what is best way to Migrate Content from Tridion 5.3sp1 to 2011sp1

Question

Our migration from 5.3sp1 to 2011sp1 will happen for period of 2-3 months, but content will be added on production during that time in tridion 5.3sp1. After the migration activities we will have migrated system on 2011sp1,

But now i want to migrate new content from production(which is still in 5.3) to upgraded DB.

Content porter version 2.3(currently being used in 5.3sp1 ) is not supported in 2011.

What would be the best approach for this?

Answer 1

I think best is to redo the database upgrade once again after production setup. At last stage of testing ask editors to add/edit content on both server simultaneously.

You must have to convince your editors for content freeze or minimal changes in last stage after final db upgrade. We found it hard so we added custom event code to track changes and revoke access rights of many editors.

Answer 2

You might want to consider upgrading your content porter to 2009 SP1. It is compatible with 5.3 SP 1 and 2011 SP1 as well.

There is probably no way to carry out a migration without a freeze period but using a one-time database upgrade and content porter, you could keep it to a minimum.

You might also want to consider a design freeze ( no schema or template changes ), based on your blueprint and port ONLY content changes done later across 2 environments, keeping risk to a minimum.

I hope it helps. Good luck convincing the authors :).

Answer 3

You might consider having an additional Tridion server running for a while. I'm thinking of a process something like this.

1. Content is created on production (5.3)
2. Copy production database, and upgrade it to 2011
3. Ensure that your "spare" Tridion 2011 server is configured to use the upgraded database.
4. Content port the content from there to your "upgrade" environment
5. Rinse and repeat at intervals

Of course, I may not have totally captured your logic, but some variation on this theme would probably work. The basic premise of having a spare environment is usually way more feasible these days than it used to be. Often it's as simple as cloning a VM. If you need an extra SDL Tridion license for a short period, I'd recommend talking to them about it. They are in favour of people upgrading, and will usually help when they can.

Answer 4

I'm assuming your 5.3 machine is your development environment and your 2011 is your production environment and your request to send some delta items to your production environment.

It is possible to upgrade from 5.3 sp1 straight to 2011, I'd recommend getting your environments at the same version, which will make it possible for you to content port from one 2011 environment to the other.

Perhaps if you put some more information here you might get a better answer from the community.