Microsoft
Office 365
Vine Court, Chalkpit Lane
Dorking, Surrey, RH4 1AJ
 01306 873900  0208 337 2700
 [email protected]
 www.shiftf7.com
So you’re considering Microsoft Office 365 - the premise is simple and the benefits
compelling for any business - a subscription based package that buys you access to
Microsoft services and software packages, including hosted email, the latest
desktop Office suite, an online version of Office, cloud storage, and premium mobile
apps.
Benefits
CAPEX vs OPEX- No costly hardware and licence refreshes, one flat monthly price per user per
month. If you don’t have the skill in-house to manage the migration, usually a one off migration cost.
Updates & Maintenance - with a new version of exchange every 3 years or so, keeping up with the
latest version can be costly - new hardware, new licencing, migration time - not to mention support
and maintenance. Why not let Microsoft do it for you?
Security - with all we hear about in the media with regard to breaches, there is often a reluctance to
move to the cloud, but Microsoft's online services have been designed with security in mind. Office
365 applications are accessed through 128-bit SSL/TSL encryption so that even if transmission is
intercepted by someone, they won't be able to read it.
Reliability - downtime, no email? Office 365 Online Services provides a service level agreement (SLA)
and has a 99.9 percent scheduled uptime. Microsoft has multiple datacentres, located all over the
world, hosting redundant network architecture, something most businesses don’t have access to.
Seems simple enough and these are great reasons to move to Office 365, however we have found
that the most successful moves are where there has been a more considered approach to the
implications and requirements of migration.
Office 365 may be right for your business, but you will need to consider how it will work in your
environment. This document looks at what you should consider before making the decision to move
to Office 365 and what to look out for once you have made the decision.
Considerations
Whilst what follows may seem a long and daunting checklist designed to put you off Office 365, our
experience has shown that of our customers, those that considered the items below, either
successfully migrated to or decided against Office 365, staying with their Exchange server onsite or
moving to hosted Exchange. Whichever route they eventually chose, their consideration of the items
on this checklist saved them wasted time and money on a move that would not suit their
environment.
 Office 365 email can be less flexible to configure versus an on premise Exchange solution as
there will a third party involved in any required changes
 Some third party applications that integrate with Exchange may not work with Office 365
 If you own a Mac OS or Linux OS, the traditional offering currently provides Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, OneNote and Publisher but will exclude Access, OneNote and
Publisher in Office 365
 Where are Microsoft going to keep your data? This may affect those businesses who are
legally not permitted to hold data outside a certain country due to the nature of their
business.
 Your data will be on Microsoft Servers – not only will this affect how you
maintain control of the data – you will also not be in control of data security
 Who will manage this new provision? Who will be the administrator for
setting up new users?
 If something goes wrong, it is very likely that your IT support team will have to go through a
third party to fix it, as they no longer have access to an onsite exchange server. This can lead
to considerable delay to any fix, waiting to speak to a Microsoft Support Technician
 Support will not magically disappear with Office 365, however it does change in terms of the
support issues that arise. Look at existing resources and try to understand how their current
role might be impacted by the migration – trialling the solution is a great way to get
feedback.
 It is worth noting that the some plans do not include phone support, therefore you will need
to consider outsourced helpdesk support even though there is community support for Office
365 online. Enterprise Support plans do receive phone admin support and whilst the support
is comprehensive, you are more than likely going to have to wait in a queue due to the sheer
size and scale of Microsoft and their customer base. Again it may be worth considering
outsourced helpdesk support to ensure a quicker response.
 Public folders that are critical to your operation may be accessed differently once the move
is made, hindering those who are not so tech savvy or more likely those who are more
resistant to change
 When your email is onsite emails generally appear quickly. In Office 365 when an email
arrives in your inbox it does so promptly from when it hits the Exchange Server however
attachments may take a little while to appear. You may also just get the header of the email
and may not get the whole email right away because it has come from a cloud based email
server and you are no longer talking to a local server
 You cannot go back in time and recover an employee email that was deleted a while ago,
however through Office 365 Outlook there is the ability to recover deleted items. This
feature goes back 30 days by default. If you need to go back longer periods, there is a
feature called Litigation Hold which lets you hold deleted items in your mailbox for longer
periods of time.
 Archiving is available however works a little bit differently. The Office 365 archive mailbox is
going to share the quota with your account for email storage and depending on your Office
365 plan, you may have a limit of 25GB on your email box
 Before moving to Office 365, reorganise your active directory, list your accounts, disconnect
or delete mailboxes that are no longer used, either archive those mailboxes or delete them
so that they won’t get populated in the cloud and you won’t be overpaying for unnecessary
storage.
