Microsoft Online Services Team Blog : Migration and Coexistence

What State Are Your User Accounts In?

JimGlynn — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:25:00 GMT

The most common user account states are enabled and disabled, which are pretty straight forward. However, if your company is using the Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization tool, your user accounts can also be activated and deactivated. The combination of all of these states can be confusing, so let's look at what each state means.

The four states are:

· Enabled

· Disabled

· Deactivated

· Activated

Enabled and Disabled

If your company is using Active Directory, you'll be happy to know that enabled and disabled accounts work just like they do in Active Directory. You have the option to enable a user account when you create it. Users can log on with an enabled account and they are prevented from logging on if their account is disabled.

You may want to disable an account when someone goes on vacation, or if you want to temporarily lock an account for any reason. Disabled accounts continue to exist and use one or more licenses; they're just locked. Enabling the account unlocks it and returns it to service.

Deactivated

If you're not using the Directory Synchronization tool, you won't have deactivated user accounts. Deactivated accounts are visible in the Microsoft Online Services Administration Center. The good news is that they don't use any licenses, so they're free. Think of them as shadow accounts waiting for you to assign services to them.

Deactivated user accounts are created by the Directory Synchronization tool when it synchronizes all user accounts, contacts, and mail-enabled groups from your company's on-premises Active Directory directory service to Microsoft Online Services. Synchronizing accounts to Microsoft Online Services is a fast, easy way to create user accounts. However, if you have a large company, you may not want to assign services to all of your users at the same time, so synchronized accounts are in a deactivated state until you activate them by assigning services to them.

Activated

Activated user accounts are accounts that have been assigned one or more services. Each activated account uses one or more licenses. If you create a user account in the Administration Center, the account is automatically activated when you create it and assign a service to it.

You can activate deactivated user accounts by selecting one or more accounts in the Administration Center and clicking Activate User Accounts. This lets the service know that this is now a "real" user account that will start using licenses. The rest of the activation process works just like creating a new user account.

Partner Migration Series: Metalogix

paulenglis — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:43:00 GMT

This post is part of a series profiling Microsoft Online Services migration partners. The series is from Brett Hill, Technical Evangelist with the Microsoft Online Services Partner Readiness team. This profile is cross-posted to Brett's blog BPOSitive.

Metalogix focuses on building and delivering migration, archiving and management tools for Microsoft technologies, and they are a migration partner for Microsoft Online Services. I recently interviewed Rasool Rayani, Co-Founder and Director of Metalogix, about their tools for migrating content to SharePoint Online.

Q: How did you get started in the migration tools business?

A: In 2001, Metalogix started focusing on migration tools to Microsoft. At first we were focusing on migrating existing web sites and content to an XML based “map” that allows the user to transform the content and migrate the resulting data set to the Microsoft content management platform. When SharePoint came along, we already had an engine created for content migration and the SharePoint environment provided a new opportunity.

Q: Do you still focus on web site migration to SharePoint?

A: We currently support migrating to SharePoint Online from NTFS shares; on-premises SharePoint installations, including Windows SharePoint Services version 2.0 and 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2003 and 2007; eRoom; Vignette; as well as Oracle content server. You can do some sophisticated manipulations using our SharePoint-to-SharePoint Content Management and migration solution such as copy permissions, split or merge lists, promote sub-sites and more. In the near future we will be offering migration from Exchange Public Folders and a SharePoint archiving solution.

Continue reading Partner Migration Series: Metalogix

Service Update: July 2009 Release Availability, Features Announced

paulenglis — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:09:00 GMT

The Microsoft Online Services Service Update for July 2009 will begin deployment into production data centers on July 7 and is scheduled to be available to all customers by mid-July; updates to the release deployment status will be posted to the comment section of this blog post.

No scheduled downtime is planned for the Microsoft Online Administration Center or the availability of the services in the Business Productivity Online Suite. Downtime is expected for the Microsoft Online Customer Portal, which will affect an organization's ability to set up trials, buy subscriptions, and modify their subscriptions. Watch this Team Blog for additional information on planned downtime.

The following features are included in this Service Update for July 2009:

Increase for SharePoint Online File Uploads. The maximum file size for documents uploaded to SharePoint Online increases from 50MB to 250MB.

More Live Meeting Attendees. Meetings hosted in Live Meeting Standard can accommodate up to 250 attendees, an increase from 15 attendees per meeting. This change applies to all users of Live Meeting Standard, including those that own Live Meeting licenses as part of their Business Productivity Online Suite. The upgrade will be available for new customers after July 13; existing Live Meeting customers will be upgraded by August 13.

