Introduction to search-first migration (SharePoint Server 2010)

Article
07/22/2014

Applies to: SharePoint Server 2010

Upgrading to Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 from Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides significant improvements in enterprise search capability. However, policy or resource constraints in an organization sometimes pose challenges that can prevent or postpone a complete upgrade. Even if your organization is not ready to perform a complete upgrade from Office SharePoint Server 2007, you can take advantage of end-user enterprise search capabilities of SharePoint Server 2010 by performing a search-first migration.

To perform a search-first migration, you deploy and configure a new SharePoint Server 2010 farm for search. You then migrate only the search settings from the existing Office SharePoint Server 2007 farm to the new farm, and configure the Office SharePoint Server 2007 farm to forward search queries to the new farm, where the queries will be processed. When the search-first migration is complete, the new farm provides search functionality of SharePoint Server 2010 for searches in the SharePoint Server 2007 farm or the SharePoint Server 2010 farm. For example, a user who types a search query in either farm can take advantage of SharePoint Server 2010 features such as prefix matching, Boolean query syntax, phonetic name matching, and query suggestions. For queries that do not use contextual scopes, the user views the search results on a site in the SharePoint Server 2010 farm and can use search features there such as results refinement, social tags integration, and relevance improvements.

After the search-first migration, the organization can complete the product upgrade at any time that is convenient. In the meantime, the SharePoint Server 2007 farm can continue to provide other SharePoint Server 2007 functionality for the organization as usual. SharePoint Server 2007 features such as content databases and the Business Data Catalog are not migrated or upgraded as part of a search-first migration. Functionality that is not related to search does not have to be configured in the new SharePoint Server 2010 farm.

Supported and unsupported paths for search-first migration

Search-first migration supports only the migration of search capability from a SharePoint Server 2007 farm to a SharePoint Server 2010 farm.

Examples of paths that Microsoft does not support for search-first migration include the following:

Migration that involves a stand-alone FAST-based product, or a stand-alone FAST-based product that has a Search Center in SharePoint Server 2010. (Stand-alone FAST-based products include FAST Enterprise Search Platform, Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint Internet Sites, and FAST Search for Intranet Applications.)
Migration that involves Microsoft Search Server 2008 or Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express.
Migration that involves Microsoft Search Server 2010 or Microsoft Search Server 2010 Express.
Migration from FAST Search Platform (ESP) to FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint.
Migration that involves Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010.

High-level steps for performing a search-first migration

The initial state of the system for performing a search-first migration is a SharePoint Server 2007 production farm that has at least one Shared Services Provider (SSP) in which enterprise search functionality is configured and operational. In addition, the User Profile service might be enabled to provide My Sites and people-search capability. Other shared services might also be enabled in SSPs in the SharePoint Server 2007 farm, but those shared services are not relevant to search-first migration.

To complete a search-first migration, you must perform the following main steps:

Deploy a new SharePoint Server 2010 farm.

When the search-first migration is complete, this farm provides SharePoint Server 2010 search functionality to end users when they submit search queries in the SharePoint Server 2007 farm or the SharePoint Server 2010 farm.
Prepare the new farm for search by configuring the following:
- A Web application for search
- At least one Search service application
- At least one Enterprise Search Center
- Optional:
  - A User Profile service application (to provide the people-search capability of SharePoint Server 2010)
  - A Managed Metadata service application (to provide the ability to search on social-tags and certain user-profile properties)
Configure the SharePoint Server 2007 farm for search-first migration as follows:
1. Configure all search boxes to forward queries to the SharePoint Server 2010 farm. You can perform this process manually, or you can use the scripts in the Metalogix Search Redirection Toolkit for SharePoint Server 2007 to automate the process.
2. Ensure that all links to Search Centers or Advanced Search pages point to appropriate pages in the SharePoint Server 2010 farm.
3. Optional: Install the Search Box Replacement Control from Metalogix.
  
  When users type search queries in the SharePoint Server 2007 farm, this control does the following:
  - Displays query suggestions that it obtains from the search query history in the SharePoint Server 2010 farm.
  - Displays the custom scopes that are in the SharePoint Server 2007 farm, or in the SharePoint Server 2010 farm, or both.
For more information about using the Metalogix Software tools mentioned here, see the Metalogix Search-First Migration User Guide, which is available from the Metalogix Search First Migration Accelerator download page (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=210942).
Migrate search settings from the SharePoint Server 2007 farm to the new farm. This includes farm-level, SSP-level, site-collection level, and site-level search settings.
Crawl content in both farms as follows:
- Crawl all content in the SharePoint Server 2007 farm by using the search system in the SharePoint Server 2010 farm.
- Crawl content in the SharePoint Server 2007 farm by using the search system in the SharePoint Server 2007 farm.

After you perform the previous steps and the SharePoint Server 2010 farm finishes full crawls of all content sources, the migration of search to the new farm is complete. You can then notify SharePoint Server 2007 users that they can start to use the enhanced search functionality that is provided by SharePoint Server 2010. For more information, see Train end users to use the search-first environment (SharePoint Server 2010). When the organization is ready to complete the upgrade, you can migrate the SharePoint Server 2010 content databases and sites and configure other features of the new farm that you want to use. For more information, see Upgrading to SharePoint Server 2010.

Introduction to search-first migration (SharePoint Server 2010)

Supported and unsupported paths for search-first migration

High-level steps for performing a search-first migration

See Also

Concepts

Additional resources