Planning for Migration to System Center 2012 Configuration Manager

Before you migrate data to a Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager hierarchy, make sure that you are familiar with the changes to System Center 2012 Configuration Manager sites and hierarchies. For more information about sites and hierarchies, see Planning for Sites and Hierarchies in Configuration Manager.

You must first install a System Center 2012 Configuration Manager hierarchy to be the destination hierarchy before you can migrate data from a supported source hierarchy.

After you install the destination hierarchy, configure the management features and functions that you want to use in your destination hierarchy before you start to migrate data.

Additionally, you might have to plan for overlap between the existing source hierarchy and your new destination hierarchy. As an example, consider when the source site or hierarchy is configured to use the same network locations or boundaries as your destination hierarchy. With this configuration, you then install new clients to your destination hierarchy and use automatic site assignment. In this scenario, because a newly installed Configuration Manager client can select a site to join from either hierarchy, the client could incorrectly assign to your destination hierarchy. Therefore, plan to assign each new client in the destination hierarchy to a specific site in that hierarchy instead of using automatic-site assignment.

For more information about site assignments, see the Client Site Assignment Considerations section in the Supported Configurations for Configuration Manager topic. For more information about client site assignment for Configuration Manager 2007, see About Client Site Assignment in Configuration Manager in the Configuration Manager 2007 documentation library.