How To Upgrade to SharePoint 2010 using Database Attach method: Part 1

Hi.. Once SharePoint 2010 is launched one of the first things that people would want to know is how to upgrade their existing sites (on MOSS 2007) to SharePoint 2010. In my previous blog post i had shown the various methods which one can use to upgrade a MOSS 2007 farm to SharePoint 2010 farm. In this Blog post i am going to show you a step by step guide to upgrade your MOSS 2007 Web Application to SharePoint 2010 using the Database Attach approach.
I will explain this method in 2 Blog posts.
In Part 1 I am going to show you the steps which you need to perform before you start the upgrade like the pre upgrade check and reviwing the pre upgrade check report to make sure that your content database is ready for upgrade. In Part 2 i am going to show you the actual upgrade process.
Ok..so without any further delay....lets start!!

I upgraded a sample Web Application which i had created on MOSS 2007 to SharePoint 2010. So i will explain the steps using that Scenario.
But First let us take a look at the Pre-Requisites for Upgradation
Pre-Requisites

• MOSS 2007 should have SP2 Installed. You should have SP2 installed on your MOSS 2007 machine. The preupgrade check command was added only in SP2. So if you do not have SP2 installed you will not have the preupgrade check command in stsadm.
• SharePoint 2010 should be set up on a different Server machine. This blog post will not show you how to set up SharePoint 2010 so you should have it installed and configured on a Machine. However if you want a guide on how to install SharePoint 2010 then you can refer to the following Blog Post SharePoint 2010 Installation Whole 9 yards!!! 

So let us now take a look at the Farm Structure which i am going to Upgrade
The Farm had One Web Application. A root Level Site Collection with around 10 sub sites and one of those subsites had 15 more subsites. Folloing diagram shows the structure of the Web Application.

Following were the customizations in the Portal
34 Custom Site Columns 27 Custom Content Types
2 Custom Web Parts
1 Custom 3rd Party Rating Solution

• 1 Custom Field Type (Rating Field Type)
• 6 Custom Content Types
• 1 Custom Web Part

Custom Master page and Page Layout.

The following image shows how the Site looked before the Upgrade. As you can see there were a lot of customizations on to the site master page.

So let us now start with the upgrade process

Step 1: We have to run the Pre-Upgrade check command on the MOSS 2007 server to find out if there are any issues in the SharePoint 2007 farm (like missing site definitions, features etc.). Running the command will generate an html report for you. This report will not only notify you of any issues regarding your SharePoint farm such as missing Site Definition Information or missing Feature Information, but it also provides you with a blueprint of your SharePoint Farm setup
Some of the details that are provided by this report are
–Search content sources and start addresses
–Office Server Search topology
–Servers in the current farm
–SharePoint version and list of components
running in the farm
–Supported upgrade types
(Inplace Upgrade and Content Database Attach)
–Site Definition and Feature Information
–Language pack information
–Alternate Access Mappings (AAM)
that will need to be recreated
–Customized List views (these will not be upgraded)
–Customized field types (these will not be upgraded)
–WSS Search topology
-List of Content Databases and SQL server location

Syntax: stsadm –o preupgradecheck

 

After you have reviewed the report and fixed any issues which might be there in your farm you can move to the next step.

Step 2: Backup the content database of the Web Application from SQL Server. Copy it to the machine where SharePoint 2010 is installed and restore the backup of database in SQL Server using SQL Server Management Studio. To restore the backup you will first have to create an empty database in SQL Server and the restore your database one top of this new Database. While restoring make sure that the Overwrite the Existing Database option is checked (In the Options section....See image below)

 

At this point your database is checked for upgradation and transfered to the SharePoint 2010 farm. Now in the next steps we will start the Upgrade process on the SharePoint 2010 farm.
The next steps are in my next blog post How To Upgrade SharePoint 2010 using Database Attach method: Part 2