SharePoint Migration and Upgrade Case Study
SharePoint Migration and Upgrade
Introduction
AECOM is one of the world’s leading infrastructure consulting firms, delivering professional services across the entire project lifecycle — from planning and design through to engineering, construction, and operational support. With clients in more than 150 countries and a long-standing global presence, AECOM supports major public and private sector infrastructure projects across a wide range of industries.
Within its Middle East operations, AECOM maintained a large SharePoint 2007 environment based in Dubai that supported critical HR functions across the region. Having served the business reliably for several years, the platform had become deeply embedded within day-to-day operations. However, ageing infrastructure and limited technical visibility presented growing operational and business risks that required urgent attention.
Challenges
AECOM’s Dubai-based SharePoint 2007 farm had been operating for many years and continued to support essential HR processes throughout the Middle East region. While the system remained operational, the underlying infrastructure had become increasingly outdated.
The environment was hosted on server operating systems and database platforms approaching Microsoft end-of-support, while the SharePoint 2007 implementation itself had long since become a legacy platform. This created a growing risk around security, supportability, performance, and long-term business continuity.
Compounding the issue, organisational changes following a major company acquisition and internal resource movement meant that much of the technical knowledge surrounding the farm’s implementation had been lost or insufficiently documented. Key information relating to architecture, maintenance procedures, configuration dependencies, and content management was no longer readily available.
This lack of visibility created uncertainty around the true state of the environment and significantly increased the risk associated with any future upgrade or migration effort. Recognising the exposure posed to a business-critical application, AECOM’s CIO identified the need for a structured technical assessment and a clear strategy to reduce risk while planning for the future of the platform.
Our Solution
Dolphin IT Solutions deployed an experienced SharePoint specialist onsite within AECOM’s Middle East offices to undertake a comprehensive technical review of the SharePoint 2007 farm.
Over a ten-day engagement, the review was conducted with a careful, non-invasive approach designed to avoid disruption to live services or impact day-to-day operations for staff relying on the system.
The assessment examined the full technical landscape of the SharePoint environment, providing AECOM with a detailed understanding of the farm’s architecture and operational health. This included:
- SharePoint farm architecture and server configuration analysis
- Database health checks and SQL environment assessment
- Review of backup procedures and disaster recovery readiness
- Security and infrastructure configuration evaluation
- Content structure analysis and storage assessment
- Identification of redundant or archive-ready content prior to migration
Particular attention was given to identifying content suitable for archiving or restructuring before any migration activity commenced. This helped reduce complexity and improve the efficiency of future upgrade planning.
Alongside the technical review, Dolphin IT Solutions conducted a series of interviews and workshops with management and operational stakeholders. These discussions helped uncover operational pain points, identify undocumented dependencies, and establish potential single points of failure within the existing system.
This combination of technical discovery and stakeholder engagement ensured that the review extended beyond infrastructure alone and addressed the wider business requirements underpinning the platform.
Results
The engagement provided AECOM with a clear and detailed understanding of a previously undocumented and high-risk SharePoint environment.
Through a structured SharePoint farm assessment and infrastructure review, the business gained visibility into system health, operational dependencies, and migration considerations without interrupting existing HR services.
The findings reduced uncertainty surrounding the legacy platform and provided AECOM with a practical roadmap for future migration and upgrade planning. By identifying risks, documenting the environment, and assessing both technical and business requirements, Dolphin IT Solutions helped establish a more secure and manageable path forward for this critical SharePoint application.
Client Testimonial
Dolphin IT Solutions has completed several SharePoint, Business Intelligence, and Web Development projects for us. They are always on-hand and ready to mobilise on a project right when we need them, sometimes at very short notice, but always with the right people and skills to get the job done. Their flexibility to service our needs from the start with minimal lead time, and their ability to completely understand our requirements immediately is why we have used them for outsourcing requirements and why we will continue to use them. Results, speed of delivery, and a cost effective professional service is what we need for our dynamic and demanding business. Dolphin IT Solutions has delivered this to us time and time again.
