How SharePoint Matches up to Public Folders

Replication
One final important feature of public folders is replication, the transfer of data from one public folder server to one or more public folder servers that maintain replicas of designated folders via a series of content-replication messages. The messages keep the source and destination servers synchronized. Replication moves public folder data closer to the end user to improve performance and is valuable where network latency is a problem. Public folder replication is also commonly used to provide redundancy, so that if an outage occurs on one public folder server, the content remains accessible via a replica on another public folder server.

MOSS 2007 doesn't have out-of-the-box replication functionality; however, third-party vendors such as iOra offer products that fit this scenario. iOra Accelerator for SharePoint replicates Web and file-based content to a remote server or an end user's machine.

The Way Forward
You can begin to prepare for the retirement of public folders by assessing how public folders are used in your organization. Questions to answer include the following:

• How many folders are actively being used?

• How many folders are dormant?

• Which folders are mail-enabled?

• What is the security structure of your folder hierarchy?

• Are you replicating folders, and why?

• Where are you using custom forms, event sinks, and workflow?

Several tools help with assessment and migration. Quest Software's MessageStats can help you analyze your public folder infrastructure, and its Public Folder Migrator for SharePoint can help you migrate content from public folders to SharePoint containers. AvePoint's DocAve 4.1 Migrator for SharePoint is another such tool.

If you use public folders as a simple document repository and don't rely on replication, migrating to SharePoint is a natural and relatively straight-forward process. If, however, you use public folders as a document repository with highly complex workflow, custom forms, and event sink routines, Microsoft recommends that you leave them running happily in Exchange. But given that the future of public folders is uncertain, now would be a good time to start investigating redesigning these applications for a more suitable platform such as Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0, taking advantage of WSS 3.0, MOSS 2007, and Exchange 2007 Web Services. Migrating from public folders provides the opportunity for you to assess these new capabilities and determine whether your organization can leverage them.