Rackspace to Office 365 migration

User Query

Many users want to switch from Rackspace to Office 365 in order to reduce server costs and have access to the latest Office 365 features and apps.

"We are attempting to migrate from Rackspace to Exchange online and have tried a number of solutions with no success. We currently host Exchange 2013 on Rackspace and want to transition to Office 365 as smoothly as possible without exporting our mailboxes to PST. Could you please walk us through each step so that we can complete the operation without disrupting our users?"

1. Rackspace to Office 365 migration plan

   Planning is one of the most important steps before you start rackspace email migration to Office 365. Prepare the environment and have a backup plan in place to avoid potential risks. Here is a brief checklist of points to consider before you migrate.

   1. Take a complete backup of all the mailboxes, folders, calendars, contacts on the source server.
   2. Remove unused mailboxes, mail items and duplicate files from the source.
   3. Make an inventory of items before you make the move. These should include but are not limited to the following items.
      • User accounts, email addresses and login credentials
      • The source and target details, browser and operating systems used
      • Network settings, DNS configurations, MX records, firewall settings
      • Outlook settings and version you are using in your organization.
      • Licensing plans on your current source server
      • Active Directory configuration and other dependencies associated with it.
      • List of data and permissions from Rackspace that you want to transfer.
   4. Determine the size of the data and number of mailboxes you want to migrate.
      • Decide if you want to migrate everything at once (cutover migration) or plan to migrate your data in stages (staged migration).
      • Decide if you plan to migrate Public folders, In-Place Archive, and Shared mailboxes along with the primary mailboxes.
      • Decide if you want to migrate SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams data.
      • Based on the preceding factors, estimate the approximate time that may take for the migration.
   5. Create appropriate user mailboxes on Office 365 and assign licenses to them.
   6. Ensure you have enough network capacity and bandwidth to migrate.
   7. Consider the throttling and message size limits on Office 365.
   8. Communicate the migration plan and changes to your end users and stakeholders.
   9. Perform a test migration before you start the actual one.
   10. Start the actual migration, verify the endpoints and update the MX records.
   11. Check for correct mail flow and configure Outlook for all the users.
   12. Plan for decommissioning unused apps and their settings post migration

2. Pre migration activities for Rackspace to Office 365 migration

   On Rackspace :

   1. Ensure you have administrator rights to migrate mailboxes from Rackspace. Assign the impersonation rights to the global admin to migrate mailboxes on behalf of users in your organization.
   2. If you do not have an administrator user, create a new email account and grant the administrator Full Access permissions from each user account.
   3. Take a complete backup of all your users data, configuration and messages on Rackspace.
   4. If you plan to migrate multiple users without the administrator login, prepare a CSV file with the list of all user mailboxes.
      • Login to the Rackspace customer portal
      • Select ‘Account’ > ’User Management’
      • Select ‘Export Active User List’ to download the CSV file.
   5. If you plan to migrate emails from Rackspace to Office 365 with an IMAP connection, find and note down the server name on Rackspace.

   On Office 365 :

   1. Prepare your target Office 365 tenant. See tenant roadmap for Microsoft 365.
   2. Ensure that you meet the network and bandwidth requirements for the migration. See network and migration planning, performance factors and best practices for Office 365 migration.
   3. Purchase an Office 365 licensing plan specific to your needs. You can also sign up for a 30 day free trial and decide to go with a suitable one later. Compare Office 365 business plans and Compare Office 365 enterprise plans
   4. Before migrating from Rackspace to Office 365, ensure that you create mailboxes for your users in your organization and assign suitable licenses to them.

       Add users and assign licenses to Office 365 users

       Add several users at the same time to Office 365

       Assign Microsoft 365 licenses to user accounts

   5. If you plan to migrate to Public folders and Shared mailboxes on Office 365, ensure that you create and configure them on the target server.

       Create Office 365 Public folder and assign mailbox user

       Create Shared mailboxes on Office 365 and set the correct permissions

   6. Assign the Organization Management role group in Exchange online to the admin user. This is an elevated role required to migrate Public folders.
   7. Ensure that the admin account on the target Office 365 server has the impersonation rights to migrate mailboxes and Public folders.
   8. Check if the Global admin account with the management roles has a valid and non-hidden mailbox on the source and target server.
   9. If you have a custom email domain from Rackspace to which you want to receive emails after the migration, you must add and verify the domain on Office 365.
      1. Steps to add a custom domain to Office 365
      2. steps to add DNS records to connect your domain.
   10. Configure Office 365 to send and receive large messages.

        Follow the steps to increase the message size on Office 365 to 150MB.

3. Rackspace to Office 365 migration using edbmails

   You can perform the migration with the following methods.

