Exchange 2010 (On-prem) Migration to Hosted Exchange/Office 365 Planning
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I am starting the planning for migrating our on-prem Exchange 2010 server to a hosted solution. I have been leaning toward Office 365 for some time, as we have been using the pro plus subscription for the client side of things for a couple of years and have heard mostly good things about it for the Exchange hosting side of things. If other people have service providers that they think are way better for hosted Exchange, please chime in.
I also wanted to build a check list of things that need to be considered when migrating and running Exchange as a hosted service.
- I am currently using Azure AD Connect (was using dirsync) to sync AD user accounts and passwords for Office 365.
- What should I use for backup of the databases?
- Service provider to perform the migration?
- Do I need additional spam filtering/ AV?
Any other tips or suggestions that I should consider or plan for are greatly appreciated.
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@wrx7m said:
I am starting the planning for migrating our on-prem Exchange 2010 server to a hosted solution. I have been leaning toward Office 365 for some time, as we have been using the pro plus subscription for the client side of things for a couple of years and have heard mostly good things about it for the Exchange hosting side of things. If other people have service providers that they think are way better for hosted Exchange, please chime in.
I also wanted to build a check list of things that need to be considered when migrating and running Exchange as a hosted service.
- I am currently using Azure AD Connect (was using dirsync) to sync AD user accounts and passwords for Office 365.
- What should I use for backup of the databases?
- Service provider to perform the migration?
- Do I need additional spam filtering/ AV?
Any other tips or suggestions that I should consider or plan for are greatly appreciated.
I thought if you buy O365 from NTG they will migrate you as part of that purchase, but then again maybe I was hi that day?
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@Dashrender I remember SAM saying something about NTG providing migration services. I don't know much more than that.
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@wrx7m said:
- I am currently using Azure AD Connect (was using dirsync) to sync AD user accounts and passwords for Office 365.
- What should I use for backup of the databases?
What databases?
- Service provider to perform the migration?
NTG?
- Do I need additional spam filtering/ AV?
MS provides spam filtering - I would assume AV as well, but don't know for sure.
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@Dashrender Exchange Database backups.
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@wrx7m said:
@Dashrender Exchange Database backups.
Microsoft does that for you as part of your fee for O365.
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@Dashrender Hmm. So far, from some brief googling, the ability to recover/restore seems underwhelming.
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@wrx7m said:
@Dashrender Hmm. So far, from some brief googling, the ability to recover/restore seems underwhelming.
I'm assuming this would be like most cloud services - it's kind of an all or nothing type thing.
In the case where a whole mailbox was messed up, they could restore to the previous day or a few days ago, etc. But if you only want a message back that was deleted an hour ago.. you might be SOL, or you as the admin might be able to go in and recover it, etc.
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@Dashrender said:
@wrx7m said:
I am starting the planning for migrating our on-prem Exchange 2010 server to a hosted solution. I have been leaning toward Office 365 for some time, as we have been using the pro plus subscription for the client side of things for a couple of years and have heard mostly good things about it for the Exchange hosting side of things. If other people have service providers that they think are way better for hosted Exchange, please chime in.
I also wanted to build a check list of things that need to be considered when migrating and running Exchange as a hosted service.
- I am currently using Azure AD Connect (was using dirsync) to sync AD user accounts and passwords for Office 365.
- What should I use for backup of the databases?
- Service provider to perform the migration?
- Do I need additional spam filtering/ AV?
Any other tips or suggestions that I should consider or plan for are greatly appreciated.
I thought if you buy O365 from NTG they will migrate you as part of that purchase, but then again maybe I was hi that day?
FYI - This only applies if you pay for it. If you're a non-profit O365 is free and NTG doesn't receive any money for it. Just in case anyone is interested that is a non-profit.
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@wrx7m said:
@Dashrender Hmm. So far, from some brief googling, the ability to recover/restore seems underwhelming.
It's dependent on what you pay for. You could have the ligitation hold option enabled, which means the account is held and unchanged until a time that you turn the feature off.
Or you pay for other recovery levels, there are several great options there.
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@DustinB3403 Are you referring to the equivalent of the Enterprise User CALs?
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@wrx7m said:
@Dashrender Hmm. So far, from some brief googling, the ability to recover/restore seems underwhelming.
have you found any examples of someone who has lost data by Microsoft and not had it restored?
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@scottalanmiller said:
have you found any examples of someone who has lost data by Microsoft and not had it restored?
I've discussed this so many times with you, I actually said this in my head when I saw that post, LOL.
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@scottalanmiller No, I have not. But I know I will get asked this- what if someone intentionally deletes messages past the deleted items retention period?
Also, what would someone use this for if everything is baked in (specifically the Exchange part)
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/uspartner_ts2team/2015/12/31/microsoft-partner-azure-iur-skykick-cloud-backup-offer/ -
@wrx7m said:
Also, what would someone use this for if everything is baked in (specifically the Exchange part)
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/uspartner_ts2team/2015/12/31/microsoft-partner-azure-iur-skykick-cloud-backup-offer/To me this looks like someone who is trying to sell RHEL - it's completely unnecessary. Sure you can do, but why would you? Unless you're just one of those who absolutely has to be in control of every piece.
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I think the Admin has access to everything that is deleted for a period of time.
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@wrx7m said:
@scottalanmiller No, I have not. But I know I will get asked this- what if someone intentionally deletes messages past the deleted items retention period?
How do you answer this for locally hosted?
Do you have an appliance that saves every email flowing through your system now? It's possible someone could get a message, and delete it before you backup the system.. then a month later the boss wants that recovered - is there an option? (I guess depending on your backup situation - Exchange probably has a way for you to restore the delete items items.. then go back and find it.. but I've never don that).
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@Dashrender Email archiving software/appliances.
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@scottalanmiller So you would basically add a 3rd party archiving service?
