Assess the current environment.

Identify existing business requirements that are met by Configuration Manager 2007 and develop plans to continue to meet those requirements with Configuration Manager 2012.

Review the functionality and changes in Configuration Manager 2012 and use this information to help design your Configuration Manager 2012 hierarchy.

For more information, see Fundamentals of Configuration Manager 2012 and What’s New in Configuration Manager 2012.

Determine the administrative security model to use when implementing role-based administration.

For more information, see .

Assess your network and Active Directory topology.

Review your existing domain structure and network topology and consider how this influences your hierarchy design and migration tasks.

Finalize your Configuration Manager 2012 hierarchy design.

Decide upon the placement of a central administration site, primary sites, secondary sites, and content distribution options.

Map your hierarchy to the computers that you will use for Configuration Manager 2012.

Identify the computers that Configuration Manager 2012 sites will use and ensure that they have sufficient capacity to meet existing and future operational requirements.

Plan your object migration strategy.

You use migration jobs to migrate objects including site boundaries, collections, and advertisements. For more information, see

Configuration Manager 2012 migrates only the objects that you select. Any objects that are not migrated must be re-created in Configuration Manager 2012 if they are required in the new environment.

Objects that can migrate are displayed when you configure migration jobs.

Plan your client migration strategy.

Migrating clients to Configuration Manager 2012 involves two steps:

• The migration of data to support clients, such as collections and deployment content.
  
  
• The in-place upgrade of the Configuration Manager 2012 client software on each client device.
  
  

Plan to migrate clients by using a controlled approach to limit the network bandwidth and server processing requirements when you install the new Configuration Manager 2012 client software. For example, use software distribution to upgrade clients.

Plan for inventory and compliance data.

Configuration Manager 2012 does not support migrating hardware inventory, software inventory, or desired configuration management compliance data for software updates or clients. The Configuration Manager 2012 client will resend this information to its assigned site after the client has upgraded and the new client data has been generated.

Plan for the completion of migration from the source hierarchy.

Decide when objects and clients will be migrated and when you can decommission Configuration Manager 2007 site servers.

Identify the computers to use in the Configuration Manager 2012 hierarchy.

Because Configuration Manager 2012 does not support an in-place upgrade of the existing Configuration Manager 2007 infrastructure, you must use a side-by-side deployment and install Configuration Manager 2012 on new computers.

Create your Configuration Manager 2012 hierarchy.

Install and configure your Configuration Manager 2012 hierarchy by using one of the following designs:

• Installing a central administration site and then install at least one primary site in the hierarchy.
  
  
• Install a single primary site that will be the only primary site in the hierarchy.
  
  

If you want to migrate information that is related to software updates, configure a software update point in Configuration Manager 2012 and synchronize software updates.

You must configure and synchronize software updates in Configuration Manager 2012 before you can migrate information from Configuration Manager 2007 that relates to software updates.

For more information, see Configuring Software Updates in Configuration Manager 2012

Install and configure additional site system roles in Configuration Manager 2012.

Configure additional site system roles and site systems that you will require.

Verify site functionality.

Check the following:

• Database replication is working between sites installed in a hierarchy. Database replication is not applicable to stand-alone sites.
  
  
• Installed site system roles are operational.
  
  
• Verify that existing Configuration Manager 2012 clients can communicate successfully with the site.
  
  

Enable migration functionality in Configuration Manager 2012.

Specify an active source hierarchy by configuring the top-level site of the Configuration Manager 2007 environment. After you configure an active source hierarchy, you can then configure additional migration options.

Select and configure Configuration Manager 2007 sites from the active source hierarchy.

You must configure credentials for each Configuration Manager 2007 site in the active source hierarchy as a source site if you gather and migrate data about objects at that site. When you configure source sites, the data gathering process begins and continues throughout the migration period. Data gathering ensures that you can migrate objects from the Configuration Manager 2007 hierarchy that are updated or new since a previous data gathering process.

Configure distribution point sharing.

You can share Configuration Manager 2007 distribution points with Configuration Manager 2012 to make content for objects that you migrate available to clients in the Configuration Manager 2012 hierarchy. This ensures that the same content remains available for clients in both hierarchies and that you can maintain this content until you stop gathering data and complete the migration.

Create and run migration jobs to migrate objects and collections to Configuration Manager 2012.

You create migration jobs to migrate objects and collections between hierarchies. For content, you assign a Configuration Manager 2012 site that will own content and that site will access the original source file location after the migration period and distribute it to Configuration Manager 2012 distribution points.

Install the Configuration Manager 2012 client.

Install the Configuration Manager 2012 client on computers. This is an in-place upgrade from the Configuration Manager 2007 client software.

Upgrade Configuration Manager 2007 distribution points.

When you no longer have to support clients in your Configuration Manager 2007 environment, you can upgrade a shared distribution point in your Configuration Manager 2012 hierarchy. When you upgrade the distribution points, you do not have to redeploy content to new distribution points. You can upgrade only standard distribution points on servers that do not have additional site system roles.

Complete migration.

After you have migrated data and clients from all sites in the active source hierarchy, and you have upgraded the distribution points, you can stop gathering data for each Configuration Manager 2007 site. You can then remove any migration information that you do not need and decommission your Configuration Manager 2007 infrastructure.