Why Should You Migrate to Office 365?

Migrating to a cloud-based email server is a must-have for every business today. Apart from the boost in business productivity, it offers numerous benefits to enterprises in terms of time and OPEX. 

However, many Office 365/microsoft 365 subscribers prefer to migrate emails from outlook to Office 365 mailbox. In fact, the gleaming feature of Office 365 cloud server are pushing them to migrate to Office 365 as fast as possible.

Likewise, from many on-premise email servers, businesses are migrating to Office 365 rapidly such as Outlook, Exchange server, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Gmail, G Suite, Lotus domino, Lotus notes, SmartCloud, GroupWise, Zimbra, yahoo mail, Cyrus, amazon work mail and much more.

Today, Office 365 email migration is a common scenario for many businesses. It is also known as data migration from another email client-server to Office 365 server. 

Most email clients do not support migration, and you will have to maintain the existing email accounts yourself if you have to migrate your emails.

In this blog, let's check what the ways to migrate emails to Office 365 premises and its methods are:

Why businesses are migrating emails to Office 365?

If counting, we can find plenty of reasons for migrating to Office 365. The advantage of leveraging Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, enhanced IT security, multi-user collaboration, and much more.

1.      Enhanced Email service efficiency with AI and ML

With office 365, every user can leverage the benefit of technological advantages that AL and ML give today. The intelligent use cases of Microsoft graph that helps to access information that frequently defined around the platform help to recognize the way companies talk internally. 

Plus, the intelligent auto-meeting scheduler, intelligent detection of deliveries, email sorting, and intelligent email search result are some of it. The additional AI-driven features help to get the email read metrics by the reader and email open count with clarity.

2.      Improved Email Security

As the style and modes of cyberattacks are increasing, robust email security is a quintessential feature that users expect from all email servers. 

Office 365 is filling the needs by adding the most efficient security feature such as litigation hold (secures business mailboxes unlimitedly), anti-spoofing with sender validation tools such as SPF, DKIM, DMARC, auditing (mailbox), encryption (SSL/TSL), multi-factor authentication with notification, intensive mobile device security policies(controlled access), Microsoft secure source support, etc.

3.      Internal and External User Collaboration

Office 365 is one of the most efficient and easy to use email tool with a whole lot of team collaboration options. 

The two-way synchronization between the user devices with calendar, emails, contacts, and notes, easy-to-setup out of office tools with outlook, multi-platform support (Windows, iOS, Android), multiple device support(5 devices at a time), contact, mailbox and calendar sharing, address list (global), Shared mailboxes (with access control to specific roles), Teams, Skype, SharePoint, OneDrive with integration, storage, 150MB mail attachment capacity, etc., gives a larger space to collaborate unlimitedly.

4.      Migrate to Office 365 and Be Mobile in Work

Moving to a cloud platform means you got a bigger space with a lot of freedom. Companies that migrate to Office 365 is enjoying that broad space unlimitedly today. 

Microsoft Office 365 opens the possibility to access the company data files from anywhere. Employees can work from any corner of the world with an internet connection, which begets more productivity and accessibility.

What are the different ways to migrate Emails to Office 365?

Businesses can migrate to Office 365 from any mail server or systems. They can import email data, files, calendar, contacts to the Office 365 mailbox through different methods. However, the best fitting ways have to be found based on your requirement.

Anyhow, Whether you choose cutover migration, staged migration or hybrid migration while choosing the method, there are few factors that you have to consider such as

• The number of files/data needs to be migrated
• The quantity of data/file to be migrated
• Readiness of your email system and mail server version
• The time period of email/data migration process
• The total cost and resource involved in the process

Methods to migrate to Office 365

To migrate to office 365 users have various methods in place.  To transfer the emails, calendars, data, contacts from the existing email server to Office 365 there are primarily three methods such as cutover, staged migration, hybrid migration.

Cutover migration:

Cutover migration enables the users to send everything at once. This is the suggested mode of office 365 migration in case you are migrating the entire email data to Office 365, and you wish to manage the users in Office 365. 

