What's the specialty of Office 365 Migration?Posted by Kim Madden on May 26th, 2021 Gone are the days of needing to constantly upgrade your PCs, servers and software. With the invention of cloud computing came the chance for companies to convert their programs to the latest edition of Microsoft Office 365: a subscription based cloud service that offers access to numerous services built around the Microsoft Office platform. 365 is now the most complete Office Cloud Service to date, proving more cost-effective and simpler to use than previously implemented systems around the world. The program contains hosted versions of Skype for Business, Office Web Programs, Share Point, One Drive and lots of Microsoft desktop applications, as well as much more. Not only does this software boast an impressive number of plans for businesses and home consumers, but the service an also be tailored to meet the needs and budgets of small, medium and large sized organisations. It'll be simple to access your enterprise software anytime using your apparatus and an online link, wherever you are on the planet. Staff are also kept in sync with complex calendar and e-mail services. It is without a doubt the easiest way to share documents and work collaboratively with multiple users in any location. Firms who make the most of this software will benefit from cost savings, efficiency and flexibility. Microsoft Office 365 also boasts a number of security advantages that is one of the reasons it is so powerful with modern companies. The provider takes all of the responsibility for reliability and security, allowing your firm's IT team to work on other jobs, further improving your business productivity. If, like many other business owners, you're uncomfortable with the ideal of an outside company dealing with your safety, fear not: Microsoft understands that this can be unsettling, and that's why they provide all of their subscribers with a comprehensive service level agreement to ensure they stay protected. The service provides a number of security and privacy features, including regularly backed-up data, encryption, secure transmissions between the information centre and user and enforced password regulations. More info about the information processing agreement can be obtained from the Microsoft website, or from your 365 provider. The best thing about any of these features is that they can be turned on and off at any time so as not to infringe upon your privacy or the day-to-day running of your organization. The safety program is customized, which can be tailored to satisfy the requirements of your business - being as strict or as lenient as you wish. If you're convinced of the benefits that this software will bring to your business, you may be contemplating making the conversion. When many business-owners feel daunted at the prospect of a migration like this, a professional IT provider will ensure the process is as seamless as possible to both your employees and customers. To get started, find a well established IT provider that can provide you with a great deal in your subscription. They should also be able to take care of every step along the migration and provide support during your service. Look for a business that's been in operation for a number of years and contains a portfolio of existing customers who can vouch for their achievement. Look out for businesses boasting key partnerships with big names like Microsoft, Google Apps and Draytek. As soon as you have found a supplier you can trust, contact them to organize a no-obligation meeting to discuss your special requirements. You will then have the ability to commence the practice of your migration to Microsoft Office 365. You might also need to gain insight in the many different services they have on offer and how they might benefit your company. If you are like most people, the principal reason for migrating to Office 365 is since you want to transfer your email to the cloud. Accordingly, it's important to start by collating the technical details in your current email server and conduct an audit report which defines all of the active users and groups as well as the size of their mailbox. Office 365 has number of technical prerequisites that you need to know about before you migrate. The most important one that catches people out is that Windows XP and Office 2003 aren't supported. In addition to making sure that your operating system and browser will utilize Office 365, in addition, it is important to take inventory of the models and licenses of the Microsoft Office applications you already have. Like most organisations, you are probably using a mixture of Microsoft Office versions, which is just fine - but it is important to understand exactly what you've now so that you may make the right decision on which mix of Office 365 plans are best suited to your own organization. Office 365 provides two main places for the storing of your data - Microsoft OneDrive and SharePoint. To be able to make an educated choice on how best to store your information as soon as you migrate to Office 365, it is vital to examine and record the locations and dimensions of your data. You are now at the point in which you have information in your email system, you have got a comprehensive report on your current Microsoft licensing and you also know how much data you need to migrate. Congratulations - you're now at the point where you are able to examine the various Office 365 business and enterprise programs and choose which ones will be best for your company. Note that Microsoft now enable Office 365 intends to be combined and matched which is excellent news for all companies large and small. It means you can maximise your existing investment in recent versions of Microsoft Office and cater for the different requirements your employees may have, depending on their functions. It's now time to get all your ducks in a row which usually means collating all the technical details you will require in order to perform a smooth migration. For example, the last thing you need to do is begin your Office 365 migration and then find out you don't have the right username and password to update your domain name record. An important part of this step would be to update all computer applications to the minimum specification and also consider whether you would like to alter the design of your email classes and how you structure your information. The big day has arrived and it's time to begin your Office 365 migration. This is the important step, but with all the lead-up work all done, you need to feel assured that the process will go smoothly. Typically the email system and information is migrated within a weekend to lessen the effect on web performance and to reduce the effect on normal business operations. With the true migration finish, there are still a number of cleanup tasks to perform before the job can be deemed a success. The number and kinds of tasks will differ for each migration however a frequent example is that the decommissioning of the existing Exchange software from the server. This not only reclaims disk space, but it will also increase the performance of your host and make sure your server runs reliably moving ahead. As you can see these seven measures jointly need considerable knowledge of your present systems as well as a fantastic comprehension of this Office 365 platform. There are a range of third-party software tools that may be utilised to assist in this procedure - the tricky part is to learn which ones are of value. In addition you need