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Office 365 to Hosted Exchange

Office 365 to Hosted Exchange migration is an action in which all email information from Office 365, including the mailboxes, contacts, calendars, and public folders, is moved over to the Hosted Exchange server. This kind of migration is often looked into by organisations that desire greater control over their email environment or greater stability and the management features offered with Hosted Exchange.

Hosted Exchange solutions have benefits in having more control, better customised settings, and being able to meet certain business requirements better than other solutions. Comparing hosted exchange providers like Intermedia Exchange, Rackspace, Liquidweb, and Bluehost will allow you to find out which of these will be the best for your company.

The main factors affecting the migration are the size of your data, the arrangement of your mailboxes, and your compatibility with the intended Hosted Exchange environment. By employing a specific migration tool, the EdbMails Office 365 migration software will help you with its features of incremental migration, automatic mailbox mapping, logging facilities, batch migration etc.

Office 365 to Hosted Exchange Migration

In the following sections, we will outline the steps involved in planning, performing, and administering the migration from Office 365 to Hosted Exchange, which will guarantee that the migration process is in accordance with your needs.

Planning a migration from Office 365 to Hosted Exchange
Of all the things related to migration, none is more important than the plan. If one has a detailed and thorough plan, it saves both time and ensure for the operation to run smoothly. Below is a checklist of important things you will need to consider when moving your company from Office 365 to Hosted Exchange.
1. Prepare a comprehensive inventory of what items you want to migrate from Office 365.
2. Determine which method you want to use for migrating: cutover, hybrid, or staged.
3. Confirm whether you will also migrate public folders and shared mailboxes with the primary mailboxes.
4. Analyse size of the mailbox data and the number of mailboxes to be migrated.
5. Inform end users about any changes, and notify stakeholders.
6. Choose an appropriate Hosted Exchange provider, and buy an appropriate mailbox license plan.
7. Get the domains and other required Active Directory services prepared on the destination environment.
8. Prepare mailboxes and Public folders on target Exchange server.
9. Check your network capacity and bandwidth for your migration.
10. Consider throttling and the limitations on the size of a message on the source and target.
11. Conduct a test migration (pilot) before the entire migration.
12. Initiate the migration, test the endpoint, and change over DNS.
13. Make new Outlook profiles for users and test that their emails are being received correctly.
14. Remove permissions and licenses from the source Office 365 tenant.
Pre migration activities for Office 365 to Hosted Exchange migration
On the source Office 365 server:
1. You must have a global admin account that is enabled with a mailbox for the automatic registration of the EdbMails application on your Entra ID (Azure Active Directory). Alternatively, you can use a global administrator account or a user account with complete administrator rights for manual registration..
2. Ensure that your network and bandwidth meet the requirements for the migration.
  See network and migration planning, performance factors and best practices for Office 365 to Exchange migration.
On the target Hosted Exchange server:
1. Create mailboxes on the target Hosted Exchange server: Ensure that you create mailboxes on the destination Hosted Exchange server and assign appropriate licenses to those mailboxes, prior to undertaking a migration.
2. Assign the required permissions on the target server: Make sure that if you use an admin account for your connection to the Hosted Exchange server, you set impersonation rights for browsing and migration of other mailboxes. Alternatively, you can perform a bulk migration by granting rights to any user on all of the records. You can also load multiple users using a CSV file.
3. Configure the throttling and message-size limits: You might have to adjust the EWS throttling and message size limits on the Hosted Exchange server, depending on your Hosted Exchange provider.
Steps to migrate Office 365 to Hosted Exchange server
1. Step 1: Download and install EdbMails Office 365 migration software
  - Download and install the EdbMails application on your computer.
    See a detailed list of EdbMails system requirements for Office 365 to Hosted Exchange migration.
2. Step 2: Launch EdbMails Software
  - Enter the required details and click the 'Login' button, or select 'Start Your Free Trial' to access the EdbMails application.
  - Select ‘Office 365 Migration’ as migration option from the products list
  - Choose the option 'Office 365 to Live Exchange Migration'.
