rpettit Posted October 18, 2014 Posted October 18, 2014 We currently run everything internally using VMware and Windows Server 2012 R2. Has anyone made the move to a complete Office 365 solution? I am interested in visiting a few school that have made the change to see their experiences. Any help is greatly appreciated. Our Headteacher has asked for this to be investigated.
snagrat Posted October 18, 2014 Posted October 18, 2014 What parts of Office 365 do you currently run internally? Exchange? Sharepoint? Lync?
rpettit Posted October 18, 2014 Author Posted October 18, 2014 We run Exchange 2013. We do not use Sharepoint as we have Firefly, neither do we use lync. There is talk about us investigating office 365 because of OneDrive and iOS apps (as we have 400+ iPads). In general terms taking all our data and migrating to 365 cloud storage and using those services.
Marshall_IT Posted October 18, 2014 Posted October 18, 2014 By everything do you just mean running exchange and sharepoint in office 365? Would you be wanting to run SSO thus needing ADFS servers. Or do you mean also running servers in Azure for backup, maybe even dns, ad etc?
Roberto Posted October 18, 2014 Posted October 18, 2014 (edited) We run Exchange 2013. We do not use Sharepoint as we have Firefly, neither do we use lync. There is talk about us investigating office 365 because of OneDrive and iOS apps (as we have 400+ iPads). In general terms taking all our data and migrating to 365 cloud storage and using those services. Where does this "talk" originate? What is the desired outcome of this? What precisely are the talkers talking about moving to the cloud? We use O365 as a supplement to local services and while we're in the infancy of our projects with it, I expect it to be very useful. However, it's not a magical cure-all (as I'm sure you know, but your SLT may not!) and any project to migrate data to the cloud needs to have firm objectives that can be measured to judge success just like any other project, rather than a vague feeling that "cloud must be good because there was an article about it in this month's 'IT-illiterate principal monthly' and they had a picture of an actual cloud that looked really nice on the front page, so I gotta get me some cloud or else the other principals will take my juice money off me and spend it on gobstoppers at the next county-wide leadership conference". Edited October 18, 2014 by Roberto 1
synaesthesia Posted October 18, 2014 Posted October 18, 2014 We moved from Zimbra to O365 entirely, and we're (sort of) glad we did it. Firstly, Zimbra was getting a little old and updates were not easy. Plus storage requirements of the ever expanding use of email. However the main concern was security - too often staff fell for phishing attacks and soon found our zimbra server being used to send tens of thousands of spam emails. We very much enjoyed the customisability of Zimbra and would have liked to continue, but in the need to move forward and help remove some of that responsibility/likelihood of further attacks, the shift to 365 seemed reasonable enough. Mail migration worked particularly well, and dirsync keeps everything synchronised easily. The changeover was difficult for some (old dogs, new tricks); that includes us technical staff as much as teachers. Students got used to it immediately. On top of which the extras that come with it are great - onedrive will help us move people away from relying on USB drives and office online is a great bonus.
Marshall_IT Posted October 18, 2014 Posted October 18, 2014 We have over 800 iPads in school ,soon to be over 1000. We use office 365 and have purchased the A3 (E2 now?) license for staff accounts, although this might change now MS are giving office for iPad away to staff as well as students. OneDrive is invaluable for transferring data from the iPads to the school network and for handing in work to staff or collaborative working. Of you have the cloud services from Firefly you can also use the integration with OneDrive to hand in work directly from your OneDrive. MS have been really good at adding the missing features from Exchange on-site to Exchange Online too and with the A3/E2 licence you get rights management allowing encryption and also all the litigation hold etc. Any specific questions I'm happy to answer.
3s-gtech Posted October 18, 2014 Posted October 18, 2014 We run Exchange 2013 and Lync 2013 internally. Welsh Government funding has given all secondaries access to O365, so we have that set up as well which gives us the best of both worlds IMO. We won't be migrating our email across to it (AFAIK there are no plans to implent Dirsync etc, so different usernames and passwords for it are the order of the day) but we can always use it supplementally. Could you trial it like that?
truebluesteve Posted October 18, 2014 Posted October 18, 2014 We are going to migrate to 0365 in the next few weeks. We are currently running Exchange Server 2007 on Server 2003 and our hardware is getting on a bit and needs replacing. I thought about upgrading and keeping on prem but financially it didn't really make sense. I have also spoken to a lot of people in education and business who have migrated and the feedback has been very positive. Once the migration has completed we are going to investigate Sharepoint and Lync
PotNoodleTech Posted October 20, 2014 Posted October 20, 2014 Moving to O365 E1 plan here. Replacing an internal system and an LEA web based Exchange. Considering what the E1 package does for free, for us I see no reason to use anything else!
