The essential Office 365 migration guide

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  Article

  Compare Office 365 pros and cons to hybrid, Exchange 2013 setups

  If you want to move enterprise email to a cloud environment, look into how that setup is different from other options. You may be able to reduce administration headaches and revenue costs if you move to Office 365, but you'll lose control of your data and how it's handled. Read Now

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  Article

  Learn Office 365 pricing and features vs. Exchange 2013

  Determining the cost of a migration per user often influences the way organizations will go about their migrations. There are four major costs to assess, all of which must be included in your assessment for a successful migration. Read Now

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  Article

  Compare Office 365 pricing and packages to Office 2013

  Before moving to Office 365, organizations should also look at how it compares to Office 2013. Most Office 365 editions don't include the productivity applications found in Office 2013, but some offerings include the option to locally install and use Office applications. Read Now

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  Article

  Why your organization should be excited for Office 365

  There are a number of features in Office 365 that should excite organizations. Our expert offers a look into how the platform's ability to combine Lync, SharePoint and Exchange can change an admin's job. Read Now

1Important decisions to make for an Office 365 migration

You've done your research and now you're ready for a migration to Office 365. What's next? There are some important decisions about the migration process. Decisions made before installing Office 365 are critical because many cannot be reversed. Your enterprise will also have to decide on the number of tenants to use and how to manage identities within Office 365. This section of our Office 365 migration guide examines these topics in detail and offers guidance to help your enterprise make the decisions that will help its Office 365 deployment be the best it can be.

• Article

  Pre-deployment decisions in a migration

  Organizations have to make several tough decisions during the pre-deployment of an Office 365 migration project. One of the most important steps to take involves which subscription you should purchase. Read Now

• Article

  Should you use a single Office 365 tenant or multiple tenants?

  Another important decision involves whether to use a single Office 365 tenant or multiple tenants. While our Exchange expert thinks it's best to use a single tenant, you can use multiple tenants -- with some caveats. Read Now

• Article

  AD FS vs. Password Sync for managing Office 365 identities

  When it comes to managing identities in Office 365, organizations have two options. Which is better for your enterprise: Password Sync in Windows Azure Active Directory or Active Directory Federation Services? We'll help you decide. Read Now

• Article

  Seven key lessons of an Office 365 migration

  Your organization can learn from these seven pointers about Office 365 migrations to help you make specific decisions about your migration. You'll have to decide, for example, when to migrate Exchange to keep the same timeline as you move to Office 365. Read Now

• Article

  Office 365 may ease storage, but Exchange admins will still be busy

  Office 365 can be a good option to help organizations manage storage, and the hosted service will change how businesses receive IT functions. And while these functions change, Exchange admins will need to decide how to take care of certain responsibilities. Read Now

2Simplify Office 365 management decisions after a migration

After moving to Office 365, you'll need to create a management plan to keep everything running smoothly. Every enterprise is different, but most plans should focus on keeping the deployment up and running. This section of our Office 365 migration guide includes advice on PowerShell's role in Office 365 and how to ease the management tasks within the deployment.

• Article

  Control spam in Office 365

  After migrating to Office 365, some organizations may notice an increase in spam. There are two ways to configure how you control spam, and which you choose depends on the size of your organization and number of end users. Read Now

• Article

  What's slowing my mailbox migration?

  If you're experiencing slow mailbox moves to Office 365, there are a few ways to troubleshoot the problem. Microsoft offers troubleshooting tools based on your region, but it helps to first know some common issues with firewalls and load balancers. Read Now

• Article

  How to connect to Office 365's PowerShell

  PowerShell is a big deal in Office 365. Connecting to PowerShell gives organizations control for automating the way they manage Office 365 resources, but many admins don't know how to connect Office 365 and PowerShell. Read Now

• Article

  Use PowerShell to change Office 365 password policies

  One helpful thing to do before you set up password policies involves modifying PowerShell to run certain scripts. Admins need to use PowerShell to change a password policy in Office 365. Read Now

• Article

  Change Office 365 end user passwords with PowerShell

  In PowerShell, admins can manage end users via the graphical user interface. The key is to know the right commands. Read Now

• Article

  Manage Office 365 identities with an AD FS server

  Active Directory Federation Services is a good identity management option, but you have to do lots of preplanning. There are three steps involved in the installation process and several points to keep in mind if you install AD FS. Read Now

• Article

  Set up archive mailboxes, retention policies in Office 365

  Office 365 has mailbox quotas for two main reasons -- performance and recovery. Learn how to manage old messages in an archive mailbox and assign retention policies to it. Read Now

3Key Office 365 migration definitions

Use this section to get familiar with some of the terms you may come across as your enterprise researches what's involved in Office 365 migrations.

• Definition

  Active Directory Federation Services

  Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) is a feature of the Windows Server operating system (OS) that extends end users' single sign-on (SSO) access to applications and systems outside the corporate firewall. Read Now

• Definition

  Skype for Business

  Skype for Business, formerly known as Microsoft Lync Server, is a unified communications (UC) platform that integrates common channels of business communication and online meetings, including instant messaging (IM), presence, voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing, file transfer, web conferencing, voicemail and email. Read Now

• Definition

  Microsoft Office 365 suite

  Microsoft Office 365 suite is a hosted, online version of Microsoft Office software. IT administrators access it from a web-based portal to set up new user accounts, control access to features and see the status of all Office 365 services and tools. Read Now

• Definition

  Microsoft Office 2013

  Microsoft Office 2013 is a suite of office productivity applications used in homes and businesses of all sizes.  Read Now

• Definition

  Microsoft SharePoint 2013

  SharePoint 2013 is a collaboration platform that offers a simplified user experience and enterprise social media capabilities. Read Now

• Definition

  Microsoft Windows Azure AD

  Microsoft Windows Azure Active Directory is a scalable and highly available service that is based in the cloud. Read Now

• Definition

  PowerShell

  PowerShell is an object-oriented automation engine and scripting language with an interactive command-line shell that Microsoft developed to help IT professionals configure systems and automate administrative tasks. Read Now