   • Migrate Rackspace to Office 365 from the EAC
   • Migrate from Rackspace Hosted Exchange to Office 365
   • Migrate Rackspace Office 365 tenant to Microsoft
   • Migrate Rackspace to Office 365 with IMAP connection

   • Method 1: Steps to migrate Rackspace to Office 365 from EAC

     To migrate Rackspace to Office 365 from the Exchange admin center (EAC), you must first obtain the details of your Rackspace server and then create a migration endpoint in the EAC. Next, create a migration batch with a CSV file and begin migrating to Office 365. Let's go over the detailed operation step by step.

     • Step 1: Make all the mail objects visible in the Global Address List Login to your Rackspace customer portal and make all mail migration objects visible in Microsoft Exchange Global Address List, such as Distribution Lists, Mailboxes, and Contacts.
     • Step 2: Find the details of the Rackspace server your account is hosted on
       • Navigate to the Control Panel on your computer
       • Click ‘Mail’ > ’Email Accounts…’
       • Click on the Rackspace email account and click ‘Change’

       For instance, if you have a Hosted Exchange account with Rackspace, you can find your email account's server details here.

     • Step 3: Select suitable Office 365 business plan for your requirements

       Before you migrate to Office 365, select a suitable plan for your organization, such as Business essentials and premium (for small businesses), or enterprise E3 and E5 (for large businesses). You can also sign up for the trial and then purchase licenses after you complete the migration.

     • Step 4: Create a migration endpoint and set up a migration batch

       Connect to Exchange online and create a new migration endpoint with the PowerShell cmdlets. Verify if the endpoint is successfully created and set up a migration batch in the Exchange admin center.

     • Step 5: Start the Rackspace to Microsoft 365 migration operation

       After Microsoft 365 has verified the migration batch, run the migration. Keep in mind that depending on the data being migrated, this may take some time to complete.

       The post migration tasks are explained in the last section. The aforementioned method has a limitation in that it is not very user-friendly and requires expertise of PowerShell cmdlets and time to complete the migration. After you complete the migration, you must manually verify that the mailboxes are synchronized before deleting the batch.

       In the following section, we recommend a simple approach to migrate your mailboxes to Office 365 by using EdbMails.

   • Method 2: Migrate from Rackspace Hosted Exchange to Office 365

     If you have your email account hosted on Rackspace, you can migrate Rackspace Exchange to Office 365 with EdbMails Exchange to Office 365 migration tool. EdbMails supports migrations to and from hosted and on-premises Exchange 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007. The benefit of migrating with this tool is that you do not have to rely on PowerShell scripts and you can directly migrate your data from the source to the target from a user-friendly interface. The following steps describe the migration operation:

     • Step 1: Download and install EdbMails Exchange server migration software
       • Download EdbMails and install the application on the source Exchange server or any other computer. You can also perform the migration operation by installing EdbMails on a non-Exchange server computer.
       • Launch the application and click 'Login' or 'Start Your Free Trial'
       • Select the migration method as Live Exchange migration

          See list of EdbMails system requirements for Exchange migration.

       Note: If the Standard folders (such as Inbox, Calendar, Contacts) on your source Exchange server mailboxes are initialized with a different language, follow the below details to migrate these folders to the respective system folders on the target (destination) server.

       For Instance: If your source Inbox folder is named 'Boîte de réception', which is in French language and you migrate this folder directly to the destination server, then by default it will not be mapped to the 'Inbox' folder on the target server. In order to map the folder with the french name to the respective folder, change the regional settings on the target server to match that of your source mailbox folder language (in this case, it is French).

        Steps to change the language and regional settings on Office 365

     • Step 2: Connect to source Exchange server as Global Administrator

       In the Connect to Exchange server (Source) window, select 'Connect using Global Admin User’. You can also load the mailboxes using a CSV file. See the instructions on how to use the different Exchange server connection methods supported by EdbMails.

        With EdbMails, you can migrate mailboxes, public folders, and archive mailboxes from the source Exchange to the target server.

       

       

     • Step 3: Select the mailbox items and then connect to target Office 365
       • EdbMails displays a list of mailboxes from the source server.
       • Select the mailboxes and folders that you want to migrate to Office 365.

        Tip: EdbMails provides the following additional options to help you perform staged Office 365 migration based on a Date and other conditions.

       • Additional include and exclude filter options
       • Filter emails by Date: Migrate to Office 365 by applying the Date filter
       • Filter emails by Size: Exclude emails from migration larger than a specified size.
       • Click ‘Migrate to Office 365’ to set up the connection with the target server. If you are looking to export your data, you can also backup mailbox Office 365 to PST with EdbMails.

       Note: By default, the first migration with the application is always a full migration. On subsequent migrations from the same source to the target, the migration is incremental.

       

     • Step 4: Connect to Office 365 as Global Administrator

       EdbMails supports both modern and classic authentication. Connect to the target server by selecting 'Auto' or 'Manual' registration for modern authentication and the connection method as Mailboxes, Public folder or Archive Mailbox.