Microsoft Online Services Trials for India. India becomes the newest market for Microsoft Online Services and the Business Productivity Online Suite. Trial accounts will be available to organizations in India with this service update. Commercial availability is targeted for Fall 2009.

Quick Trials. The process for getting a Microsoft Online Services trial is significantly streamlined. With updates to the Microsoft Online Customer Portal, user actions required to set up a trial account are reduced by 75 percent and better integration with Live ID authentication.

Worldwide User Provisioning. Administrators can assign user licenses to worldwide users, an important addition for multi-national organizations with users in numerous countries. Previously, administrators could only assign user licenses to users located in countries where Microsoft Online Services are marketed and sold. Users located in a country where use of Microsoft products is prohibited or restricted, however, still cannot be provisioned. Customers and Partners should consult with their Microsoft contact for additional information on these prohibitions and restrictions.

Partner Migration Series: BitTitan

paulenglis — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 08:14:00 GMT

Many migration scenarios revolve around moving data from an on-premises server, such as Exchange Server or Lotus Notes, to Exchange Online. BitTitan, the makers of MigrationWiz have another vision: migrating data from one hosted e-mail environment to another. In this installment of the Partner Migration Series, I speak with Geeman Yip of BitTitan about their product and how it works.

Q: MigrationWiz is focused on what kind of migration scenario?

A: MigrationWiz migrates any IMAP, POP or Exchange e-mail account that is accessible via the Internet. So that includes Hotmail, Gmail, America Online, and Windows Live, in addition to any hosted Exchange provider.

Q: So basically, you log into your Website, create an account, indicate the number of mailboxes to migrate, point to all the right locations and then I’m done?

A: Correct. The beauty of our service is that there are no tools to install. You use a web browser to access mailboxes on the Internet, and the migration occurs through our highly-secure data center.

To listen to Brett’s entire interview with Geeman Yip, click here.

Partner Migration Series: Binary Tree

paulenglis — Thu, 28 May 2009 01:40:00 GMT

Binary Tree has been in the business of developing products and services for cross platform migration since 1993, and they are a migration partner for Microsoft Online Services. As a market leader in Notes migration, it's no surprise they are one of the first to offer Notes to Exchange Online migration services and software. On May 20, I interviewed Steven Pivnik, Co-CEO of Binary Tree, about their solutions for Notes to Exchange Online services migrations.

Q: How did you start making migration tools for Microsoft Online Services? How did you start in the migration business?

A: We started Binary Tree in 1993 primarily as a Lotus Notes service organization doing a lot of Lotus Notes custom application development. We were hired by JP Morgan at that time to build a migration tool to take them from the mail platform they were on to Lotus Notes. We wrote a utility to do it and soon we were asked by another company to write a tool for migrating data from GroupWise to Lotus Notes. We said "Sure!" And then we had another project to migrate data from Netscape. And from those projects, a migration practice mushroomed into 24 different utilities to migrate to Lotus Notes. IBM licensed those tools and shipped them worldwide with the Notes CD, which gave us overnight worldwide notoriety in the Lotus Notes market space.

Continue reading Partner Migration Series: Binary Tree

Directory Synchronization Update

arvindsuthar — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 05:24:00 GMT

Windows Update recently released Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition Service Pack 3 as a high priority update. This update should be installed on all computers running the Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization tool. Click here for more information about this update. Follow your normal update procedures to install this high priority update.

After installing this update, you must restart the Directory Synchronization service. You can restart the service by restarting the computer or by following the steps below.

Open Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Services.
Right-click Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization Service, and then click Start.

Your next synchronization will begin three hours from the time you start the service.

If you want more information or if you have something you'd like to share, please feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions through our feedback form or in the comments below.

Microsoft Online Services Team

Sample POP3-IMAP4 BPOS Mail Migration .csv file

Ryan J. Phillips — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:38:00 GMT

For those interested in Migrating Hosted Internet Mail into the Microsoft Exchange Online environment, please feel free to download and use this sample POP3.csv file, which can be used in concert with the following information to populate the file with the required information needed to Migrate Internet Mail.

Relevant Information:

Migrate POP3 and IMAP4 Mailbox Content - http://www.microsoft.com/online/help/en-us/bpos/index.html?page=html%2F776cf5c2-4921-495c-bda3-8d234fc39983.htm

Note: This sample has been fully tested and used by the BPOS Support Team, however it is provided as-is and should be used at your own risk.

