Is SharePoint 2016 right for your organization? 1
Table of contents Finding the value of a migration... 3 Investment areas and why they matter...4 1. Improved user experience...5 2. Compliance and reporting...7 3. Cloud-inspired infrastructure...10 Should you stay or should you go?...13 Migration scenario 1: Moving from SharePoint 2007 and 2010...14 Migration scenario 2: Already planning on a move to SharePoint 2013...15 What about hybrid?...16 Reasons to make the hybrid leap...17 How Metalogix can help...19 About Metalogix...20 2
Finding the value of a migration The purpose of this ebook is to help you decide if a migration to SharePoint 2016 is the best option for your organization. Based on your current version, what will you gain by moving to SharePoint 2016? What will you potentially lose? Is SharePoint 2016 the correct answer for your organization? Our key focus in answering these questions is based on the three investment areas announced by Microsoft: 1. Better User Experiences 2. Compliance and reporting 3. Cloud inspired infrastructure Other pertinent questions we ll address: How do these areas differ from your current version? What are the features that have been updated? What are the features that have been deprecated from SharePoint versions 2007/2010/2013? How does 2016 build on 2013? 3
Investment areas and why they matter Visually, it may be interesting to note, the look and feel of SharePoint 2016 is almost identical to that of Office 365, and very similar to the look of SharePoint 2013. But the differences in functionality and user experience are vast. So while it may look similar, SharePoint 2016 is a much stronger, more agile beast. Let s look at what is new, across the three investment areas announced by Microsoft... 4
1. Improved user experience The most impressive changes in SharePoint 2016 are around user experience, especially mobile experiences and features including the app launcher and responsive cloud interface, improved hybrid search and profile redirection. Mobile views A big improvement from SharePoint 2013 is the responsiveness of SharePoint 2016 mobile sites. With the new iteration you can avail of much more useful site, page and content views. We can also see Microsoft s commitment to Mobile Apps through the SharePoint App that connects to both SharePoint 2016 and Office 365. Extensible hybrid app launcher This new feature gives users a close to seamless experience when navigating between SharePoint 2016 and Office 365. User Interface (UI) consistency goes a long way when moving between these platforms and the app launcher brings in Office 365 Delve and Video apps, as well as custom Office 365 and SharePoint 2016 tiles. Thresholds and limits With SharePoint 2016 s updated auto indexing, the previous versions 5,000 view threshold is no longer an issue. That threshold is still there for security and SQL reasons, but you shouldn t have to worry about the limits as the storage limits increased from 2GB to 10GB. However, you still need to plan: reaching your storage limits will put an awful lot of pressure on the SQL database and could slow your environment down. This goes for the site collection database (1TB) too. When dealing with large document and data sets, relaxing these limits does wonders for UX. 5
Profile redirection Storing your personal information in the cloud, for example, your Office 365 profile, boosts user experience, because your information is closer to you and available whenever you need it on any device. Being able to point their on-premises profile links to their cloud counterparts enhances the experience -- especially in hybrid environments. Hybrid search While hybrid search existed in previous SharePoint incarnations, SharePoint 2016 is vastly improved with the ability to ship indices up to the cloud and supporting a much more seamless integration between the results. Viewing results in a single results set - on-premises and cloud intermingled - reduces user frustration and improves productivity. 6
2. Compliance and reporting If you need to upgrade for compliance reasons, SharePoint 2016 helps you stay in better control with new data protection and monitoring tools. The In-Place Policy Hold Center and the Compliance Center allow you to build your own policies and apply them against your environment, and new basic policies allow you to delete data in OneDrive for Business sites after a set number of years. 7
Compliance features Improved compliance Concerns about moving content to the cloud are not new for many businesses, but Microsoft has invested heavily in SharePoint 2016 s compliance and reporting. In fact, according to a 2013 Microsoft survey, 94 percent of U.S. businesses said their security had improved after adopting cloud applications. While this was true in 2013, SharePoint 2016 s included hybrid capabilities delivers even better compliance, security and threat protection for both administrators and end users: See sensitive content with ediscovery Find sensitive information with 51 unique classification IDs Personally identifiable info; created with a regular Data Loss Prevention capabilities, in the cloud it can be done upon upload Integrated reporting for cloud and on-premises content SmartDataCollective. 2014. Cloud Computing Trends and Latest Stats. Available Online: http://www.smartdatacollective.com/connectriahosting/191656/running-software-cloud Security Week. 2013. SMBs Find Security, Reliability Benefits in Cloud: Survey. Available Online: http://www.securityweek.com/smbs-find-security-reliability-benefits-cloud-survey 8
