After your upgrade has been completed, you will want to perform several post-upgrade tasks. These tasks are best practices.

First, if you’ve upgraded to 32-bit hardware and now need to move to 64-bit hardware, then refer to the earlier section, "Decide Which Hardware You Will Use for Your SharePoint Server 2007 Implementation," and visit the Lessons Learned sidebar on moving your farm from 32-bit to 64-bit hardware.

Second, you’ll need to plan for your decommissioning of the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 servers. It is best practice, if possible, to leave your SharePoint Portal Server 2003 farm running in a read-only mode for a defined period of time–usually three to six months—before pulling it down entirely. You can leave this farm up and running if you’re using the content database or user copy methods. The other two methods will not expose your SharePoint Portal Server 2003 farm after the upgrade has been completed.

For the gradual upgrade method, be sure to uninstall SharePoint Portal Server 2003 only after you have finalized the upgrade in the SharePoint Server 2007 Central Administration interface. Finalizing the upgrade should be a planned event and not one to be executed lightly because it is a one-way, one-time, no-revert action. Once you have elected to finalize the upgrade, the door is permanently shut on reverting any site collections to the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 platform, and keeping SharePoint Portal Server 2003 running on your servers is a waste of resources. Be sure your project plan specifies who will execute the finalize upgrade action and the milestones that must be met before this action is committed.