SharePoint databases to be migrated

Question

I am planning to migrate from SP 2007 to SP 2013. I migrated a content database and everything was successfully. I have only one site collection (the one I migrated as test) and it has some pages. I used attach detach method but left the current system untouched. I just copied the database. I was wondering when migrating should I move all the databases or only the Content database? Do the content database also takes care about access rights as well? Is there any important database (not content database) that should be migrated also?

Answer 1

You can't directly migrate 2007 to 2013.

To start with you should migrate 2007 to 2010, and then 2010 to 2013.

The ideal migration strategy is Content Database Migration

1. Prepare to upgrade
2. First upgrade: Upgrade the content to SharePoint 2010 Products
3. Second upgrade: Upgrade the content to SharePoint 2013
4. Start serving requests on the SharePoint 2013 farm

Once you migrate all Content/Security gets migrated for that content database.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee947141(v=office.15).aspx

Answer 2

Content databases contain all content (sites, lists, libraries, items, permissions, etc.).

See here for list of different database types in SharePoint Foundation 2007. Test the migrated site collection thoroughly, but as it is SharePoint Foundation, content database is most probably all you need - provided that you are ready to configure few things in Central Admin of the destination environment. In "simple" environments it is usually more cost effective to just reconfigure environment when migrating instead of attempting to figure out what configuration items to migrate and how.