Today, the cloud has become an indispensable part of organizations as the main hub for saving files and collaborating with clients. The scalability of Office 365’s environment and regularly updated features make it the preferred choice of businesses and professionals alike. Now, the main question for organizations isn’t ‘if they should move’; it’s rather ‘how do they migrate to Office 365?’
As opposed to popular belief, cutover migration isn’t as simple as it seems; it is a high-risk approach and carries a significant chance of data loss. It’s precisely why many organizations prefer to undertake the Office 365 hybrid migration approach. This strategic approach offers flexibility where simpler methods fall short. We’re going to discuss the details of hybrid migration in Office 365 and why you should choose it over the simpler method.
What exactly is hybrid migration?
Hybrid migration approach combines the resources of cloud-based platforms and the infrastructure of on-premises storage to smoothly migrate data while keeping the productivity going and minimizing downtime. A carefully planned Office 365 hybrid migration setup allows users to migrate data in a controlled manner where the workflow remains uninterrupted with minimal downtime. Some key characteristics of hybrid migration include:
Unified Global Address List (GAL): On-premises users and Office 365 users see the same address book. There is no particular difference between contacts saved locally and on the cloud.
Free/Busy and Calendar Sharing: A user having a mailbox in Exchange Online can easily see the availability of a user having a mailbox on the local Exchange server, and vice versa.
Secure Mail Flow: Email is securely routed between on-premises and cloud mailboxes, often with internal, encrypted transport, without appearing to leave the corporate network.
Centralized Management: Save all your data at one place and move mailboxes back and forth between on-premises and the cloud from a single administration place (the Exchange Admin Center).
Unified Message Tracking: Users can trace an email's path easily with this feature.
Why should you opt for hybrid migration?
A hybrid migration is a much more complex process than cutover migration. However, even after being complex, this migration approach has significant advantages over the standard cutover migration. These advantages include:
- Need for a phased migration: Migrating entire data in one go is a high-risk process for large organizations having hundreds of employees. With the hybrid migration approach, you can move mailboxes in batches to avoid downtime and data loss.
- Long-term archiving need: Some organizations are required to store their data on-premises due to legal and regulatory compliances or due to being connected with certain on-prem services and applications.
- Minimal downtime: Users face minimal downtime and disruption to the workflow while migrating data with the hybrid migration approach.
- Reduced costs: Hybrid migration is also suitable for organizations and individuals looking for a cost-effective approach. This also significantly reduces the costs of on-prem infrastructure while also saving up on cloud subscription fees.
- Better security: Hybrid migration in Office 365 is preferred by multiple organizations, as it combines the security features of the cloud platform with the air-gapped security of on-premises infrastructure.
When to opt for hybrid migration?
Choosing the hybrid migration approach is a strategic decision made with careful planning. This migration approach is best suited for organizations meeting the following criteria:
- Organizations having more than 200 mailboxes will benefit the most from this migration approach.
- Organizations having a complex on-prem Exchange environment, including multiple servers, complex permission models, multiple third-party integrations, etc.
- Organizations needing weeks for the migration to complete. Usually, Office 365 migration takes no longer than a few days, but if it takes longer than that, then the hybrid migration approach is the most suitable for a smooth transition.
- Organizations bound by legal and regulatory demands can store the required data on-premises while shifting the other data to the cloud.
Important things to keep in mind
You need to have a proper Office 365 migration strategy for a smooth migration process. Given below are some essential things to consider while planning hybrid migration in Office 365:
- Configure permissions: Configure and assign all the permissions properly before starting with the migration process. Make sure the tenant domain is verified and functional.
- Check server health: Check that your Exchange Server and Active Directory are perfectly healthy and functioning properly.
- Licensing: Purchase and assign licenses to the required users in advance and verify your domain before starting the Microsoft 365 migration.
- Check network connection: Make sure that your network connection is stable to avoid any downtime.
- Use reliable software: Using a reliable Office 365 migration Software is the best approach to migrate data safely with no data loss and 100% accuracy.
Conclusion
Office 365 hybrid migration is a carefully planned process to gradually migrate data in batches. This approach is best for organizations having complex Exchange environments and wanting control over the migration process. By saving the data on both the cloud and on-premises, users get to secure their data in case of a system crash or cyberattack.
We have talked in detail about the basics of Office 365 hybrid migration, the reasons to opt for this approach, and ideal scenarios for it. Moreover, we have also mentioned a reliable Office 365 migration tool to avoid data loss and minimize downtime.
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