Well presented.
Ashish Joshi
9 Jan 2012 6:39 PM
18 Dec 2012 8:55 AM
Hi Dan,
Very good Documentation. I have a question.
We are already running Office 2010 professional and there is an existing outlook profile which is pointing to our on-premises Exchange server. Soon we will be moving our users to O365. I know we cannot use the existing .ost file with O365, so the .ost has to be re-synched to new mailbox in the cloud.
My Plan (Please correct me if i am wrong).
1. Create a Cname record for Autodiscovery to O365
2. I will create a new .MSP file with blank .prf and distribute this through GPO software installation (Please suggest what would be a better option here)
3. Now when the user lauches outlook (who's mailbox is on O365), based on "TargetAddress attribute", Outlook attempts to autodiscover, Exchange will return the TargetAddress back to the user and Outlook will then lookup the autodiscover service at office365.company(which in turn points to O365) and will create the profile.
Please let me know if there is anything else i should do to make this work seamlessly.
Thanking you in advance and waiting for your reply.
Regards,
Lewis
18 Dec 2012 9:46 AM
Hi Lewis
Thanks for the feedback.
When you migrate a mailbox to O365 the mailbox GUID moves with the migration, therefore you do not need to create a new .OST file you use the existing one. If you run the hybrid configuration wizard (HCW) with Exchange 2010 SP2 (which is our recommendation to do so) you will now use a domain called TenantName.mail.onmicrosoft.com as the service domain and the HCW will create the relevant autodiscover and MX records for TenantName.mail.onmicrosoft.com, so there is no need for you to do this (as per your step one).
At a high level this is what you will need to do:-
1. Run the HCW (which sets up your environment and creates the relevant connectors and DNS records, as well a whole lot more, see here)
2. Once the HCW has completed successfully you can try some test migrations (ensuring EWS is published as per my other blog article)
3. Once a mailbox has been migrated the object on-premise will flip to a remote user and the target address of that object on-prem will be user@TenantName.mail.onmicrosoft.com. Therefore when the user opens Outlook and realises their mailbox is no longer on-prem it will start the autodiscover process. Since the HCW created the relevant DNS records the client will redirected to autodiscover. TenantName.mail.onmicrosoft.com.
4. If you are also using AD FS (for authentication) then once the Outlook client hits the tenant they will be asked to enter their UPN. Once they enter UPN and password then the Outlook profile will automatically create for them (using the existing .OST).
So all in all the HCW will do the work for you and the Outlook client will automatically redirect and create a profile which is now point to Exchange online (O365). Hopefully that makes senseď
Thanks
Dan
18 Dec 2012 9:58 AM
Sorry here are a couple of hyperlinks that didn't carry across into the post above
blogs.technet.com/.../office-365-hybrid-configuration-wizard-hcw.aspx
18 Dec 2012 10:34 AM
Dear Dan,
Thank for your quick reponse, appreciated that. We are not going to do a Hybrid Migration as we are a very small company 130 users, so based on my assessment we are looking for a staged migration.
so based on our scenario the steps that i had sent are they appropriate or there is still something under the hood.
Steps Again....
1. Create a Cname record for Autodiscovery to O365
2. I will create a new .MSP file with blank .prf and distribute this through GPO software installation (Please suggest what would be a better option here)
3. Now when the user lauches outlook (who's mailbox is on O365), based on "TargetAddress attribute", Outlook attempts to autodiscover, Exchange will return the TargetAddress back to the user and Outlook will then lookup the autodiscover service at office365.company(which in turn points to O365) and will create the profile.
Thank you for your support.
18 Dec 2012 7:10 PM
Hi,
Ahh in that case the process is different. With a staged migration we only support exchange 2003 & 2007, so I assume you don't have 2010... I also assume you have dirsync configured, otherwise it would be a cutover migration.
Once you have enabled the relevant external access for a migration (e.g. rpc/https) and have migrated a user you will have a mailbox on-premise and in the cloud, so we recommend you convert the on-prem mailbox to a mail enabled user. This will then force the client into performing an autodiscover using the domain based on the script. Have a look here at the pre made script for 2007 -community.office365.com/.../845.aspx and here for the process for a staged migration - help.outlook.com/.../ff959224.aspx
Cheers
Dan
19 Dec 2012 4:02 AM
Thanks Dan for all the valuable information. Looking forward for a successfull Migration.
Cheers
Lewis