On April 14th this year, millions of IT workers breathed a sigh of relief. Amid the coronavirus pandemic Microsoft announced that support for SharePoint 2010 would be extended for another 12 months. Support was originally planned to end this October but in light of COVID-19, Microsoft gave IT departments one more year to play with.

According to industry research, around 8% of companies that use SharePoint continue to rely on the 2010 version of the platform. Closing down support in the midst of the pandemic’s turmoil would have resulted in chaos for many businesses, especially since many firms’ migration plans would inevitably be slowed by lockdowns. The additional time to migrate was a lifeline for many firms.

However, while the extra 12 months was welcome, the clock is still ticking. If your organisation continues to use SharePoint 2010 to hold some or all your business content, it is important to start migrating now. Here is everything you need to know.

Why you should migrate

Companies spend significant sums of money on their SharePoint intranets, customising them and training staff to use the technology properly. If you hold enormous amounts of content on SharePoint 2010, a migration can be very daunting. Furthermore COVID-19 will have made migration much harder and meant that it may have slipped down the priority list.

Nevertheless, migration will be crucial to your organisation’s long-term stability:

  • Security: From April 13th 2021, Microsoft will no longer provide updates, patches or other security fixes. This will leave you open to malicious attacks, which could prove catastrophic.
  • Compliance: If you store key business content in a platform which is not supported by Microsoft, you may fall foul of regulatory compliance standards. If your business data is breached and you are using an unsupported system like SharePoint 2010, you may stand accused of failing to perform due diligence.
  • Poor user experience: In the last decade we have seen dramatic improvements in the user experience of business technology. Whether it’s mobile access, remote working, video calls or anything else, your organisation will miss out on the benefits if you keep using an outdated platform like SharePoint 2010.

What are your options for upgrading from SharePoint 2010?

There are two routes for upgrading from SharePoint 2010. The good news is that with support from an experienced migration partner, neither of these options should take more than a couple of months to complete:

  • Migrate to Microsoft 365 in the cloud

Millions of companies around the world today use Microsoft’s cloud platform for all their business needs. You get access to a suite of business productivity tools, including SharePoint Online or Microsoft Teams, which support modern working styles (including mobile and remote working). The cloud is highly secure, and is continually being updated – so you will never have to worry about the next SharePoint upgrade again.

Learn more: Understand Microsoft’s cloud license models

 

  • Migrate to a newer version of SharePoint Server

If your company prefers to use an on-premises version of SharePoint you can upgrade to one of the newer versions of the product that have been released over the past decade (in 2013, 2016 and 2019).

We would strongly recommend migrating to SharePoint 2019 so that you get the most up to date technology, safe in the knowledge that support will be provided for many years to come.

Migrating to SharePoint Server 2019 is a multi-stage process – you must first migrate to SharePoint 2013, then SharePoint 2016 before finally moving to SharePoint 2019.

 

SharePoint migration is still possible during COVID-19

While COVID-19 has generated an enormous amount of disruption for businesses, it is still possible to upgrade from SharePoint 2010 in the current circumstances. Many of the tools and techniques used to migrate content to the cloud or later versions of SharePoint Server can be deployed remotely or while respecting social distancing rules on-site. This means that during the final six months before SharePoint 2010 finally stops receiving support, you can still upgrade.  

FITTS can help your business migrate from SharePoint 2010 either to the cloud or to SharePoint Server 2019. Our expert migration teams have developed strategies to help businesses migrate during these challenging times while remaining compliant with all government guidelines. To get started, contact FITTS today.