Sitefinity 3.x to 4.x – The Migration story continues!

As you may know, currently there is a Migration tool, intended for a data migration of your Sitefinity 3.x content to a 4.x system. Our idea with it was to make it open-source, so that everyone can change it according to his specific needs. However, there were a few challenges with this approach:

• We didn’t invest enough time to enhance the tool to cover more complex scenarios.
• The tool requires developer skills in order to be used
•  It is not easy to be customized – the developer has to know both 3.x and 4.x API
•  It is not actively supported or updated.

We realize that a better solution is needed to migrate Sitefinity 3.x projects to 4.x and we feel the need to take a stronger position on this matter. Therefore we’ve assigned one internal team to enhancing the migration tool and this will be their main focus over the next weeks. We will deliver weekly iterations with the new enhancements so everything we do gets released as soon as possible. We are also taking the migration tool off Codeplex and are going to include it as a module inside Sitefinity 4.x. This module will be turned off by default, and would be enabled on demand –This approach will achieve the following:

• Better maintability. We will be providing improvements weekly or bi-weekly, with the internal builds and service packs. This means that the Migration module will be actively supported from now on with frequent iterations, adding new features.
• Easier installation – it will come already installed in Sitefinity. We will simplify the installation in the 3.x part.

In order to guarantee the success of the project, we will work with real life 3.x projects. Some of the missing features that block the migration will be implemented in the 4.x version.

Last week we have created a new forum thread on Sitefinity.com – Migrating from 3.x to 4.x. You may post all your questions or ideas related to the migration story there. We will closely monitor it and will appreciate any feedback you might have.

The answer to the question you all have now is – you will see the module for the first time with the internal release on 22^nd of July.