From MVA Studios: Managing SharePoint On Prem vs Online

In rapid succession to yesterday’s Channel9 (@Ch9) addition of our Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) session entitled SharePoint Online Migration Planning, Channel9 has made our second SharePoint Online session available through their site. You can find 5 modules around the session “Managing SharePoint On-Premises vs. SharePoint Online” that was conducted by myself and GTconsult co-founder and COO Craig Tarr (@craig_tarr), who is heading home to Cape Town, South Africa this evening after spending a couple months in the US. But don’t fret, people: he’ll be back in the US later this year for another extended stay, including Ignite. The abstract for our second session is as follows:

What are the major administrative differences between SharePoint on-premises and SharePoint Online? Find out, in this helpful course.
Compare reporting, auditing, and information governance differences between the platforms, so you and your organization can make informed decisions about what it takes to transition to SharePoint in the cloud, either through a hybrid model or moving entirely to the cloud. Plus, explore the administrative capabilities of both platforms, and walk through management considerations for hybrid planning.

The modules are broken down as:

• Module 1: Common SharePoint Management Concerns
• Module 2: A Changing Admin Interface
• Module 3: Basic Admin Capabilities
• Module 4: Solving Common Problems
• Module 5: Making the Cloud Transition

These sessions come from content I’ve been delivering at events over the past year and a half or so. As we state at the beginning of the session in Module 1, this 200-level content is geared toward IT Pros, but with more of a project management and business analyst perspective. I like to tell audiences that mine is a pragmatic approach toward the cloud – I’m not anti-cloud, I just prefer that people go into some of these decisions with their eyes wide open, and understand that in some areas there is not yet parity between how you manage your environments on prem and how you manage them online (which also includes hybrid environments). Far too many customers get sold on the marketing vision before they understand what is real, which can make that transition to the cloud more painful and costly. If your company is beginning to plan for a move to Office 365 and, specifically, SharePoint Online, these sessions should help round out your planning efforts and help ensure that you have taken into account all of the environmental considerations.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was back in the MVA studios this week to record 8 modules around Yammer administration and power user best practices, which should be live in the next week or so, and which I’ll post online as soon as available. With these major content pieces off of my plate, I’m hoping to get back to a more regular blogging schedule, and finish my Ignite session content. So much to do, so little time…