In this method, the email contacts and groups in the on-premise exchange system can be migrated. Importantly, this method to migrate to office 365 is most suitable for the users running exchange 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, with mailboxes less than 2000.

Staged Migration:

This method is more recommended for the exchange server 2003 and 2007 users. Plus, this the best office 365 migration method for those who plan for step by step migration of mailboxes to Office 365. 

Staged migration help to migrate data in batches, and it facilitates the users to send and receive emails from on-premise users and vice-versa, even their mailboxes are move on Office 365 with on-premise synchronization techniques.

Hybrid Migration:

Hybrid migration is most suitable for exchange 2010, 2013, and 2016 users. This method of Office 365 migration uses an integrated exchange server and Office 365 infra. 

In the hybrid migration process, it allows the mailboxes in the on-premises exchange to on-site or exchange to office 365 migration or vice versa. Plus, these methods help to synchronize and manger user accounts of both environments.

IMAP Migration:

Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) migration method allows any user to migrate users/emails from any other(Gmail/Yahoo, etc.) email system that supports IMAP migration. 

The users can make use of the admin center/ exchange online PowerShell to migrate the data and mailboxes from the IMAP system to Office 365 environment.

However, the negative part in IMAP migration methods it transfers only email data from the source inbox. So, if the users want to transfer calendar, contacts, and tasks, they need to migrate it manually.

Third-party migration tools:

As it implies, third-party email data migration is completely based on external tools. They have distinctive protocols and features. Some are far better than the native in-built migration tools, and some are the same as those. 

For example, Transcend is popular as the best email migration tool, which gives the best result than most of the native data migration tools.

Important things to consider while migrate to Office 365

Email migration is a complex process that demands a lot of considerations. Based on the migration method, source systems, sever demands the migration process requires meticulous attention though out

User Considerations:

• Users cannot use too older operating systems like Windows XP, Vista SP2, etc. They need to use windows 7 or Mac OS X 10.5 with the latest updates and patches.
• Need the latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, if users are using Outlook web
• Need newer windows version (at least 2007/ Office 2011 on mac) with latest updates and patches if the users are using local Outlook system
• Though there is a limit of 25GB/mailbox, users need to double-check whether they want all the .PST files to migrate to Office 365
• Mobile devices need to verify and validated as if they are approved and have the latest updates.

Server Considerations:

• Need Windows Server 2008 with all the latest updates and patches
• If the user has an internal mail server/ access to relay, it is necessary to go over Office 365 constrains.
• Make sure the user was running an exchange in 2003.

Active Directory Consideration:

• For single sign-on experience, the user's active directory should bound with Office 365 setup and let eh admin change the password in the directory, and later it will change on the Office 365 servers. However, to do this, it is required to have at least five services in place.
• Outside users have to validate with active directory servers in the office itself. This will hinder the access he outside users to get their email in Office 365 when the office is down. Thus, it will impact the high availability server with single sign-on feature.

Connection Considerations:

• High-speed internet connection is required to carry out the migration process. To upload the files to the cloud and download it back to sync with the system it needs an excellent internet connection
• Users need extra bandwidth to get the best our of Office 365 nad multiple network connection is recommended.
• Need a firewall set up that supports multiple connections to accommodate more bandwidth connections.
• Multiple network connection is recommended to access the Office 365 app and email system. Specifically, one from the mobile network operator and another internet provider via cable.

DNS Consideration:

• Users need to modify DNS records to accommodate multiple records to add the domain.
• Need an immediately accessible DNS host with multiple record hosting capacity

Final Thoughts

So, migrating to Office 365 is not as easy as it reads. It takes a lot of complex planning, procurement, execution, and maintenance. Even though email server providers are offering in-built email migration tools and software, it won't start and end as we pan. 

So it is always good to get help from a migration support provider with the good domain expertise to migrate to Office 365.

Medha Hosting gives extensive support for all your Office 365 migration requirements. We have years of expertise in data migration domains and done tens and thousands of Office 365 migration with high data fidelity, minimal time, and cost. Please feel free to reach us to migrate to Office 365 from any email client-server/system.