{"id":973,"date":"2013-10-01T07:26:47","date_gmt":"2013-10-01T07:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/companies.mybroadband.co.za\/dimensiondata\/?p=973"},"modified":"2023-10-03T06:44:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T06:44:16","slug":"five-best-practices-for-moving-microsoft-exchange-to-the-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/companies.mybroadband.co.za\/dimensiondata\/2013\/10\/01\/five-best-practices-for-moving-microsoft-exchange-to-the-cloud\/","title":{"rendered":"Five best practices for moving Microsoft exchange to the cloud"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s easy to move to the cloud: it\u2019s not easy for organisations to move what they have to the cloud, says Dimension Data<\/em><\/p>\n

Organisations wanting to move Microsoft Exchange to a private or public cloud need to consider five best practices if they want the transition to be easy and successful. That\u2019s according to Andrew Crosley, Dimension Data\u2019s General Manager for Microsoft, who says while it\u2019s easy to move to the cloud, it\u2019s not easy to move what you have to the cloud.<\/p>\n

Crosley and other members of Dimension Data\u2019s Microsoft worldwide team have managed the transition of more than two million seats of Microsoft Exchange to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cTypically, organisations with 1,000 seats or more follow a staged migration from the existing exchange environment to the cloud-based environment. A migration of this size takes about two weeks, from a slow start of around 10 seats per night, building up to an average of 150 a night until the project is completed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce they\u2019ve migrated Exchange to the cloud, organisations need to ensure they maintain the authentication hub for their cloud service. The cloud changes what you need to maintain. In fact, while organisations don\u2019t have to maintain as much, they do need to maintain more complex integration pieces. And keeping those pieces running is critical to the success of your cloud solution,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

Crosley\u2019s five best practices for moving Microsoft Exchange to the Cloud are as follows:<\/p>\n

1. Know your Exchange environment<\/strong><\/p>\n

To successfully replicate an environment, organisations must have a thorough understanding of what it comprises and how it\u2019s used. Proper planning helps avoid surprises.\u2019 Things to look out for include the number of shared mailboxes in use, and regular \u2018spikes\u2019 in email communication, for example large files sent for quarterly board meetings and mass mail-outs.<\/p>\n

2. You\u2019ve got mail! How to migrate the data<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most organisations are accustomed to on-premise migrations and have high bandwidth for this. But with a cloud migration the throughput is considerably slower \u2013 cloud providers will protect themselves from potential breaches in SLAs by \u201cthrottling\u201d traffic. For example, say an organisation is moving a total of 12 TB of data to the cloud, for 8,000 users, on an internal network \u2013 either a LAN or WAN. The limiting factor is how fast the data can be processed. Typical speeds are around 20 GB per hour. So with a migration window of 12 hours that\u2019s 600 hours – or 50 days \u2013 which is acceptable for a migration project.<\/p>\n

3. A peaceful coexistence: managing the migration<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the migration, some users will be on the existing system and others on the cloud. The level of coexistence varies depending on the business\u2019s needs, and how much of a disrupted service it can tolerate. There are a number of Exchange migration tools available on the market but, Crosley cautions, not all migration tools are created equal. It\u2019s important to synchronise the Exchange Global Address List in both messaging environments. If you\u2019re creating or deleting users in one environment, make sure these changes are reflected in the other environment so that the address books correspond.<\/p>\n

4. Avoid an identity crisis: managing Active Directory<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to provide the same sign-on experience for end users. Typically, a cloud provider will have its own instance of Active Directory which the organisation will provision into. Many will synchronise usernames and passwords, but other cloud providers don\u2019t offer this solution. \u201cAn organisation must have a consistent identity management framework. People won\u2019t remember new usernames and passwords. Find an identity management tool that can perform this kind of synchronisation,\u201d says Crosley who points out that organisations require a thorough understanding of the processes of provisioning, re-provisioning and de-provisioning identities. And most important of all, send clear and accurate communication to users throughout the process.<\/p>\n

5. Keeping the end users happy – consistent communication is key<\/strong><\/p>\n

Typical disruptions during the migration include a delay in email delivery, being unable to see colleagues\u2019 availability for meetings on Exchange Calendar, or not seeing the availability of conference rooms and equipment. Communicating consistently with users before, during, and after the migration goes a long way to keeping users informed and satisfied. Establish a support team and have IT support people on the ground to help users troubleshoot. \u201cOne organisation gave red caps and fluorescent vests to its IT support team and sent them to \u201cwalk the floor\u201d\u2013 which turned out to be really effective,\u201d says Crosley.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s easy to move to the cloud: it’s not easy for organisations to move what they have to the cloud, says Dimension Data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/companies.mybroadband.co.za\/dimensiondata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/companies.mybroadband.co.za\/dimensiondata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/companies.mybroadband.co.za\/dimensiondata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/companies.mybroadband.co.za\/dimensiondata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/companies.mybroadband.co.za\/dimensiondata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/companies.mybroadband.co.za\/dimensiondata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":979,"href":"https:\/\/companies.mybroadband.co.za\/dimensiondata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions\/979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/companies.mybroadband.co.za\/dimensiondata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/companies.mybroadband.co.za\/dimensiondata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/companies.mybroadband.co.za\/dimensiondata\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}