gshaw Posted October 20, 2014 Posted October 20, 2014 (edited) We've moved email to Office 365 for all staff and students, works fine just a couple of caveats to watch out for in terms of firewall rules and client software if you're using proxy servers. Lync as a videoconferencing, IM and add-on to an enterprise VOIP system also working fine. The only exception for Lync would be if you want it to replace your in-house phone system as that's a more complicated setup needing some bare-metal grunt to run. SharePoint is our next project but we've found some unfortunate issues that are very specific to running a) in the cloud and b) as an Office 365 for Education customer that mean you may want to think twice about doing it. We have over 800 iPads in school ,soon to be over 1000. We use office 365 and have purchased the A3 (E2 now?) license for staff accounts, although this might change now MS are giving office for iPad away to staff as well as students. @Marshall_IT where did you hear about Office for iPad going onto the free plan? If true that's a massive win for us Edited October 20, 2014 by gshaw
jamesbmarshall Posted October 20, 2014 Posted October 20, 2014 It's not going on the free plan. Office 365 ProPlus will be available to teachers under the same terms as Student Advantage; i.e. you'll have to cover all of your FTE staff for Office under your existing OVS-ES or EES agreement in order to qualify. So not free, "no additional cost"!
gshaw Posted October 20, 2014 Posted October 20, 2014 (edited) It's not going on the free plan. Office 365 ProPlus will be available to teachers under the same terms as Student Advantage; i.e. you'll have to cover all of your FTE staff for Office under your existing OVS-ES or EES agreement in order to qualify. So not free, "no additional cost"! @jamesbmarshall we do that anyway, which was why getting A3 just for the iPad apps used to feel like paying twice. Good to hear MS is addressing it. How do we go about activating this for staff, is it something we need to apply for from our reseller like with Student Advantage? Edited October 20, 2014 by gshaw
jamesbmarshall Posted October 21, 2014 Posted October 21, 2014 @jamesbmarshall we do that anyway, which was why getting A3 just for the iPad apps used to feel like paying twice. Good to hear MS is addressing it. How do we go about activating this for staff, is it something we need to apply for from our reseller like with Student Advantage? I believe it launches later this year (December?) so best advice is to speak to your preferred licensing reseller and get the details from them. It'll probably follow the same as Student Advantage where you'll get the licences added to your EES or OVS-ES agreement and then activate it in Office 365 via a link or product key but your reseller should know for sure!
teejay Posted October 21, 2014 Posted October 21, 2014 Just make sure you fully understand the consequences of using hosted services of a subsidiary of a US company, please make sure whoever is your data controller is fully aware and signs off on this, it's not a decision to be taken lightly, especially if you are moving staff accounts to the cloud. Some quotes from the ICO taken from a zdnet article: "This Act is wide-ranging and it is our understanding that the US Government could request information from Microsoft as a US company and that this could include information held outside the EU. When an organisation is considering whether to disclose personal data, they will take into account whether the legal obligation applies to them, whether there is a court order and so on. If the request is made to Microsoft Ireland, then they will make the decision whether or not to disclose. As part of making that decision, they may contact the organisations who supplied them with the data." A few months later, the ICO official emailed a reply to clarify a few points I made in regards to EU subsidiary companies, which are wholly owned by U.S.-parent organisations: "As previously stated, the USA PATRIOT Act could be used to get EU-sourced information from a U.S. company. If the US company approached the EU company with a request for the information, then the EU company would have to consider whether to disclose the data." It is correct that once the data has been transferred to a U.S. company, that company may be subject to the USA PATRIOT Act. That is one factor for an EU company to consider when deciding to transfer personal data to a U.S. company." The EU company would have to consider whether to disclose the data. Yet though the U.S. wholly-owned subsidiary company, like Microsoft UK/Ireland Ltd. and Google UK/Ireland Ltd. are based in Europe and fall under European law, they would still be required to comply with their US parent organisations as explained in the previous post. The Information Commissioner's Office for the UK Government made a clear statement that EU based wholly-owned subsidiary companies are vulnerable to the USA PATRIOT Act.
jamesbmarshall Posted October 21, 2014 Posted October 21, 2014 If anyone is concerned about where Microsoft stands on this, or wants to find out more about how Microsoft handles data when it comes to cloud services, check out the Office 365 Trust Centre: Office 365 Trust Center – cloud computing security. Microsoft is accredited to UK CESG OFFICIAL for Office 365 and is also certified ISO2001 and signed up to the EU Safe Harbour agreement.
Marshall_IT Posted October 21, 2014 Posted October 21, 2014 Both Microsoft and Google have a very recent history of challenging bulk requests for data. Which is a good sign. Also encryption by default is great. Does anyone know if Microsoft encrypt all traffic between datacentres like Google now do?
jamesbmarshall Posted October 21, 2014 Posted October 21, 2014 Does anyone know if Microsoft encrypt all traffic between datacentres like Google now do? Yes, since December last year: Protecting customer data from government snooping - The Official Microsoft Blog
Marshall_IT Posted October 21, 2014 Posted October 21, 2014 Yes, since December last year: Protecting customer data from government snooping - The Official Microsoft Blog Thanks James! Good moves for all concerned.
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