Project Server 2003 --> 2007 migration estimates

[RichardG]

Hi,

We are planning to perform a Project Server 2003 to 2007 migration. We have
approximately 1500 projects and 20,000 resources. We use PWS sites, but
these are limited to issues and risks, and documents directly associated
with these - i.e., there is not a huge amount of SharePoint content to be
migrated.

What I'm looking for is a ball park estimate of how long this might take to
do, and the effort involved. I've trawled MSDN, TechNet and various
newsgroups looking for estimation and planning information, but I haven't
come across anything yet.

Any advice / guidance would be very much appreciated.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[Victor]

The answer depends on a couple of different things. Do you have powerful
hardware or will you be using an older system? Do you have 1500 projects and
1500 project workspaces (WSS sites) or do you have more WSS sites? It isn't
uncommon to have more WSS sites than project plans.

Also are you asking about how long the whole project might take or just the
actual migration of data? Assuming all of the other stuff I will list in a
minute has been done, then one migration of the data is going to take you 8 -
16 hours depending on the hardware you are using.

There is a lot of prep work that you should consider before embarking on
this. Here are some questions to get you thinking:
1. What is your migration window? You have to plan on downtime.
2. What is the number of projects and workspaces? Archival strategy?
3. What customizations have been done to the workspaces? Some things that
worked in WSS 2.0 don't work in WSS 3.0.
4. How many users (PM, TM, Exec, etc.)?
5. Are there any SRS reports, InfoPath, etc?
6. How are you going to deploy MS Project 2007 (desktop)?

After the prep work, then you need to run some test migrations. The prep
work just gets you ready for Test migrations, not the Production migration.
You need to do a Test migration to really be sure things will work out fine.
I would recommend having at least two successful Test migrations. You will
then have times for how long the different aspects of the migration will take
when you go to Production.

Don't forget about testing, training before the rollout and to plan for
"stuff" that will happen after the rollout. Proper preparation will catch
most things, but there will always be "something".

Hopefully that helps get you going in the right direction.

 

[RichardG]

Thanks Victor,

I guess what I was asking was not how long the data migration process itself
was going to take (but your answer of 8-16 hours gives me an indication),
rather what sort of effort might be involved in such a migration project.

Your list of questions certainly gives me a starting point for planning.
What would be really useful is a project plan from a real life migration
exercise, with actual values of the effort spent on the various tasks.
Having no historical data from other projects makes estimating this one very
difficult...

I am estimating based on a "Big bang" rollout, rather than a phased
approach. We have external constraints regarding the deployment of Project
Professional 2007 , so for the purposes of this estimate, I am assuming that
all users will have access to that before we migrate in the production
environment.

In our environment, the only wss sites are the project workspaces. I can
estimate for the conversion of the SSRS reports and SharePoint
customisations, it is the effort for the migration that I have no data for.

Does anyone out there have a project plan from a real migrate project that
they would be willing to share?

Thanks,
Richard