Improved reporting SharePoint 2016 s Management API is gathering information behind the scenes but it s not being presented at the front end yet. The analytics that you will actually benefit from are in the cloud using Office Graph. This is what could be called the cloud processing that takes all the different signals that are coming from who you are, who you follow, what documents you edit, documents you look at, and views and likes and activities, and putting that all together and processing it. That simply can t be done on-premises. The extremely powerful cloud processing engine is where superior analytics will be in the future. 9
3. Cloud-inspired infrastructure SharePoint 2016 s underlying infrastructure is likely to be different from what users of previous versions are used to. The concept behind the changes is simply to take advantage of improvements that came from Office 365 (fundamentally the world s biggest SharePoint deployment) and bring them down to an on-premises scenario, while also taking into the account the increasingly popular hybrid deployment option. 10
Cloud-inspired features A more scalable platform Lower upfront IT costs with a flexible scalable collaboration platform New streamlined topology reduces data center footprint into five roles Improvement in search indexing, scaling to 500 million documents Faster page load performance Optimized bandwidth utilization In-place upgrade and zero downtime patching A hybrid platform Extend business applications to the cloud with simple integrated hybrid solutions Enable predictive analytics and discovery with Office Graph/Delve and on-premises content Follow Documents, Sites and People across SharePoint On-Premises and Office 365 Rapidly deploy new extranet scenarios with Office 365 integration Feature packs Along with a software assurance license, SharePoint 2016 users will receive Feature Packs from the cloud. This means an end to the yearly service pack and replaced by several updates throughout the year as features that are developed and tested in the cloud will become available on-premises. MinRole servers Run hundreds of thousands of servers and have them operate as smoothly and reliably as possible. It s the consolidation of core SharePoint logic into one single farm and reduction of the number of discrete roles that leads to enhanced user performance. Zero downtime patching Just like users updating Microsoft Office from their individual machines, SharePoint 2016 is built to run updates without downtime. This is a major difference from the current practice, and will allow more critical business processes to be run within SharePoint. Durable links Often documents move around a lot. With durable links, the URL will remain the same within the same site collection and make it simple to find that elusive document, saving huge amounts of time. Please note that this functionality is dependent on the Office Online (formerly Office Web Apps) server. 11
Should you stay or should you go? Thanks to the multiple versions of SharePoint that are still used widely, there are a number of scenarios that an organization may find themselves in when thinking about a move to SharePoint 2016. Which version should you migrate to? What are the benefits of each option? Is hybrid an option? Those decisions should be based on what features you and your employees use most frequently and what a change will mean for them. The Scenarios Moving from SharePoint 2007 and 2010 Already planning on a move to SharePoint 2013 Moving from SharePoint 2013 12
Migration scenario 1: Moving from SharePoint 2007 and 2010 Currently: Your organization currently operates with SharePoint 2007 or 2010 and you are thinking about migrating straight to SharePoint 2016. Future: Upgrading to SharePoint 2016 will get you all of the aforementioned features in the above investment areas, which are different than your current version. SharePoint 2013 s features: Search, Continuous Crawl and the new Web Parts Social Community Site, Microblogging and Activity Feeds Updated User Interface & branding through the Design Manager OneDrive for Business instead of My Sites SharePoint 2016 s features: User Interface and design overhaul that will be the same as Office 365 Authentication default as claims Stability/scalability Search advancements Foundation for hybrid connectivity in the future Apps and the App Store Claims authentication default Office Online (formerly Office Web Apps) Server present Office applications through the browser 13
