What to Expect From an Exchange to Office 365 Migrations
It’s 2018, and that means that we now live in a cloud-first world. This also means that this is the year that many organizations that are late-to-the-party planning on an Exchange to Office 365 migration. The appeal of being able to shift human and financial resources away from on-premise email applications has finally captured the attention of these organizations.
This article will look at the decision-making process and the types of migration options currently available as well as help you understand what to expect during the transition.
Creating a Migration Strategy
Mapping a migration strategy is the first step toward successful deployment. Here are a few questions that you should ask when coming up with your migration strategy:
(a) What kind of coexistence is needed to provide uninterrupted email service? If the deployment is happening off-hours or over a weekend, this may not be an issue at all. Or, there may be a period where you run on Exchange and Office 365 concurrently.
(b) How will you conduct identity management during the migration? Will you need a single sign-on? Will all identities exist in the cloud or will there also be on-premise identities?
(c) How will you conduct provisioning of the user accounts? Is your company small enough to do this manually will you use a synchronization tool?
(d) Last but certainly not least, consider the size of the mailboxes being migrated. The number of mailboxes will impact timelines and coexistence needs.
Next, let’s look at the migration methods that you mist consider.
Ways to Conduct the Exchange to Office 365 Migration
If you’re attempting the migration from an on-premise server, there are at least seven methods to move email accounts:
1. A cutover migration is a massive move of all email accounts at once. You can only do this if you’re running Exchange 2003, 2007, 2010, or 2013. This type of migration is probably the easiest, which is why most small business owners select it. These migrations can only handle up to 1,000 mailboxes and it can take a few days to transfer everything over.
2. A staged migration is when you move email accounts in batches, which is typically necessary for enterprise-level organizations. The amount of time and number of batches that run depend on the volume of mailboxes. Keep in mind, just like on a cutover; each batch can only transfer 1,000 mailboxes at a time. Generally, the newer versions of Exchange servers work better for a staged migration.
3. A hybrid migration allows coexistence of on-premise servers and online email as the Exchange to Office 365 migration occurs. This is the most complex process (with a lot more steps) because it splits functions between on-premise servers and Office 365 in the cloud. The problem lies in deciding which functions should go where. Should you migrate SharePoint to Office 365 first? What about email archives? On the flip side, a hybrid migration doubles the number of mailbox transfers to 2,000 at a time.
4. You can also use the Office 365 Import Service to move large PST files.
5. Or, migrate the emails from an IMAP-enabled email system (Internet Message Access Protocol). This is helpful for migrating emails from Gmail exchange, or other email platforms that integrate with IMAP. One caveat; this process doesn’t create mailboxes for you; you’ll have to do it manually.
6. While you can have users conduct their own migration, this might be risky.
7. You could also allow a third-party vendor like CWPS to conduct it. Having a dedicated IT team with dozens of Office 365 migrations under their belt could be just the help needed to guarantee a successful outcome.
Other Considerations for the Exchange to Office 365 Migration
TechTarget has a good article on ActiveDirectory, your domain name, and the migration process. Basically, you have to tell Office 365 to add your domain name to their service. You retain control of your domain, but Microsoft has to be able to verify that you own it. Normally, you’d just provide the logon for the DNS server.
You can also conduct a process called “identity federation,” which allows users to login to Office 365 using Active Directory user names and passwords and the company authenticates and manages passwords. The good part about this process is it doesn’t share the passcodes for your DNS server.
The other issue to tackle, once the migration strategy has been mapped, is to consider how you’re going to establish and manage user accounts in Office 365. TechTarget says there are three ways to do this in the Office 365 admin console:
1. Active Directory synchronization, which requires copying the contents of Active Directory from the on-premise environment to the cloud host for Office 365. Like identity federation, the company retains control of the Active Directory.
2. Identify federation can also be used to manage user accounts, allowing users to login using Active Directory credentials. A token from that logon is passed to Office 365 to create the user login.
3. Multifactor identification (recommended) requires a second method of authentication above and beyond passwords and usernames. The service pings the user via phone call or text message to verify their user information.
These are all some of the most important factors to be considered when conducting an Exchange to Office 365 migration. Contact Red River today and learn how we can help make the process seamless, with minimal business impact.
