I think the original poster meant is it possible to have 7.1 as a separate site, perhaps for testing and setting up the look/functionality to match that of a 7.0.9 site (for example). And then... when all is complete... to migrate users and data to the new site. Is this possible? Our site is heavily customised and we don't want to simply throw our users (and us!) into 7.1 without any template tweaks or site modifications.
You can setup D7.1 as separate site to test all the modules/templates. After you ensured that all works as it should - make an upgrade of original site.
Can you perhaps be a little clearer on this? What I would say is that perhaps one needs to make a clone of their current 7.0.9 site, complete with all modules and customisations, including of course a clone of the database. Then upgrade that clone site to see what breaks. I don't think setting up 7.1 and then trying to get the customisations in place and modules in place would be the correct way to go.
I think the gist of the question was if one could set up a Dolphin 7.1 and then migrate see more the 7.0.9 database over to the new 7.1 site. Will there be a database migration tool that can be used to migrate a Dolphin 7.0.9 database structure to the Dolphin 7.1 database structure?
It will not be migration script - It will be upgrade script.
If you want to try a safe upgrade - make a copy of your site, apply upgrade patch, test it, if everything is fine - apply upgrade patch to the live site.
I think the gist of the question was if one could set up a Dolphin 7.1 and then migrate see more
If you want to try a safe upgrade - make a copy of your site, apply upgrade patch, test it, if everything is fine - apply upgrade patch to the live site.
We have setup a test clone of our site and would like to test 7.1.