Exchange 365 Migration

[truebluesteve]

Hi All

 

After a bit of deliberation and weighing up the pros and cons of upgrading our on-prem Exchange Server (300 + staff only) against migrating to Exchange via O365 I have pretty much decided on the latter. I do have a couple of questions to ask before I make that final decision and I'm sure people on here will have the answers....

 

1. Does the migration take across all the shared mailboxes, distribution groups etc. that exist on our on-prem server?

 

2. We already have our students on 365 which is on a different email domain to our staff. I assume adding an additional domain to the O365 account isn't going to cause any problems and that they are effectively isolated from each other?

 

3. I plan to use RM Unify to sync the accounts with AD - any issues with this or with the fact that I would like to also sync the student accounts (we currently import them via CSV in September) even though they are using different email addresses.

 

Apologies if the questions have been asked before but I couldn't find any suitable answers!

 

Cheers

 

Steve

[Edu-IT]

Hi All

 

After a bit of deliberation and weighing up the pros and cons of upgrading our on-prem Exchange Server (300 + staff only) against migrating to Exchange via O365 I have pretty much decided on the latter. I do have a couple of questions to ask before I make that final decision and I'm sure people on here will have the answers....

 

1. Does the migration take across all the shared mailboxes, distribution groups etc. that exist on our on-prem server?

 

2. We already have our students on 365 which is on a different email domain to our staff. I assume adding an additional domain to the O365 account isn't going to cause any problems and that they are effectively isolated from each other?

 

3. I plan to use RM Unify to sync the accounts with AD - any issues with this or with the fact that I would like to also sync the student accounts (we currently import them via CSV in September) even though they are using different email addresses.

 

Apologies if the questions have been asked before but I couldn't find any suitable answers!

 

Cheers

 

Steve

With point 3, I think you'll find they'll all end up on one domain. So if you want staff on another domain you'll have to manually (perhaps by Powershell) change their email address after so there could be a bit of extra work there for you. Having multiple domains in Office 365 in itself isn't a problem.

[Haptic]

Hi TBS, this may or may not be of use to you.

 

1. There are several types of migration that you can perform to go live on Office 365’s Exchange. “Staged, Cutover, IMAP and Remote” The type of migration that you choose will depend on a few things like what version of Exchange that you are running on prem, the number of user accounts and the type of person that’s going to shout loudest at you if it all goes wrong.

 

2. You can register more than one domain on your office 365 control panel and then assign the domain to the user for email purposes it appears as a dropdown list option in the user settings on the Office 365 Control panel or you may want to use AD. You will need to think about the impact of more than one domain SharePoint and Public site if you are going to use them.

 

3. Implementing AD can affect both of the above and how you implement. Remember you are migrating mailboxes not transport rules etc. Depending on your current version of Exchange its complexity and your desired end result you may want to look at a staged/hybrid migration as an option?

 

This link may be useful

 

Mailbox migration to Exchange Online: Exchange Online Help

 

Joe

[speckytecky]

Plug for CPLTD deserved as far as I'm concerned. I've been plodding through the treacle of trying to Migrate SWGfL Easymail to O365 For over a year now and Jon and particularly Andy Ratcliffe at CPLTD have shone the light that's making the whole thing more understandable to me at least. A well deserved thanks guys.

Hi TBS, this may or may not be of use to you.

 

1. There are several types of migration that you can perform to go live on Office 365’s Exchange. “Staged, Cutover, IMAP and Remote” The type of migration that you choose will depend on a few things like what version of Exchange that you are running on prem, the number of user accounts and the type of person that’s going to shout loudest at you if it all goes wrong.

 

2. You can register more than one domain on your office 365 control panel and then assign the domain to the user for email purposes it appears as a dropdown list option in the user settings on the Office 365 Control panel or you may want to use AD. You will need to think about the impact of more than one domain SharePoint and Public site if you are going to use them.

 

3. Implementing AD can affect both of the above and how you implement. Remember you are migrating mailboxes not transport rules etc. Depending on your current version of Exchange its complexity and your desired end result you may want to look at a staged/hybrid migration as an option?

 

This link may be useful

 

Mailbox migration to Exchange Online: Exchange Online Help

 

Joe

[Sylv3r]

As per your RM unify question, I believe it's not possible to have multiple domains on the one AD.

 

When it was first launched, we were were asked what we would like Unify to do and this is one of the things we suggested which I believe was added to the 'Wishlist'

[Edu-IT]

I think the feature is in testing right now. Could be wrong though.

[Haptic]

Plug for CPLTD..... A well deserved thanks guys.

 

Thanks for the nod, we're both convinced you did the hard work. Keep us posted on how things progress.

 

Joe