 Those that use their Outlook deleted folder to hold useful emails will find that Office 365
retention policies will make this difficult as deleted items and junk mail get deleted every 30
days. This need to be communicated to all members of staff who will need to create a folder
somewhere in Outlook for those emails they wish to keep.
 Public folders are non-existent in Office 365 – if you need to have this facility you’re going to
need some Exchange on premise as well as Office 365. Archive all mail and contacts in these
public folders and then move the data into shared mailboxes. Office 365 has a 5Gb limit on
shared mailboxes. You can share this out to multiple people, just as you would with public
folders.
 It is also a good opportunity for you to think about using SharePoint as part of office 365,
where there are lots of different ways you can store data or if you already have SharePoint,
this is a good opportunity to clean up SharePoint document libraries – get rid of all items
that are no longer necessary.
 Is your LAN able to handle the kind of traffic that you’re going to be adding
to it. Moving your email server outside of your organisation, you will also
need to think about your WAN and how you’re connected to the internet at
all your locations. Are these lines reliable? Have you had any history of
unreliable connectivity and why might that be? Do you need to add a backup line as this will
be the only link to your email and other media? It really does depend on the risk sensitivity
of your nature of work, how resilient do you need to be? Maybe you need to reconfigure
your MPLS network and put up additional ADFS servers, it really needs to be a good
redundant design.
 Documentation is often not seen as important but if you had to restore and rebuild in the
case of a disaster or the current IT Manager leaves - then having a list of servers and
components connected to the email system – Active Directory servers, Exchange servers,
SMTP for all mobile devices or even multifunction printers that are printing through your
email server makes sense.
 Depending on what kind of Office 365 migration you are going to have you may need to
work with your secure certificates, what names are used on them? It will be essential that
you have a member of your team to secure safe certificates, this can be done by purchasing
a certificate from your chosen certificate authority and then installing it on your IIS Manager
– which of course varies for each server operating system.
 It is also necessary to have the skills to create and setup your DNS records. To confirm that
you own a custom domain and then set up Office 365 services, like email, to use the domain,
you create several DNS records at your domain's DNS host. There will be a lot of DNS work
with an Office 365 migration – it will be used at the beginning to authorise the domains you
will use inside the Office 365 portal. You will be changing around mail delivery records and
may also need to create DNS service records, make a list of them and make sure you know
how to change them.
As you can see there is a lot to think about and this is by no means an exhaustive list. There are
tools available to help you plan your migration as well:
Microsoft Office 365 Deployment Readiness Tool – Tests domains, user IDs and Accounts,
Provisioning, Exchange Online, Lync Online, Network Speed Test
Get-Exchange Environment Report – When you have an existing Exchange environment and
need all the essential information about that environment, this is a great script that dumps a
HTML report of your Exchange systems. It is also useful to use over time to check how your
environment is changing and to anticipate and future requirements.
Office 365 Speed Test – this will give you a good idea of the performance when you connect to
Office 365, which will be essential for quality purposes. Applications such as Skype For Business
where video and audio function is vital may be affected if the Upload or Download speed isn’t
currently there.
Exchange Connectivity Test – Gives lots of different options for connecting into your Office 365
Environment for testing, e.g. AutoDiscover, configurations for simple sign on.
Third Party Migration Tools – Migration Wiz, MetaVis, Metalogix, Quest
Any migration to Office 365 will also necessitate the following skills, not only for the implementation
of the Office 365 project but also for the continuity of support and scalability of the platform going
forwards.
Required Skills
 LAN & WAN Networking
 Secures Certificates & DNS
 Voice (for Lync)
 Exchange (for migrations)
 Desktop Support
 Active Directory (DirSync, ADFS, SSO)
 Project Management
We have successfully managed our clients’ business critical applications on our cloud infrastructure
and are fully conversant with the complexity of corporate email infrastructure and are able to advise
on the most efficient migration strategy to suit the existing on premises set up.
As with any IT solution, there are many ways to deliver Office 365 and we can help you find the right
one for your business.
