News

Microsoft's SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool Hits RC

• By Kurt Mackie
• September 26, 2016

Microsoft recently issued a release candidate (RC) of its "SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool," designed to help organizations considering a move to SharePoint Online from on-premises SharePoint Server 2013.

The tool can be downloaded at the Microsoft Download Center here. Microsoft typically uses the "release candidate" phrase to signify that a product is a few weeks away from being ready for use in production environments. The final product, arriving later, is called the "general availability" release.

The SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool runs from a command-line interface. It scans a SharePoint server farm and takes about one or two days to complete the scan. It produces a summary of "the scenarios that could be impacted by migration," per the Download Center's description.

The tool will send stats back to Microsoft, but it's not clear from the description what Microsoft sees. The more sophisticated Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit also scans for SharePoint Server use for planning purposes. However, the SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool seems like a more lightweight solution.

There doesn't seem to be much information available about the tool, and documentation is lacking.

Microsoft doesn't seem to have a SharePoint 2016 migration tool handy yet, apparently, although that will be a big topic at its Ignite conference this week, based on the conference's session agenda.