Using Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 to Achieve Rich Coexistence with Exchange Online

Evan Dodds, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft

Blog administrative note – this blog has content znd screen-scrapes straight from Evan’s powerpoint.  I would like to thank him for sharing the powerpoint as the session was on-going, this was extremely helpful.  Thanks Evan! –KMac.

Thinking of the email in the cloud? But wondering how workable it really is for your organization?

Do you like the high fidelity experience and fine-grained control you get with your on-premises Exchange organization?

Are you considering hosting some of your mailboxes in the cloud?

Are you worried about losing the former to gain the latter…?

Exchange Online Rich Coexistence gives you the look and feel of a single organization across the full on-prem and hosted surface!

 

Cutover	Coexistence <—(focus of this blog)
Executed over a weekend; switch the MX record	Executed over some longer period of time (a week, a month, a year, etc)
All users moved as part of a “big switch” to the cloud	No requirement to ever flip “a switch” – can run in coexistence scenario indefinitely
No option to pilot mailboxes
No on-prem configuration or hardware requirement	Requires on-prem configuration and hardware

 

Rich Coexistence Feature-set

What does Exchange 2010 bring to the table?  Rich Coexistence!

Note: Rich Coexistence feature-set requires Exchange 2010 SP1 Hub+CAS on-prem and requires supplemental configuration steps (both on-prem and in the cloud)

Cross-Premises Free/Busy and Calendar Sharing

• Creates the look and feel of a single, seamless organization for meeting scheduling and management of calendar
• Works with any supported Outlook client; the heavy lifting is done by the Exchange 2010 CAS servers and the MS Federation Gateway and is transparent to the client

Cross-Premises Mail Tips

• Creates the look and feel of a single, seamless organization. Correct evaluation of “Internal to” vs “External to” organization context.
• Allows awareness and correct Outlook 2010 representation of mail-tips for size and quantity limits on DGs, etc.

Cross-Premises Message Tracking

• Creates the look and feel of a single, seamless organization.
• Message tracking started from on-prem or from the cloud will track through to the edge of the combined organization
  • Tracking fidelity across 2010 servers will be identical to fully on-prem organizations (ie – high fidelity)
  • Tracking fidelity across pre-2010 servers will be identical to fully on-prem organizations (ie – lower fidelity)

Cross-Premises mailbox search

• Allows administrators to select/manage mailboxes for mailbox searches from on-prem or cloud-hosted mailboxes
• Graphical representation allows to differentiate between on-premises and cloud-hosted mailboxes in the picker
• Search results returned across all selected mailboxes, regardless of mailbox location!

Cross-Premises OWA Redirection

• Single URL
  • Allows mailbox access to OWA via a single URL (pointed to on-premises CAS)
    • Ensures a good end-user experience as mailboxes are moved in-and-out of the cloud, since OWA URL remains unchanged
  • Better Cloud log in experience
    • Log in experience can be greatly improved by adding your domain name into your cloud URL. So that you can access your cloud mailbox without the interruption of Go There page

Cross-Premises Mailflow

• Rich coexistence adds the ability to preserve internal organizational headers.
• Most important header: Auth header
  • Allows us to treat a message from the cloud as authenticated. This means we trust the message and resolve the sender to a recipient in the GAL.
  • Restrictions specified for that recipient get honored.
  • When sender expanded in Outlook, GAL card is opened (not SMTP address).

 

• Makes your on-prem organization and cloud organization work together like a single, seamless organization
  • Offers near-parity of features/experience on-prem and in the cloud
  • Seamless interactions between on-prem and cloud mailboxes
  • Migrations in and out of the cloud transparent to end-user

Stop drooling just yet ….  Remember: Exchange Online must upgrade to 2010 first!

RICH COEXISTENCE SETUP

Step 1:

Step 2:

 

RICH COEXISTENCE – GUI MANAGEMENT

Connecting on-prem GUI to the cloud

Most of the cool Rich Coexistence features require federated sharing be configured between on-prem and the cloud.

EMC in Exchange 2010 SP1 has GUI for this!

 

RICH COEXISTENCE MIGRATION

You’ve configured for cross-prem, now it’s time to move!

• Administrator uses EMC on-prem tool to manage mailbox moves and other administrative cross-premise tasks
  • Note: There is no requirement to move mailboxes on-prem to an E2k10 server prior to moving them to the cloud
• Dirsync keeps GAL in sync as mailboxes are moved

The Stuff you need to know!

• It’s a true “online” move – user stays connected to their mailbox through the move
  • Client switchover happens automatically at the end
  • Traditional “offline” move when moving from Exchange 2003 source
• Outlook uses Autodiscover to detect the change and fixes up the user’s Outlook profile automatically on the client machine
• Since it’s a move (not a new mailbox + data copy), Outlook doesn’t see it as a new/different mailbox. End result = No OST resync.
• Moves are queued and paced by the datacenter
  Object conversion for mail routing happens automatically after data move
  • Mailbox on-prem gets converted to Mail-enabled user automatically
  • Admin can override this automation and stage the move then convert steps

Mailbox Offboarding

• Why might you care about offboarding?
  • Long term coexistence scenarios
  • Compliance requirements (retaining ex-employee data)
  • Piloting online but not committed to the move
• What you need to know about offboarding?
  • Offboarding is available using EMC toolset while in Rich Coexistence scenario
  • Offboarding to on-prem E2k10 database is online mailbox move
  • Offboarding to on-prem E2k3/E2k7 database is an offline mailbox move
    • Can’t stay connected to cloud mailbox receiving mail during offline move
  • Offboarding without Rich Coexistence (ie – any other scenario, including V1 offboarding) is PST via Outlook or partner driven.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Moving to Exchange 2010 On-prem sets you up for a smooth path to the cloud
• It’s not the only option out there, but Rich Coexistence is super cool
  • You want it
• “Federation” doesn’t always mean the same thing
• Rich Coexistence setup has a bunch of steps, but it’s pretty straight-forward
• Once you’re in fully-configured Rich Coexistence, toggling the federated sharing features on and off in Exchange is simple
  • These features are a real competitive differentiator and make the cross-premises Exchange Online experience quite seamless
• Doing migrations in Rich Coexistence (including offboarding!) is really easy, and gives a great and seamless end-user experience