        Connect to Office 365 server using secure modern authentication

     • Step 5: Map the mailboxes between the source and the target

       The mapping activity in EdbMails can automatically match and map the mailboxes and folders between the source tenant and Office 365. This activity saves time when you’re migrating a large number of mailboxes.

     • Step 6 : Migrate from Rackspace Exchange to Office 365

       Start and monitor the migration after you complete the mailbox mapping. Finally, verify the count of migrated emails, folders and mailbox items with EdbMails text-based log report.

        Tip: You can perform a remigration with EdbMails to keep the source and target in sync and transfer the newly arrived emails from the source. Because the application supports incremental migration, no duplicates are created on the target.

   • Method 3: Migrate Rackspace Office 365 tenant to Microsoft

     If you have your Office 365 tenant on Rackspace, then an Office 365 to Office 365 migration is the best approach. The steps to migrate are similar to the Exchange migration described previously. Download and install EdbMails on your computer and select Office 365 migration from the main screen.

     • Step 1: Connect to the source Office 365 as Global Administrator

       In the Connect to Office 365 (Source) window, select the authentication method as ‘Auto’ or ‘Manual’ registration for modern authentication and the connection method as Mailboxes, Public folder or Archive Mailbox. Enter the global administrator credentials to authenticate.

        Connect to Office 365 server using secure modern authentication

       

       

       After you authenticate and log in successfully, select one of the methods to load the mailboxes. You can also load and migrate the mailboxes using a CSV file.

     • Step 2: Select the mailbox items and connect to target Office 365
       • EdbMails displays a list of mailboxes from the source Office 365 tenant.
       • Select the mailboxes and folders that you want to transfer.
       • Click ‘Migrate to Office 365’ to setup the connection with the target server

       

     • Step 3: Connect to the target server as Global Administrator

       EdbMails supports both modern and classic authentication. Connect to the target tenant by selecting ‘Auto’ or ‘Manual’ registration for modern authentication and the connection method as Mailboxes, Public folder or Archive Mailbox.

        Connect to Office 365 server using secure modern authentication

     • Step 4 : Start the migration from Office 365 tenant to tenant

       Start and monitor the migration after you complete the mailbox mapping. Finally, verify the count of migrated emails, folders and mailbox items with EdbMails text-based log report.

   • Method 4: Migrate Rackspace to Office 365 with IMAP connection

     It is also possible to migrate from Rackspace to Office 365 with EdbMails IMAP to O365 migration tool. This migration type is useful and appropriate in the following scenarios:

     1. When you have a small number of mailboxes to migrate.
     2. When your email system such as Hosted Exchange supports IMAP.
     3. You are migrating from a non-Microsoft email system to Office 365, and IMAP is the only migration option available.

     • Step 1: Connect to a single user or multiple users on Rackspace server

       Select ‘IMAP Migration’ from EdbMails main interface. Enter secure.emailsrvr.com as the Host Name, Port Number: 993, and SSL/TLS as shown in the connection window.

       

       If you want to migrate multiple mailboxes, select ‘Multiple (bulk) Users/Accounts Migration’. Download the sample CSV file and add in the required details such as mailbox name, password, host name and port. Load the CSV file into EdbMails and verify the list mailboxes to continue.

        See steps to connect to single and multiple users in EdbMails IMAP migration

       

     • Step 2: Select mailboxes from Rackspace and connect to Office 365
       • Select the mailboxes and folders from the left panel.
       • Click ‘Migrate to Office 365’ to set up the connection with the target server.

        See tips to optimize IMAP migration to Exchange online

       

     • Step 3: Connect to target Office 365 as Global Admin User

       Connect to the target server by selecting Auto or Manual registration for modern authentication and the connection method as Mailboxes, Public folder or Archive mailbox. You can also connect to the mailboxes by loading a CSV file of users from the Office 365 tenant.

     • Step 4: Start the migration to Office 365 from Rackspace

       After connecting to the target server, proceed to mailbox mapping and start the migration operation. Finally, verify the migration and the count of folders, mailboxes and items with the log report.

4. Post-migration tasks

   • Step 1: Update DNS records (MX record) to point to Office 365

     If you have not done this step previously, change the DNS records known as MX records to enable and receive email messages on the target Office 365 server. In addition to this setup, configure the Autodiscover record to allow Outlook to connect to the migrated mailboxes.

   • Step 2: Decommission or delete the user mailboxes on Rackspace server

     After you verify that you are correctly receiving emails on Office 365, you can safely decommission and disable user mailboxes on the source. In addition, remove any licenses you’ve assigned on Rackspace.

     • Login to the Rackspace Cloud Control Panel
     • In the Email section, click Mailboxes
     • Select single or multiple mailboxes
     • Click Manage to the right of the mailbox and click Delete Mailbox in the upper-right corner.
   • Step 3: Create a new Outlook profile for users in the new domain

     Remove any previous instances of Rackspace account on Outlook to avoid conflicts with the new server. Configure and recreate the Outlook profile for each user in your domain if it has problems connecting to Office 365 mailboxes.