SharePoint enthusiasts are eagerly waiting to download SharePoint 2016 and perform hands-on. Ignite sessions have given some things to think about.
The upgrade path for SharePoint 2016 is nearly the same as for SharePoint 2016 as shown in the following figure.
The following is the procedure.
Prepare
- Clean up the source Farm.
- Create and configure the destination SharePoint 2013 Farm.
- Backup Customizations: solution packages, custom site definitions, style sheets, web parts, web services, features, solutions, assemblies, web.config changes, form templates, third-party changes and so on.
Upgrade Databases
- Copy Databases using SQL Server Backup and Restore.
- Upgrade Service Application Databases.
- Create Web Applications and apply customizations.
- Upgrade Content Databases.
Upgrade Sites
For Site Collections provisioned in backward compatible SharePoint 2010 (14) mode, they must be upgraded to 2013, before upgrading to SharePoint Server 2016. But the real issues will be determined once this method is attempted.