Need to migrate Exchange 2010 to......?

[AJWhite1970]

Sat planning all the summer works and the big job is what to do with my trusty old Exchange 2010 server. Everything on it works like a charm but with it going EOL early 2020 it’s time to plot its demise.

 

It’s got about 1800 accounts on it and 600GB of mail although that can probably be reduced over the summer and at present clients are running Office 2010 (but could change to 2016\19 without too many issues)

 

So I reckon I have one of four paths:-

 

1) Migrate to O365

2) Migrate to GSuite

3) Stay on premises with Exchange 2019 (using CodeTwo or similar in one hop)

4) Hybrid migration to O365 (after upgrading to Exchange 2019 first)

 

No Macs or Chromebooks on-site to muddy the waters, every client is either Win 10 or iPads, all the servers are on Server 2019 (apart from the old ex2010 server which plods along on Server 2008....)

 

Pro’s and cons for each one, and I know this is a piece of string question, but interested to know which way would you go and why?

 

Cheers

Andrew

[3s-gtech]

Problem with Exchange 2019 is the mind blowing system requirements (check them out!) I went for Exchange 2016 (from 2013) earlier this year, no regrets. It was a nice process. I stuck with on site because I feel I can support it better at present (though our WAN link is improving).

 

If you don’t have the hatdware ready, and fancy the switch, I’d go to O365 otherwise. Reduces your workload and has a nice migration path with familiar management.

 

You will have to go hybrid if you switch to O365, as that’s how normal migration works. Same sort of process as 2010->2019 with mailbox migration, flow etc.

 

GSuite - not sure. I get the impression it’s straightforward and a good product - do you use it already?

[TheLion]

In the same position. Emails don't belong on prem any more, hence why Microsoft have gone crazy on the specs on Exchange 2019, they want you to go Office365.

 

We are getting RM to move emails to GSuite they have a special third party software that copies the emails. Gmail/Office365 has better spam protection than your on prem or third party spam filter.

[forkies]

Exchange 2010 -> 2019 is not possible, you will have to step to 2013 or 2016 first. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/plan-and-deploy/system-requirements?view=exchserver-2019

 

Exchange version Exchange 2019 organization coexistence

Exchange 2010 and earlier versions Not supported

[round2it]

Code2 is a good choice great product

[MS2011]

Sat planning all the summer works and the big job is what to do with my trusty old Exchange 2010 server. Everything on it works like a charm but with it going EOL early 2020 it’s time to plot its demise.

 

It’s got about 1800 accounts on it and 600GB of mail although that can probably be reduced over the summer and at present clients are running Office 2010 (but could change to 2016\19 without too many issues)

 

So I reckon I have one of four paths:-

 

1) Migrate to O365

2) Migrate to GSuite

3) Stay on premises with Exchange 2019 (using CodeTwo or similar in one hop)

4) Hybrid migration to O365 (after upgrading to Exchange 2019 first)

 

No Macs or Chromebooks on-site to muddy the waters, every client is either Win 10 or iPads, all the servers are on Server 2019 (apart from the old ex2010 server which plods along on Server 2008....)

 

Pro’s and cons for each one, and I know this is a piece of string question, but interested to know which way would you go and why?

 

Cheers

Andrew

 

What your spec for the server ?

[AJWhite1970]

What your spec for the server ?

 

If I stay on-premises I'll purchase one based on whatever specs I need for whichever version I'm going to (although looking at Ex2019, might need more RAM than there is currently in stock in Asia....)

[XiJ]

If you’re not using g suite already and don’t have chrome books then o365 is the obvious choice unless you have a plan to fully embrace GSuite.

 

We’ve never done a ‘full’ migration from exchange but have uploaded mailboxes into o365 without issue. Just takes time (even with a great internet connection).

 

I personally wouldn’t go on prem now. Start with the free A1 tier and save your resources on site.

[Roberto]

Office 365 is probably the correct course of action here. You can migrate E2010 --> O365 without too much hassle and the specs to run an on-prem E2019 bridgehead/cas server with no mail DBs afterwards to keep things squared away aren't too much of an issue.

[pablo007]

I recently had this conundrum in my current school which was on exchange 2010 office 2010 everything working brilliantly.

 

In previous schools, I had migrated to office 363 (that's not a typo, that's what people call it now, it goes down that often) we moved from that to Gmail which was only slightly better.

 

So here I decided to stay on-prem and upgrade to exchange 2016/outlook 2016 which with the help of various websites and this forum, went ok, it's much slower than exchange 2010 despite meeting all the system requirements, I suspect I am missing some black art tweak somewhere (my outlook users are using online mode not cached to try and speed things up and I am recycling the IIS app pools fairly regularly.

 

So whichever route you take prepare SLT and staff for a poorer service, let them know its not your fault and you really would have kept it how it was but you are forced to upgrade or run the risk of bad things happening..

[howartp]

Great thread; I should be doing it this summer but I've got too much Host/SAN hardware and OS upgrades on to be worrying about Ex2010 as well.

 

We're Ex2010 and GSuite so in theory GMail is the sensible move, but we've so much Salamandered in Ex2010 I'd need to check if/what/how GMail supports the same features/usability.

[FishCustard]

As long as your Internet is stable, go to O365 and never have to administer an Exchange server at low level again.

[howartp]

(Yeah, just upgraded 100mb up/down to 1Gb up/down this Spring, so that makes much easier)

[3s-gtech]

Exchange 2016 shouldn't be slow - I went from a bare metal server with 32 GB of RAM and 16 cores (Exchange 2013) to a VM with 16GB and 4 cores (server on a newer architecture though) and if anything it's faster. No black magic - just a carefully planned migration with only the essentials.

[Jawloms]

For a school with around 100 staff and 650 students, and nothing else cloud based, what minimum speed connection would people suggest to go O365 for email?

[pablo007]

Apparently, exchange server is a memory management tool and takes as much as it can and then releases it to the operating system as it feels necessary, I have the same setup as you 16gb, 4vcpus databases over multiple drives and thought I carefully planned, following the recommended guidelines, so it is a mystery.

[jthompson]

Went from Exchange 2010 to Gmail last summer and am super happy to not be having to manage an on-prem email service any longer. Gmail's spam/phishing protections are monstrously good if you dial everything up to 11. The phishing thread on here would suggest that O365... not so much.

 

We don't have O365, so can't say how the migration experience compares. Migrating to Gmail took a bit of work for us, but G Suite does have an automagic Exchange data transfer option in the G Suite admin console (it just didn't work with our setup).

 

We've managed to replicate all of the various restrictions around who can email which group, how many recipients students can message in one go, etc. in Gmail, so it doesn't feel like we've lost any 'power' in that sense since moving away from on-prem Exchange.

[FishCustard]

Just a comment re: O365 phishing filtering. I like the 365/Exchange model because I can write whatever rules I want to (see the Phishing Emails/Regex thread for examples). The in-built protection works some of the time, but I agree it could be better.

 

I imagine Google have better heuristic detection because they have a vast dataset from consumer Gmail to work with.

[jthompson]

O365 will be a more natural fit than Gmail if users are used to Exchange. I know that users with [literally] hundreds of folders ran into usability problems when Gmail recreated them all as labels. Gmail's interface for label management can't really cope with several hundred labels, which meant forcing new mailbox management habits on them.