As a Microsoft Office 365 partner we provide the following services:
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Analyse the existing environment and provide a high level design
Migration project planning
Advise on Active Directory and federation synchronization, with single sign on, full and
partial options
Configure and customise as required whilst migrating users and data
Training with helpdesk support and monitoring the new environment are included in the
project plan
Ongoing helpdesk support
Finally, it is worth asking a licensing expert or Microsoft Partner how you should purchase Office 365
– there are discounts for certain types of licensing, especially when already covering desktops with
Software Assurance. You can sign up for a one year term with Office 365 and after that period if for
any reason the business case for implementation has changed it is possible to cancel. It is a pay
monthly format however you sign up a particular term.
There are different tiers of subscriptions based on how many users you have and what services you
require from Office 365. Microsoft sometimes change the names and pricing of the service but
currently they are as follows:
300 User Max
•
Office 365 Business Essentials- Hosted email- Office online
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Office 365 Business- Office applications
•
Office 365 Business Premium- Hosted Email & Office applications
Unlimited Users
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Office Pro Plus - Only Office apps
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Office 365 Enterprise E1 - Only hosted email
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Office 365 Enterprise E3 - Hosted email and Office apps
•
Office 365 Enterprise E5 - Hosted email, Office apps, analytic tools & hosted PBX
If you would like a bit more detail about what’s included in each plan continue reading here.
Why Shift F7
At Shift F7 we have experience in supporting a wide and varied customer base
which allows us to bring our experience of many different environments and
requirements and to tailor our solutions to meet your specific needs. Our experience also allows us
to see a service from all areas of the business, whether that be the commercial perspective of the
project sponsor, the technical perspective of the IT department or impact the end users will
experience as a result of any changes; at the end of the day, if the end users are impacted by change
this will affect the business and productivity.
Working in partnership to advise
and deliver the most effective
Technology and IT services to
achieve your business objectives.
How Else We Can Help
Managed IT Support
A dedicated Technology Team with strategic, service, support and technological expertise provide
your business with an outsourced helpdesk, remote and on-site support when required. Shift F7 has
significantly invested in technology and technical expertise allowing you to focus on your core
business. Our Helpdesk is equipped with the latest secure remote access and remote management
tools, designed to improve fix times and minimise interruption with a range of support coverage
options. Our solution is underpinned by ISO 27001 and ITIL based processes and our accredited team
all undergo both technical and customer service training to ensure the highest levels of service
delivery. In the small percentage of cases when onsite assistance is required field engineers will be
deployed to site to assist our helpdesk in resolving issues.
Backup & Disaster Recovery
The Cerberus Suite of back up and disaster recovery services is designed to address all back up and
disaster recovery scenarios depending on what value our clients place on their own data and the
criticality of it to their individual businesses. Shift F7 also offer Secondary Datacentre Services as not
everyone has a second site, capacity or spare equipment to recover to, or the personnel or resources
to implement a disaster recovery.
Managed Hosted Solutions
From dedicated virtual servers and co-location to hosted networks and desktops,
Shift F7 offers a range of managed and bespoke hosting solutions. Our virtualisation
and hosting platform at our ISO27001 certified datacentres provides an ideal
foundation for organisations looking to extend their IT services outside of their physical premises.
Managed Connectivity
Connectivity solutions provide managed high speed access to the internet, your branch office sites
and our cloud infrastructure. Regardless of what the technology is at your sites, we will tie it
together securely.
Managed Security Services
Shift F7 has all the necessary infrastructure to provide your business with a robust security solution,
managed by our team of accredited engineers. Our managed solution includes centralised network
security management and reporting solutions enabling us to demonstrate our effectiveness at
protecting your data and systems.
Procurement
Our vendor independence ensures we can advise organisations on the most suitable and cost
effective way to introduce new technology to meet business requirements. We work with vendor
partners who have a track record in excellence, innovation and performance, which enables us to
offer our clients a choice of best of breed products and solutions. Efficient management of the
procurement process will ensure that the right products are purchased at the best prices while
managing the full delivery process.
IT Project Delivery
Our technical team will provide initial consultation to scope the technical and business requirements
of the project and design the solution with the most appropriate technology platform. We plan the
installation and integration and our engineers will then deploy the solution.
Telephony & Convergence
Shift F7 specialise in the provision of Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), Voice over IP (VoIP) and
Least Cost Routing (LCR) solutions that give your company an edge on the competition and maximise
business productivity, whilst driving costs down. When considering the integration of telephony with
IP-based communications in a business environment, support at all levels is essential. This is why we
have built a number of strategic partnerships with market leading vendors and ISPs.
Office Relocations
Office relocations can often be a complicated and daunting process. We can advise you on how to
avoid the common pitfalls and how to successfully move your entire business without any system
downtime or risk to your operations.