Exchange to Online!

arvindsuthar — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:47:00 GMT

This is Arvind Suthar, Director of Service for Microsoft Online. We are ramping up our community efforts and our team is excited to engage with you now that our service is live. We have a series of postings planned to introduce our team, dig into a series of technical topics, and trigger discussion around how we can make Microsoft Online more valuable for you. Please feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions through our feedback form or in the comments below.

We work closely with customers in our Beta and Technology Adoption programs during their migration to Microsoft Online. During this process, we have identified some frequently asked questions around migration. Erik Ashby is a Senior Program Manager on the Microsoft Online team focused on simplifying migration to Microsoft Online. I asked Erik to take some time to answer some of these frequently asked questions in a post. - Arvind

Customers running Microsoft Exchange who are interested in moving to Exchange Online often ask me questions about how to do ‘Exchange to Online.’ Exchange Online supports several migration models and offers a set of tools that make the move easy. Here I recap some frequently asked questions around migrating to Exchange Online from an on-premise Microsoft Exchange environment. Detailed instructions on the process referred to below are fully documented in our Migrate to Microsoft Online Services whitepaper.

How do I get started?

Purchase a subscription or sign up for a free 30 day Microsoft Online trial here. We will create a fully functional sample domain for you to test drive the service. You will be able to send and receive email and perform all the migration steps at this sample domain. Your domain will be named something like “yourdomain1.microsoftonline.com” or you can verify ownership of a permanent domain name like "yourdomain1.com" and begin using that.

Is migrating my Exchange environment to Microsoft Online complicated?

Not really. There are three basic steps that you will need to go through and the Microsoft Online Admin Console will walk you through each step with tools that will do most of the heavy lifting. The three steps to move to Microsoft Online are:

1. Configure Exchange to send mail to Microsoft Online: To get your mail traffic flowing to Microsoft Online, you will configure Transport Layer Security (TLS) and create an SMTP connector to start forwarding email from selected accounts on your Exchange server to your Microsoft Online account. Later, when all of your users have mailboxes on Microsoft Online, you can redirect all your email traffic directly to Microsoft Online by setting your MX records to point to:

mail.global.frontbridge.com

2. Install and run the Microsoft Online Directory Sync tool: This is a tool that will run in your on-premise topology and provide regular one-way synchronization of user accounts, e-mail–enabled contacts, and e-mail-enabled groups from your local Active Directory to Microsoft Online. This will allow Exchange On-Premise and Exchange Online users to see each other in GAL lookups. Also, once the GAL accounts have been copied to Microsoft Online you can activate the accounts within Microsoft Online.

3. Install and run the Microsoft Online Migration Tool: This is a tool that will bulk migrate Exchange mailbox content to Microsoft Online and establish mail forwarding so that all new mail will now be delivered to Microsoft Online.

Can I migrate to Microsoft Online incrementally?

One of the first questions customers face is how long they want to take to migrate to Microsoft Online. Broadly, there are two approaches:

1. perform a single large migration of all mailboxes at once (aka ‘Big-Bang’ migration), or

2. stage the migration over a period of time

Tools provided by Microsoft Online support both methods. For big-bang migrations the Microsoft Online Migration tool provides an easy-to-use migration wizard that can bulk migrate Exchange mailboxes and it can be fully automated with PowerShell. For migrations that are staged over a period of time, one-way synchronization directory synchronization from your local Active Directory to Microsoft online will allow users to share a synchronized GAL and unified messaging experience whether they have been migrated to Microsoft Online or are still using on-premise Exchange. We call this email coexistence.

Note that during coexistence, free/busy lookup and delegate access between a mailbox that is on-premise and a mailbox in Microsoft Online is not possible. Also, during coexistence, if a user has both an on-premise Exchange mailbox and a mailbox in Microsoft Online, these mailboxes can get out-of-sync after a migration. The migration will copy the content of a mailbox to Microsoft Online and establish a mail forward so that new mail will be directed to Microsoft Online, but any changes that are made to either mailbox after the migration will not be reflected in the other mailbox. Typically this is not a problem since most people will use only one of the mailboxes or will remove the on-premise mailbox after a migration.

Although we have had a fair mix of customers doing both big-bang and staged migrations, at this point most customers are going with quick ‘Big-Bang’ migrations and we have seen several companies with over 1000 users successfully execute a ‘Big-Bang’ migration.

Can I use email coexistence during a trial?

