you want to target), set their maximum number to be equal to the current sites in the content database (and the warning level to 1 less than the maximum)

For example, if you wanted to target the database WSS_echoDemo, you would configure your limits this way:

 

• Now you are ready to create the site collection either via the command line (stsadm -o createsite) or via Central Admin. SharePoint selects the content database with the most room to balance the storage across the different databases.

An easier way is to use echo, where you can achieve this in a few simple steps:

• Open echo, select the task "Create sites," and then select "Create site collections"

• Select the site template from the list or specify your own (e.g. _GLOBAL#1)
• Specify the details for the site collection in the control file (on the grid)
• Select the web application where you would like to create the site collections

Note the fields that specify the server and database name. Some rules about these:

a. If they are blank, then SharePoint decides where to place the site collections based on its internal rules

b. The database name must already be provisioned and be part of the web application. echo looks through the collection of content databases for the selected web application

c. If you need to create a new database, then specify the flag to create a new database

As per other features in echo, you can save this configuration to an Excel file ("Save as Control File"), edit it offline using Excel (you can add new sites, or change the configuration settings), and then open it in echo ("Load a control file") and execute.

Migrations Are Not Drag-and-Drop

Migration is a roadblock to moving forward with your SharePoint strategy. Search the web and you’ll find plenty of content that seems helpful at first glance, but leaves you wanting. Backup your hardware. Check. Run the out-of-the-box analyzer. Check. Prepare your users. Check. But what these articles fail to provide is any kind of practical guidance.

The truth is, migrations are phased, iterative, error prone, and not your goal:

Migrations are phased. How and what you migrate should not be determined by the technology you use – it’s about matching the needs and timing of your content owners and teams. A migration should be flexible, helping you to move sites and content organically based on those end user needs, not the limitations of the technology.

Migrations are iterative. Your planning should not be limited by the number of migration attempts you make, or by the volume of content being moved. A healthy migration recognizes the need to test the waters, to move sites, content and customizations in waves, allowing users to test and provide feedback.

Migrations are error prone. Drag-and-drop SharePoint migration does not exist in the real world. Maybe for plain vanilla sites without any degree of customization, but these sites are few and far between. There is no “easy” button for migration.

Migrations are not the goal, but proper planning and change management policies will help you to be successful with your current and future migrations. The goals should be a stable environment, relevant metadata, discoverable content, and happy end users.

The echoTechnology team understands the nature of SharePoint migrations and the ongoing change management needs of your business, and has developed a platform that fits within the ebb and flow of your migration lifecycles. The echo for SharePoint platform provides a powerful suite of managers to do your heavy lifting, and flexible enough to meet your ongoing change management needs.

To find out more about echo for SharePoint, click here

New echo for SharePoint 2007 Videos

As we near the launch of SharePoint 2010 and our very own 2010 product launch, I’ve been slowly but surely adding new videos to the website highlighting some of the core functionality of the echo for SharePoint platform. These videos cover much of what is in our live demos -– minus your ability to ask questions, of course. But if you haven’t had a chance to sit through one of our 45-60 minutes demos, these videos are the next best thing. They cover the following:

echo for SharePoint 2007 Overview  A high-level overview of the echo platform, and the problems we solve

Migrating Content and Folders from File Shares (using the Content Manager in echo)

Migrating Sites and Lists from 2003 to 2007 (using Site and List Managers in echo)

Migrating Sites from 2003 to 2007 using a Batch (same as above, but using a saved batch)

Replicating Master Page Designs (using the Master Page Manager in echo)

Replicating Workflow Changes (using the Workflow Manager in echo)

I am continuing to add to our video library, and am planning to expand to more complex user scenarios that combine multiple echo Managers to solve more complex SharePoint configuration and migration problems. I’m also taking requests, so please let me know what you’d like to see.

echo demos once again available

After months of heads-down development on our 2010 release, which we’ll be announcing at TechEd in New Orleans, the echoTechnology team is once again providing regular online demonstrations of our echo for SharePoint platform. The demos run about 45 minutes, and cover the following key scenarios:

• Migrating content from SharePoint 2003 to multiple 2007 farms
• Mapping user permissions
• Replicating custom web parts and workflows across multiple farms
• Loading content, correcting versions, and updating metadata from file shares
• Updating Master Pages and themes across multiple farms

To attend one of these free demos, please register through our website here. And, as always, you can download a fully-functional trial version of the echo for SharePoint product here.

echoTechnology Launches Social Media Strategy

News being posted to www.echoTechnology.com:

echoTechnology Launches Social Media Strategy

Plans to Improve Customer and Partner Outreach and Communication

SEATTLE, Wash. - December 14, 2009: As part of the strategy around our Davinci release this spring and the launch of our free Outlook Power Tool Plus (OPT+) tool for SharePoint, echoTechnology is implementing a social media strategy to allow our customers and partners to better connect and communicate with echo.

This strategy includes the following components:

• New company blog at www.echo4sharepoint.com
  This site will feed into our corporate website via RSS, and will become the primary media relations center for the company.
  
• Profile on Twitter @echo4sharepoint
  A real-time conversation with our customers and partners, allowing echo to quickly disseminate news, updates, and SharePoint expertise.
  
• Fan page on Facebook
  A great way to continue the dialog with our customers and partners.
  
• Video channel on YouTube
  Another distribution outlet for videos of our free tools and echo for SharePoint platform.

For questions about these platforms or any other echoTechnology marketing programs, please contact Christian Buckley at cbuck@echotechnology.com

echoTechnology Releases New Videos for echo for SharePoint platform: Web Part and Workflow Management

News being posted to www.echoTechnology.com:

echoTechnology Releases New Videos for echo for SharePoint platform

Web Part and Workflow Manager Videos Made Available Online at echoTechnology.com

SEATTLE, Wash. - December 14, 2009: As part of a broader marketing strategy to promote the 'echo for SharePoint' platform, Seattle-based echoTechnology is making available today two new videos for their flagship product: 

• Managing Web Parts in SharePoint Using echo for SharePoint 2007
• Deploying Workflows to SharePoint using echo for SharePoint 2007 

The videos provide comprehensive instructions on navigating SharePoint using the echo platform, and highlight the use of a centralized blueprint website to manage workflows and web parts as a SharePoint best practice.

In addition to the release of these new videos, echoTechnology has announced a number of marketing activities this week, including the launch of a social media strategy that includes a YouTube commercial for the Outlook PowerTool Plus. You can view the spot on echo's YouTube channel.

echoTechnology Adds New Customers

News being posted to www.echoTechnology.com:

echoTechnology Announces New Customer Wins

Echo for SharePoint Platform Continues to Demonstrate Improved SharePoint Experience

SEATTLE, Wash. - December 14, 2009: echoTechnology has announced several major customer wins, including the Defense Information Systems Agency and Hartford Insurance Group. These companies have purchased echo for SharePoint to manage their SharePoint portal deployment and governance activities.

• Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is a Combat Support Agency, engineers and provides command and control capabilities and enterprise infrastructure to continuously operate and assure a global net-centric enterprise in direct support to joint warfighters, National level leaders, and other mission and coalition partners across the full spectrum of operations. DISA is based in Arlington, VA and fort Meade, MD.
• The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: HIG), is a Fortune 500 company and one of America’s largest investment and insurance companies. They are a leading provider of investment products, life insurance and group benefits; automobile and homeowners products; and business property and casualty insurance. They are based in Hartford, CT.

Hello World!

Kicking off an initial post to get the site built out and formatted to where I like it. Adding a picture from the SharePoint conference last month.