to carefully consider whether it is well worth using internal staff to learn and carry out a one-off multi-step job. It may well be the the best way to assure your company of an effective Office 365 migration is to use the assistance of a Microsoft Partner that has Office 365 certificates and real-world experience in performing Office 365 migrations. If you are still running Exchange Server 2003, then you want to fast track your Office 365 migration, because Exchange 2003 ceased being encouraged by Microsoft in 2014. What is more, most Exchange Server 2003 systems are running on Windows Server 2003 and this may also no longer be supported by Microsoft following June 2015. These two events imply your system will be increasingly open to external hacker attacks as safety breaches are no more being repaired by Windows updates. Additionally, unless you have moved your server to a digital environment sometime over the last few decades, it is very probable that your physical file host is also out of guarantee, running slowly, nearing its disc capacity and starting to suffer reliability issues. Migration from Exchange 2003 to Office 365 can still be safely performed, however there's often an extra problem to be overcome concerning Microsoft Outlook. Many organizations that are running Exchange 2003 are also running Office 2003. The good thing is that moving to Office 365 presents a great opportunity to also replace Office 2003 by choosing an Office 365 program that includes Office 2013 - for example the Office 365 Business Premium program. The bad news is that you have a chicken and egg situation because Office 2003 in general - and - Outlook 2003 in particular - does not work with Office 365. This means that throughout the migration procedure you have to decide between upgrading your email system first, and then not being able to get it until you've updated all the computers into another version of Office (at least office 2007). Or, you update all of the computers into a brand new version of Office first, and then do the migration of Exchange Server to Office 365. Whichever method you choose, there will be a time period when users are stuck in no man's property - they will not be able to get their email server out of their version of Outlook. Thus a decision need to be created - is it best to upgrade Office first, or is it best to upgrade the email server first? Real world experience proves that it is best in each situation to update to Office 365 first and then update Office 2003 users to Office 2013. Here is two hypothetical cases to demonstrate that point: Company A has 20 staff with 19 users running Outlook 2010 in their computers and with only 1 user running Outlook 2003. It would be best to migrate the email server to Office 365 first, since only the 1 user will not be able to access the new email server until their version of Office gets upgraded. Plus it should take only an hour or so to get that user's personal computer upgraded to Office 2013. To find more details on migrazione exchange please read this. Business B additionally has 20 employees, but in their own case 19 consumers are on Office 2003 and just one is on say Office 2010. At first glance this seems like a problem - when the Exchange 2003 Server is migrated to Office 365 very first then the 19 staff won't have the ability to get their mails until the computers have Office 2013 installed. And conversely, if the 19 computers are updated to Office 2013 first, they won't be able to access their emails before the Office 365 migration procedure was completed. Luckily, in this case there is a very good interim solution - consumers are able to make use of OWA (Outlook Web Access) to access their emails via the browser before their computers are updated to Office 2013. Indeed, it will also be possible for them to now have access to Office 365 email on a range of tablets and smartphones they may already possess like iPhones, iPads, Windows mobile devices and Android apparatus. Performing migrations into Office 365 from later versions of Exchange are a lot easier to action, but using a well-designed scoping program which considers the implications of old versions of Office, the Exchange 2003 migration procedure may still be carried out in a timely and cost-effective manner. It may well be that the best method to guarantee your company of an effective Office 365 migration from Exchange 2003 would be to use the assistance of a Microsoft Partner that has Office 365 certifications and real world experience in performing Office 365 migrations. The most important consideration on when to migrate into Office 365 is determined by the age and ability of the hardware platform where your email system is operating. If your company moved into Exchange Server 2010 early, your own server hardware is now 5 or 6 years old. This suggests a systematic and planned migration into Office 365 should happen over the subsequent 6 weeks. However Exchange Server was still being actively deployed as late as 2014 (particularly as part of SBS 2011), which means that your hardware platform may only be two or three years old. This implies it is still covered by the original manufacturer warranty and remains listed on your financials as a asset. In most cases then, it is probably best to defer your migration to Office 365 until at least 2016. The above hardware based decision procedure presumes a reasonably static number of users in your organization. If that's not the case and you're hoping to improve staffing numbers by 10% or more over the coming 12 months, then a move to Office 365 prior to those amounts increase is recommended. There is no point in spending additional money on each hardware capacity nor on CALs (client access licenses). If you are running Small Business Server 2011 (SBS 2011), you may actually be able to maximize the return on your capital investment by continuing to run SBS 2011 in to 2016. This assumes of course that you are in charge of a Tier 1 new host (such as HP) that is still covered by the manufacturer's extended warranty and which you also have a Microsoft accredited IT support specialist monitoring and tuning your system on a regular basis. Migrating from Exchange Server 2010 into Office 365 might be the right choice for almost every sized business - especially those with less than 200 email users. The real choice is when and how to migrate. As stated above, the"if" depends largely upon the age and ability of your hardware in addition to the anticipated growth of your business over the next 12 weeks. The"how" entails careful attention on whether it is worth using internal personnel to learn and carry out a one-off complex undertaking. It may well be the the best way to guarantee your company of a successful Office 365 migration is to utilize the services of a Microsoft Silver Partner that has Office 365 certifications and real world knowledge in performing Office 365 migrations. Migrating from Exchange Server 2007 into Office 365 makes substantial sense from both a business and technical point of view. Having said this, it is vital that the migration is done in a timely and cost-effective fashion. With that in mind, you have to carefully consider whether it's well worth using internal personnel to learn and carry out a one-off multi-step project. It can well be that the best way to assure your organization of a successful Office 365 migration would be to use the assistance of a Microsoft Partner who has Office 365 certificates and real-world experience in doing Office 365 migrations.Like it? Share it! |