Office 365 Setup (Mail Move)

In the last couples of years there has been an increasing number of PaaS (Platform as a Service) that have opened up to rent out their services, a few examples like cloud hosting, off site backup and email hosting to say the least. They have an attractive lure in the sense that all physical infrastructure will be handled off site, its one less cost on the consumers end, other benefits include flexibility and security; not only physical but also for backup and data recovery. 

Microsoft Exchange servers are no different, it’s convenient to have someone manage your emails, it even better when it’s coming from the organization that created the tool that your company have become highly dependent on. However before that process can begin you will have to consider shifting the current data over to Microsoft Office 365. There are a number of steps to perform when migrating to the cloud. In this article, will discussing best practice to perform a mail move. This is different from Cutover, Staged or Hybrid migration in the sense a small amount of mail boxes will be moved making this option the more favorable one.

Setting up the Domain

The first step will be creating your account and purchasing the licenses needed for the emails. Once you have setup the Office365 portal with the administrator credentials you can begin by adding the domain that is associated with your company, by default the domain would be <domain>.onmicrosoft.com this can be changed once you add your current domain. This is done on the portal, there is an easy to follow wizard that will help you, this step is to prove that your own the domain by entering the requested information.

In Office 365 you will go into section called Domains, it located on the left hand side. Once in there you will click on “add domain”. It will than ask you to verify that you own the domain.
To verify this part you will either need access to the DNS manager where your Domain information is stored or get in touch with your administrator who will have access to this information.  Once you add the TXT record on your DNS manger, you will go back to Office 365 portal and hit continue. It will than offer you more information needed to be updated on your DNS manger site. This step will only be done once you are ready to cut over to the cloud. It is usually done after hours to minimize any email disruption.

The MX records will be added to DNS Manger exactly the same way as the TXT records, and any other information, SRV or if your business uses Skype for Business formerly known as Lync; its CNAME record will also be added. 

 

Archived Emails

As this is not a live migration cutover, ensuring that your emails on the exchange server are moved over to the Office 365 will be done by converting your emails on Exchange server to PST. The PST files will then be uploaded to the Office 365 portal for the account they belong to. This is done once the cutover has occupied and the on-premises exchange is no longer sending or receiving emails. The PST files are upload to the portal through Outlook client. The PST files will be imported back into the new profile which connected the Office 365. As the files are being imported it’s also being pushed to the cloud giving you access to your old emails.

Setting Up Auto Discover

The auto-discover function is to connect the local Outlook client to the portal server that contains the email domain(s) for that company. This not only makes the connection faster when setting up a new profile but also supposed to prevent the connection from accidentally connecting back to the on-premises server.  This lead back to DNS records, a CNAME will have to be added to the DNS manager of the domain controller.

To do this step you would go into:

1. Forward Lookup Zones 
2. Right click and click New Alias (CNAME)
3. Enter the Domain name and information as shown on setup wizard on the Office 365 portal.
4. Save the changes.   

This will redirect any new Outlook connection to point outward but sometimes this does not work. For more information click here on Auto Discover for Exchange. Even with Auto discover added on the DNS record Outlook Client would sometimes pointed back to the old Exchanger server. This issue is usually due to SCP (Secure connection point) in Active Directory. The Outlook client would start Auto discover process and locate the Exchange server if unavailable then it will go to the DNS records. Below are steps for a work around solution forces the client to look at the DNS records first.

1.       Started Regedit

2.       Navigated to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\x.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover

3.       Added the registry entry = 1 for ExcludeHttpsRootDomain and ExcludeScpLookup

This will stop the redirect to the on-premise Exchange server and allow the Outlook client’s first attempt to connect to the Office 365 server. It should be noted even with all the preparation there is always possibility of running into problems and one should plan for any possible hiccups. Once the bugs have been resolved the services will operate smoothly. If you are considering a migration to the cloud look for a Managed IT Provider that are Certified Microsoft Partners like System Architects Inc.