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Summary: Organizations are increasingly upgrading their SharePoint deployments for improved security and enhanced features. This blog emphasizes key factors for successful SharePoint 2016 migration. Choosing the right target and approach is crucial, as is conducting pre-migration analysis to understand the existing IT environment. SharePoint 2016 offers better performance and user experience across various devices, reducing the need for external assistance in meeting UI and UX demands.

Given the paramount importance of security, organizations diligently endeavor to routinely refresh their hardware, software, and overall IT infrastructure. Consequently, it comes as no shock that modern organizations are actively pursuing enhancements for their current SharePoint deployment. This endeavor entails a secure migration of all their content to more up-to-date iterations. SharePoint 2016 has been available for a significant duration, prompting a substantial portion of IT administrators to have already completed their migration to this version.

This blog focuses on some of the essential things one must know to plan their SharePoint 2016 migration well in advance.

Right Target & Right Approach – That’s the key to plan a Successful Migration

In the realm of enterprises, the crucial task lies in the prudent selection of the appropriate target and the adoption of a suitable strategy to prevent errors during the migration process. However, this represents merely one facet of the equation. Equally significant is the responsibility that ensues once the endeavor to execute optimal migration and deployment practices commences. Undertaking the comprehensive management of all the content residing within your IT environment and successfully orchestrating its migration constitutes a formidable undertaking.

With Microsoft’s promise to introduce performance improvements, and more features in the new SharePoint 2016 version, you’ll need to carve an excellent strategy to have a successful migration.

Pre-Migration Analysis – Understanding your Existing IT Environment is important

Amid the rush to meet tight project deadlines, organizations often overlook a crucial preparatory step when transitioning from one SharePoint version to another. I am confident that the same pattern will apply to SharePoint 2016. While it’s true that SharePoint 2016 promises zero downtime patching, it remains essential to prioritize the initial step in this process.

Prior to initiating the process of transferring your content to SharePoint 2016, it is imperative to obtain comprehensive information about your IT infrastructure. This information will facilitate an in-depth assessment of the data currently residing on your existing SharePoint server. The utilization of this SharePoint migration checklist, will enable you to ascertain what should be incorporated into the new deployment environment and what should be excluded. Furthermore, conducting a thorough analysis prior to migration will provide insights into enhancements that can elevate the user experience for your customers while ensuring alignment with your enterprise’s organizational policies.

Access Data While on The Go: Delivering a consistent cross-screen experience will now become critical

With a heightened emphasis on mobile and touch-sensitive devices, the imperative is to make information access easier and faster for all users on every screen. This necessitates increased effort and intelligence from designers. Fortunately, SharePoint 2016 enables you to guarantee swift access to essential information for your users, regardless of their chosen screen. Consequently, organizations can effortlessly provide an improved user experience to clients and customers, ensuring a consistent browsing experience whether on a mobile device, desktop, or tablet.

With SP 2016 deployment, I’m sure SharePoint professionals in most organizations would no longer need to seek external help to cope up with the increasing UI & UX demands of their users.

Conclusion

The primary responsibility for a successful migration rests with SharePoint administrators and their corresponding IT executives. It is conceivable that they may lack a full understanding of the true worth of the valuable content and data stored in your current SharePoint server. Therefore, to assess content migration and execute it smoothly without jeopardizing your vital business data, there is a dependable migration solution available: Kernel Migration for SharePoint. If you are considering SharePoint and Office 365 migration, you can acquire the SharePoint Migration tool for a firsthand experience with the tool.

Kernel Migration for SharePoint