Yes, even if you are planning on a ‘Big-Bang’ migration, using the coexistence tools is a good way for you to have a few users ‘Try’ the Microsoft Online services. These tools allow several people to exist with mailboxes in Microsoft Online but still share the same GAL and messaging experience with others still on Exchange On- Premise. The same limitations for free/busy lookup and delegate access exist. Also, because mailboxes will get out of synch as mentioned above, you would need to copy any mail in the Microsoft Online accounts off to a local PST if you ultimately chose not to migrate.

To address synchronization issue between the Exchange and Microsoft Online mailboxes , Cemaphore, a Microsoft partner, offers a free 15 day trial of a full two way mailbox synchronization tool between your on-premise Exchange environment and Microsoft Online. MailShadow® for Exchange Online will continuously synchronize mailboxes from an on-premise Exchange server to Microsoft Online. This makes trialing Microsoft Online even easier.

Can I just export my mail messages to a PST and import into Microsoft Online?

Although Outlook is an option for migrating content, I would not recommend using it for migrating Exchange mailboxes. PST files store local email recipients and email senders using references to Active Directory. When your Active Directory server changes these references may no longer be valid. The Microsoft Online Migration tool performs the necessary translation when moving messages to Microsoft Online. Outlook is great as a generic tool to get content from non-standard sources like files, databases, and other sources into Microsoft Online, but for migrating Exchange mailboxes stick with the migration tools.

The bottom line is organizations are already moving from Exchange to Microsoft Online through different models and are using the Microsoft Online coexistence and migration tools to make their move simple and painless.

Erik Ashby

Sr. Program Manger

Microsoft Online

Migration and Coexistence for the Business Productivity Online Suite from Microsoft Online Services

Lori - Microsoft — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:16:00 GMT

View the Webcast: Migration and Coexistence for the Business Productivity Online Suite from Microsoft Online Services (Level 300)

In this webcast, we demonstrate coexistence and migration tools and strategies for Microsoft Online Services. These tools help organizations synchronize their on-premise Active Directory forest with the Microsoft Online Service directory structure in the cloud, migrate mailboxes from on-premise mail servers to Microsoft Exchange Online, and operate their on-premise Active Directory forest and Exchange Servers in coexistence with their Microsoft Online Services deployment.

Presenter: Erik Ashby, Senior Program Manager Lead, Microsoft Corporation

Start Planning Your Move to Microsoft Online Services with Free Assessment Tools and Guidance

Lori - Microsoft — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:06:00 GMT

Visit the Solution Accelerators TechCenter, and get free assessment tools and guidance to help you plan your move to Microsoft Online Services.

Solution Accelerators automate discovery and assess requirements for migration. They provide prescriptive guidance and operations framework to speed up the on-boarding and migration process. Get free guides and tools. Get moving with Microsoft Online Services today!

How to Configure Active Directory User Settings in a Non-messaging Environment Using the Microsoft Online Services Directory Sychronization Tool (DirSynch)

Ryan J. Phillips — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:12:00 GMT

If you are running in a non-messaging (Exchange 2000 or higher) Active Directory environment, and you want to use the Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization Tool, you must configure certain Active Directory User attributes if you want the User Login User Principal Names (UPNs) to be consistent with what is being used in the on-premise Active Directory environment.

For Example: an on-premise Active Directory using the Domain Namespace of Contoso.com that has users with a login UPN of user@contoso.com. There is no Exchange 2000 messaging environment within this Active Directory, however user objects have their MAIL attribute configured, so they are mail enabled. This MAIL attribute is used in a Non-Exchange AD environment when running DirSync wheto create new Microsoft Online Users.

To mirror the on-premise User Login with what is used in the Microsoft Online Company environment

Create a Microsoft Online Service Domain name. Use the same name as the on-premise environment, e.g Contoso.com
Verify this Microsoft Online Service Domain name, which proves ownership and allows a Microsoft Online Services administrator to create new users for this Domain, and to provide or add SMTP addresses for existing users.
Set this Domain name as Default. As new users are created and/or Directory Synchronized, their accounts and email address will use this Domain (Online user's will always have a secondary Email Proxy address of companyX.microsoftonline.com, which is provided as a Default Routing Domain, created during the Online Company's Provisioning process).
Modify/Add on-premise Active Directory User object's MAIL attribute with an e-mail address that was previously created and verified (e.g. user@Contoso.com)
Run the Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization Tool, which will replicate all Mail and Mailbox enabled users/groups into the Microsoft Online Company as Deactivated Users.

Note: From this point, a Microsoft Online Services Company admininistrator can Activate these users. They will granted services by the Online administrator. Their Login UPN and default SMTP address will be user@contoso.com instead of the default user@Contoso1.microsoftonline.com.