Exchange 2013 Hybrid expected behaviour

[Gurtlush]

yesterday after weeks of reading online guides i started the Exchange 2013 Hybrid setup wizard.

We already have pupil Office 365 setup so i added a new domain (no problems) setup Azure AD Connect (removed dirsync due it going end of life) No problems.

The wizard went through without problems and i have checked email routing from the existing web email to the onsite exchange and again no problems

So i then pick on a user with a local exchange account and from Office 365 assign various product licenses (in this case office for faculty)

Do i need to assign an exchange license?

I have tried both with and without the license. Either way the user can login fine, Can see online apps (word etc) but when clicking the emailing icon

we get something went wrong (if a license is added) it says can't find mailbox

If no license is added then the email icon doesn't appear.

 

Having hunted around the web last night i can't find anywhere to state what should happen?

Do i need to assign an exchange online license?

 

I assume that the email account for the hybrid exchange users should redirect to the onsite exchange owa?

 

Any advice greatly received.

[AlanD]

...will be interested to know how you get on with this. Why not simply migrate to o365? What do you gain by going hybrid? Because...as I understand it, once you choose hybrid you must keep your local exchange server to manage mail..even if there are no local mailboxes. To address your question..once the hybrid is set up are you not looking for an option to move the mailbox?

[Gurtlush]

The plan was always to move mailboxes over but over a period of time rather than one big hit. We wanted to get staff using office365 and then do a controlled migration across. The hybrid process seemed the easiest and logical way to do it. Although not recommended there are quite a few guides on the removal of the hybrid process but i have a fair few applications that require smtp relay and exchange is very simple to use for that. (and in one case the preferred solution).

But to keep this on track has anyone done the hybrid route? As i still can't find an answer as to how office 365 email should work when the user has an exchange onsite account. They get can login via the office 365 portal fine and see all their icons but any that require email (email, tasks etc) don't work as it says they don't have a mailbox. i thought that this icon should route them through to the onsite exchange owa or even use outlook anywhere via autodiscovery to give them a mailbox view?

But again most of the guides cover the actual setup not the expected behaviour when it's completed.

[mrnoisy]

We have been battling with hybrid for a while on and off, the plan is to have staff onsite exchange 2013 and students in the cloud.

So far we are really struggling with routing, we can get users into the cloud, azure AD synced, assign licence for outlook, provision mailbox, change ad attributes.

However we can't get mail to route back to on premises users, cloud users can send and receive to external addresses but we can't get the mail to route to onsite users.

Hybrid deployments are extremely complex and although the hybrid wizard runs and completes there's still a lot of changes that need to be made. We will battle on but I think we are going to need some support either from MS or external.

I have some tech articles which explain the various options for hybrid routing, I'll link them when I'm back in the office next week. They really help to clarify what your trying to achieve but as yet in practice it's still proving quite a challenge.

[Gurtlush]

All routing etc works fine both internal and within office 365. The hybrid wizard sets up a send and receive connectors to the internal exchange server (Exchange Admin centre, mail flow, connectors) there is a validate link so you can check the routing and tweak if needed.

For your onsite users if they log on to office 365 does the email link open their exchange mailbox?

[Tefters]

Full hybrid here, fully working, 1 VM left on-site with Exchange for management purposes.

 

Hybrid is the best setup as allows full on-site management and also is needed when running Skype 4 Business on-prem with UM hosted

[mrnoisy]

All routing etc works fine both internal and within office 365. The hybrid wizard sets up a send and receive connectors to the internal exchange server (Exchange Admin centre, mail flow, connectors) there is a validate link so you can check the routing and tweak if needed.

For your onsite users if they log on to office 365 does the email link open their exchange mailbox?

 

Yes onsite users can get to the mail boxes, problem is with internal messages to on premises users, the mail fails with a hop loop error can't remember the specific message, validating connectors return no errors.

[mrnoisy]

Found the routing links

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj659050(v=exchg.150).aspx

[Gurtlush]

Found the routing links

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj659050(v=exchg.150).aspx

My email routing works fine. Its just when logged into office 365 users with local exchange mailboxes can't view them. They can log in via the standard owa link no problem.

Can you confirm for your users that have a local exchange account the office 365 email link is on this form :- https://outlook.office365.com/owa/?realm=email domain here&exsvurl=1&ll-cc=2057&modurl=0 ??

[mrnoisy]

Thanks I'll take a look next week, on holiday at the moment but you know how it is always working [emoji3]

As I understand it your on prem users will not see their mailboxes in 365 they do not sync they are either cloud or on prem.

Maybe @Tefters can confirm if he's up and running

[Tefters]

Thanks I'll take a look next week, on holiday at the moment but you know how it is always working [emoji3]

As I understand it your on prem users will not see their mailboxes in 365 they do not sync they are either cloud or on prem.

Maybe @Tefters can confirm if he's up and running

Sorry got major issue with Office 365 UM and on conference calls with Microsoft...

 

From what I remember during my migration and half on-prem / half cloud you have to direct users to your on-prem OWA and with all the routing and rules in-place it then works out whether you need to be on that server or directs you to Office 365, I don't believe you can do the reverse as I believe mrnoisy said as it will just look online and go "no mailbox here" as Office 365 while it knows about your exchange hybrid environment knows nothing about you OWA.

 

I remember going through a load of testing scenarios and tweaking before I was fully happy and had all scenarios covered. It was especially awkward for us as we have on-prem S4B and am using UM too.

 

I'm reading this lightly while bashing my head against a desk over this UM issue I got going on so apologies if this is not at all what was asked and if you want a hand or guidance a little more in-depth add my on Skype and S4B via [email protected]

 

EDIT - Having re-read a little more, you do not assigned Exchange licenses to on-prem mailboxes in Office 365, you only do this once you have migrated the mailbox from on-prem to office 365.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Tefters