Migrating Exchange 2010 to Office 365

[Zoom7000]

I will be migrating my local school Exchange 2010 to Office 365 this week. I have already signed up for plan A2 and the domain has been verified with Microsoft. I have advised the staff that emails will not be available for the duration of the spring break. I have approximately 30 mailboxes and I need to migrate all the emails to Office 365. So, does anyone have any tips on how I should proceed?

[apearce]

Hi,

Are you looking to do a Cutover or Hybrid migration? There are a few different options available. To me, hybrid gives the most success rate however does require a bit more configuration.

 

Do you have DirSync installed - this would help with migration of Hybrid but will cause a few errors on Cutover because you have on-prem

[Zoom7000]

Hi Alex,

 

I have no idea what cutover or hybrid are. So, I'll go with whatever is most easiest! I haven't installed DirSync or anything else on the server so far. All I have done is configured the Office 365 admin panel, received approval from Microsoft for the school's domain and signed up for A2.

[snagrat]

Cutover would be the easiest method but you lose some features such as user's passwords syncing with the domain accounts

 

Both methods required no downtime if performed correctly.

[Zoom7000]

Ah, no, I would need passwords to be synced. Doing a bit of reading, isn't a staged migration the best way to go as I want to be completely rid of the local Exchange afterwards.

[snagrat]

Can't do staged with 2010. Hybrid would be the best if you want to get rid of local exchange afterwards.

[Zoom7000]

Thanks for that, looks like Hybrid is the way to go for me. Does anyone have a link to a decent guide or video instructions?

[snagrat]

Just the usually Microsoft tech guide will get you going.

 

Few things to ensure:

 

SSL is configured on your local exchange

 

Exchange 2010 SP3 CU2 is installed

 

Outlook Anywhere is enabled on local Exchange

 

Some more DNS entries will be required once you get going so consider that.

 

Hybrid will result in no downtime to end users.

[Zoom7000]

Can I do this migration without the need for an SSL certificate. I really don't fancy buying an SSL certificate when I'm not really going to need it once I've migrated over to Office 365? (Of course I'm presuming that I won't need it!)

[snagrat]

No you need SSL.

 

But google "InstantSSL Free" and you can get a 90day free one. I use it for all my migrations

[apearce]

Get your DirSync going first and then ensure that users can log in. Dont be doing a migration before knowing this is working for everyone. Then do you hybrid

[Zoom7000]

I was speaking to a colleague who had an interesting suggestion. Seeing as I only have 30 users I am migrating, it might be an idea to create the accounts manually on Office 365, export the PSTs from Exchange and then import in to Office 365. Yes, I know that I will lose password syncing, but I guess it isn't too bad considering the ease compared to an "official" method.

 

Any comments on that?

[snagrat]

Have you other stuff like Distribution lists or Room Mailboxes setup?

 

If so a proper migration would transfer these as well whereas doing what you suggest would require these to be setup manually on O365.

 

Other than that, and the time/slog of doing it manually, what you suggest will work.

[apearce]

sounds like that is a bit easier but just so you know there isn't an exchange PST import for Exchange Online - you will have to do it through the Outlook client.