what is the best way to Import content from Tridion 5.2 to Tridion 2011 SP1

Question

what is the best way to Import content from Tridion 5.2 to Tridion 2011 SP1, content porter? or Kapow

Commandant

Answer 1

To upgrade the DB you would have to follow this path: 5.2 => 5.2 SP1 => 5.3 SP1 => 2011 SP1. This information can be found in the documentation available on www.sdltridionworld.com

Additionally you would need to:

1.- Rebuild store procedures.

2.- Rebuild search index.

3.- Optimize stats.

In case you want to migrate only bits and pieces you are looking into extract content from 5.2 using business connector and then importing this into 2011 using CoreService.

Affiliate

Answer 2

What about upgrading the database? Or are you going to sanitize content?

I would probably try Content Porter (due to cost) but take into attention all dependencies that might come with it.

Sail

Even if you are going to clean the content I would recommend to clean up the current environment, and then upgrade the database. – Eggcup

A whole content port action from 5.2 to 2009 using Content Porter seems like a recipe for disaster to me. – Vice

thanks Nuno, so you think Content Porter is the best solution compare to upgrade from 5.2 => 5.2 SP1 => 5.3 SP1 => 2011 SP1 thanks – Commandant

No, I would prefer upgrading the database. Would use Content Porter if you're looking into throwing away data (so I would only port the data that is still needed). – Sail

Answer 3

Do you have two different Tridion environments set-up already? Is the content in your 5.2 environment old? Has it seen a lot of updates already? Does the code remain exactly the same (vbscript?) Does your client really want all the content, or just parts of it?

If it really is just a case of an upgrade without anything changes in code, design or implementation you should use Asier Fernandez's solution with the database upgrade.

Anything else that is going to be an upgrade of Tridion systems, but with many other site changes you should considers a more manual approach (cheaper in the end) Bart Koopman once wrote a ncie blog about it: http://www.tridiondeveloper.com/how-to-say-goodbye-to-your-migration-tool

Vice

Answer 4

I would like to ask why you think the sdl tridion advised way (database upgrade) is not in your options, as that is really the most safe way (if upgrade is what your goal is)

If you are also planning on cleaning up your database then i suggest to first clean up unnesesary items (components, pages, keywords, templates, schemas etcetc). When you are not able to remove items, use WhereUsed as you need to cleanup or disconnect dependancies. Don't think that a CP export->import will clean up the items that you could not delete during your cleanup, if you were not able to do it manually, cp will also not be able to, it will simply add the items to the package.

In my eyes, the only reason for a CP migration for upgrade is to cleanup legacy issues from older versions (db upgrade will keep them) but keep in mind, broken relations/items will fail in CP and you will need to manually create them in the target system, but this way you can get rid of legacy issues that will not go away

In my eyes, for upgrade only, use db upgrade, less effort, fully supported by sdlt support.

And my advice is to seperate an upgrade from ANY other requests, like new layouts, new functionality or cleanup, that way testing and bugtracking will be lot easier

Larena