Office 365 / Azure AD / On site exchange / ADFS

[mrbios]

I've just finished migrating all my mailboxes from my on site exchange (2013) into Office 365.

 

I'm using ADFS + Azure AD Connect and my domain is configured as a federated domain.

 

Is there a supported way of running now without the need for an exchange server? Can i decommission it? The reason for this question is this post https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vilath/2015/05/25/office-365-and-dirsync-why-should-you-have-at-least-one-exchange-server-on-premises/ which suggests i need to leave it in place. However that post is two years old and as we know quite well with Azure AD Connect, things change a lot.

 

So is it still the case that my onsite exchange should remain purely for changing settings on prem through it which then get migrated? If i do need to keep it, should i upgrade exchange to 2016 to support any new functionality?

 

Thanks

[Snuffkins]

We are in a similar situation.

 

As far as I'm aware that article is still correct. I assume eventually you will need to upgrade for new functionality or when 2013 is no longer supported. We haven't upgraded ours yet, still running 2013. In all honesty we probably won't upgrade until one of those two is true.

[apearce]

I dont see any reason why you should need to keep it. Have completed many exchange migrations with finishing off wiht the uninstall of exchange server. What you need to do is ensure you have a SMTP relay of some sorts if you need it for printers, scannersm back notifcation etc.

 

Just make sure you remove the hybrid (and you MX record is pointing to 365) and then uninstall Exchange from your environment. You could always turn it off for a few weeks first before completing an unistall.

[FN-GM]

We removed ours. We have had to manually tweak a few attributes on ad accounts for settings such as being hidden from the GAL and adding additional email address. Its no big deal.