Tuesday 17 April 2012

Directory Synchronization Tool to Migrate users from Exchange server to Exchange Online

When using our Office 365 one of our clients asked me about the best way to move users from their Exchange server to Exchange Online. There are many thrid-party tools available for this but I found Directory Synchronization Tool to be easier more easier since it provides Global Address List synchronization between Exchange server and Exchange Online.

Some of the things that you need to Consider before starting with thisn tool are -

* You install the tool on a dedicated computer in your on-premises environment.

* The Directory Synchronization Tool set up installs Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition by default. The Express Edition of SQL Server has a maximum file size limitation of 10 GB.

*In order to install the directory synchronization tool you will need Enterprise Admin rights only during the installation process. Post-installation a non-privileged Active Directory account will be required. This account is created automatically at the time of Directory Synchronization installation.

* Before you use the Directory Synchronization Tool, you must first edit objects you want to synchronize (user accounts and email-enabled contacts and groups) using Active Directory Users and Computers MMC snap-in or via scripting.

* When you first run the Directory Synchronization Tool, it writes a copy of each user account and all mail-enabled contacts and groups to the directory created for your organization in Office 365. All these accounts are marked as marked as non-activated and they cannot send or receive emails and they do not consume subscription licenses by default.

The Directory Synchronization Tool enables the following features and functionality:

* Single sign-on.
* Lync Online coexistence.
* Exchange hybrid deployment including:
* Fully shared global address list (GAL) between your on-premises Exchange environment and Exchange Online.
* Global address list unification of different mail systems with simple email coexistence.
* The ability to onboard users to and offboard users from Office 365 service offerings. This requires two-way sync (write-back) enabled in Active Directory synchronization and an Exchange hybrid server deployment on-premises.
* The ability to move some user mailboxes to Office 365 while retaining other user mailboxes on-premises.
* Safe senders and blocked senders on-premises are replicated and respected in Exchange Online.
* Delegation/Send on behalf of (limited).
* Synchronization of photos and thumbnails, conference rooms, and security groups (rights in SharePoint Online)

1 comment:

  1. An active directory phone book differs from a directory in that it is both the source of the information and the mechanism that makes the information available to the users or a directory service acts as the main switchboard of the network operating system? This is really confusing..

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