  - Keep the default job name or click the ‘New Job’ button to give it a name of your choice.
3. Step 3: Connect to the source Office 365 server
  - Click the 'Add New Connection' button to create a new connection to the source Office 365. If you'd prefer to use a previous connection, choose it from the connection list and click the 'Connect to Existing' button to continue.
  - Select the required connection option and click the ‘Next’ button to proceed.
  - Select one of the available methods for secure OAuth 2.0 modern authentication.
  - Click the ‘Login’ button to continue.
  - Authenticate on the Microsoft sign-in page with the global admin account having a mailbox.
  - Once authentication is successful, select a method to load the mailboxes. Alternatively, you can load and migrate mailboxes using a CSV file.
4. Step 4: Select the mailboxes for migration
  - Select the mailboxes you want to migrate from the left pane, then click ‘Next’ button to continue.
    Tip: If this is the first time you’re migrating with EdbMails, the migration is a full migration. On subsequent migrations from the same source to the target, the migration is incremental.
5. Step 5: Connect to target Hosted Exchange server
  - Click the 'Add New Connection' button to create a new connection to the target Hosted Exchange server. If you'd like to use an existing connection, select it from the list and click 'Connect to Existing' to proceed.
    With EdbMails, you can migrate mailboxes, public folders, and archive mailboxes from Microsoft 365 to Hosted Exchange server.
  - Select the ‘Connect to Hosted Exchange server’ option.
  - Click the ‘Next’ button
  - Choose the appropriate option to connect to your target Hosted Exchange server and click ‘Next’ to continue.
    Click here to know more details about various methods to connect to Hosted Exchange server
  - You can use the ‘Connect Using Autodiscover Email’ option if you want to connect using an email address and password enabled with the Autodiscover service, or choose ‘Default Connection’ to connect using the Exchange server's domain name or IP address.
  - Enter the target Hosted Exchange server login details and click the ‘Login’ button
  - Select one of the methods to load the mailboxes.
6. Step 6: Map source and target mailboxes
  - Select the appropriate mapping option.
    Click here know about user-defined mailboxes / folders mapping
  - EdbMails automatically maps mailboxes and folders between the source and target servers, which is especially useful for large-scale migrations. Alternatively, you can manually map source folders and subfolders to specific target locations as needed.
7. Step 7: Start Office 365 to Hosted Exchange migration
  - After completing the mailbox mapping, click the ‘Start Migration’ button to proceed.
  - You can track the migration progress in real-time, and a confirmation message will appear once it's complete.
  - Click on ‘View Log’ to review the detailed migration report. You can also sign in to the target Hosted Exchange server to confirm that all items have been successfully transferred.
Post-migration Activities
1. Step 1: Update the MX records to point to the Exchange server
  To get emails to your destination server, you should update DNS (MX-records) so that email can be set up to the new server that your mail is now moved to, and also update Autodiscover-records so that Outlook can join the migrated mailboxes.
2. Step 2: Create a new Outlook profile for users in the new domain
  If your Outlook is unable to connect to your mailboxes on Office 365, create a new Outlook profile for every user.
3. Step 3: Remove the old Office 365 subscription plan
  After the migration is complete and you've verified your data, don't forget to cancel Office 365 subscription plans and the associated domain names if they are no longer required.
Office 365 migration troubleshooting
See the troubleshooting solutions for Office 365 to Hosted Exchange migration. For more details about EdbMails Office 365 migration, see the frequently asked questions.

Benefits of EdbMails for Office 365 to Hosted Exchange migration

Seamlessly migrate directly from Office 365 to a Hosted Exchange server, ensuring a smooth and efficient data migration process.
Utilize cutover, staged, or PST migration methods, selecting the approach that best suits your organization’s specific requirements.
Eliminate the need for complex PowerShell scripts, simplifying the Office 365 to Hosted Exchange migration for mailbox data.
Migrate mailboxes, public folders, archive mailboxes, and shared mailboxes accurately from the source to the target server.
Ensure automatic mailbox mapping between source and target servers, streamlining the process and reducing the risk of errors.
Achieve a secure migration with full data consistency, zero downtime, and no risk of data loss, maintaining business continuity.
Access comprehensive migration reports, providing real-time insights to track progress and ensure a successful transition.
Benefit from 24x7 technical support throughout the migration, ensuring expert assistance is always available when needed.