Migration scenario 2: Already planning on a move to SharePoint 2013 Currently: Your organization plans on migrating straight to SharePoint 2013. Yet, should you jump straight to 2016 instead? Future: Given the power and timeliness of SharePoint 2016, this is a common question that we ve faced. Given our experience with thousands of migration, our recommendation is divided based on when a company is planning to do that migration. Less than six months If you are less than six months away from migrating to 2013 then, taking into account all the different pieces that go into a migration project, it would probably be worth your while to continue your plans to move to 2013. More than six months If you are more than six months away from a migration, it would be worth doing a feasibility test on skipping 2013 and jumping straight to 2016. One of the key reasons for this recommendation is hybrid functionality. If you are thinking of moving to hybrid, even in the next three years, organizations might want to reevaluate the decision versus the cost of migrating to SharePoint 2013 and then having to migrate to SharePoint 2016 later. 14
Migration scenario 3: Moving from SharePoint 2013 Currently: Your organization is already using SharePoint 2013 and you re either thinking about or seeking out more information about the benefits of a migration to SharePoint 2016. Future: While SharePoint 2013 and 2016 share many similarities, the places where they re dissimilar are in SharePoint 2016 s advancements in user interface. Similar user interface Between 2013 & 2016 there isn t much difference in UI, meaning you won t need to retrain your staff. You can concentrate on explaining why you are migrating and how it will make the lives of your staff easier, which will ultimately help you gain higher adoption rates. SQL upgrade path If you want to use all of the Business Intelligence features, you re going to have to wait for SQL 2016. SharePoint 2016 runs on SQL Server 2014 so if you re running that you can continue in SharePoint 2016 until the SQL upgrade is approved. 15
What about hybrid? If you plan to remain completely on premises, your reasons might include: Compliance & risk Sensitive content can determine what you will be able to do in terms of a migration to the cloud. Licenses You don t have licenses for Office 365. Control Office 365 is constantly upgrading via the cloud and you don t have the control over the updates. Size and health of your customizations You ve invested in critical applications that are not easy to migrate. Network Low bandwidth locations require on-premises to keep end users engaged. Your reasons should be weighed against your business strategy or requirements with the features and advantages we talked about earlier in the ebook. 16
Reasons to Make the Hybrid Leap OneDrive for Business Save and work on your files from anywhere with anyone. Have the system remember what you are working on and with whom. Simplify your SharePoint on-premises environment and reduce storage overhead. Follow and teams sites We do so much in the browser now that end users may not even be aware whether they are in the cloud or on-premises. With the hybrid app launcher and UI improvements, this will make the user experience as seamless as possible. Profile synchronization, analytics and Delve Taking advantages of Office Graph, and the signals that are able to be captured. Follow mobile first, cloud first with your personal data. See utilization of collaborative content and more and more information about how your teams work together across all the Microsoft products. 17
How Metalogix can help Clearly, the decision process for migrating to SharePoint 2016 is a little more complex than simply picking the latest and greatest iteration. We hope this ebook has given you a broad look at what this new release represents so you can make the right decision for your company. Migration Expert and Content Matrix If you are starting or thinking about starting a migration project, Migration Expert is the place to begin. Providing a simple, yet intuitive user interface, it provides a complete assessment of your source SharePoint environment, highlighting key content, customizations, security and storage metrics that will help guide your migration project. If you decide to migrate, Content Matrix is the most powerful SharePoint and Office 365 migration solution. Whether you are deploying SharePoint for the first time, upgrading to the latest version or moving to Office 365, migrating data requires careful planning and a flexible solution to support all of your migration scenarios. Content Matrix provides a robust set of features that far exceed the capabilities of database attach upgrades and the manual migration of data from legacy repositories including file shares. When it comes to SharePoint migration across any version, Metalogix s team of experts is where companies find the right solutions. Learn More 18
About Metalogix Metalogix the market-leading provider of solutions to move, manage and protect content within enterprise collaboration platforms. Over 20,000 clients trust Metalogix to optimize the availability, performance, and security of their content across the collaboration lifecycle. US. +1 202.609.9100 www.metalogix.com Copyright 2016 Metalogix International GmbH. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. 19