Road Map for Successful Migration of On-Premises Datacenter Applications to Microsoft Office 365 Cloud and Azure

Introduction 

 

In today's world, each and every organization is willing to migrate their datacenter to the cloud. This article will help you understand the procedure to migrate Microsoft application servers such as Exchange, SFBO / Lync, Domain Controller, AD servers, OneDrive, SharePoint to Microsoft Cloud.

Plan a road map to achieve successful migration

1. Determine the road map to achieve migration goals
   
   
2. To determine the inventory of the current environment
   1. We must prepare an inventory to list out how many domains, branches, users, on-premises server versions, client device are available in the organization
      
      
3. To fix any blockers identified between environments
   1. Make sure for any migration blockers, such as different versions. Also, you must check compatibility issues between servers and client devices.

Plan for provision of O365

1. Setup an Office 365 Tenant.
   1. Create a tenant trial account with Mail.
      
      
2. Plan & determine features and functionalities available by region.
   1. Decide to buy a license, based on region or buy for one region and utilize it.
   2. Plan & determine administrator roles for IT Admins
   3. We need to find the features and functionalities, for example, some features are not available in India (for example, we can't dial PSTN call.)
      
      
3. Plan & determine tenant subscription & licenses.
   1. We want to decide who are all work in initial stage for migration and further future , how we are going to give a charge to others

Plan For Add and Configure Custom Domains

1. Plan to add and confirm domain ownership.
   1. Configure organization(contoso.com) custom domain by using TXT & MX record to confirm our Domain Ownership with our domain hoster or domain provider (Go-daddy / Azure DNS)
      
      
2. Plan and setup domain purpose (Required Exchange Records, Lync or SFBO Records, MDM Records, and Additional Records MSOID, etc.) for all domains
   1. Configure Required Exchange Records, Lync or SFBO Records (SIP Protocol), MDM Records, & Additional records.
      
      
3. Plan and transfer Microsoft domain to ownership domain
   1. We should transfer our account domain to organization custom domain

Plan & Determine Migrating Objects

1. Plan for AD Sync
   
   
   1. Prepare On-premises Active Directory For Azure AD Connect
      
      
      1. We need to clean the Host by using of AD Clean up tool (For cleaning UPN Suffixes valid character no duplicates) and synchronizing non-routable domains, filtering AD Objects for synchronization, implement support for multiple forests.
      2. We need three components to migrate office 365, 1. Subscription, 2.Azure AD, 3.On-premises domain controller with AD.
      3. We have certain software requirements for Azure AD Connect Tool.
         
         
   2. Prepare On-Premises Active Directory For Azure AD Connect
   1. We have two options to sync AD in AD Connect tool, if we have single forest topology means, we can go with Express settings or Multiple Forest means will go with Custom Settings.
   2. By the help of AD Connect tool we can synchronize OU and other user data which we want to migrate.
   3. Also we sync All AD configurations like Password sync, pass through sync, ADFS Hybrid Configuration, etc.
      
      
   3. Verify by comparing On-premises Active Directory Users & Groups with Azure AD
      
      
   4. Implement and manage federated identities for SSO
   1. Configure ADFS Farm in AD Connect Tool for Sync MFA, SSO, and Security features.

2. Plan for Exchange Migration
   
   
   1. Plan to choose the Mailbox Migration option and Start Migration.
      
      1. We need to check and decide which migration choice (Cutover, Remote, Staged and Hybrid) is suitable for exchange migration and then start the migration.
         
         
   2. After Migration, compare and check migrated mail boxes.
      
      
   3. Configure and Manage accessing the mailbox remotely (OWA, Active Sync, mobile device).
      
      
   4. Plan to define security configuration and configure security considerations & settings.
   1. We need to decide security configuration based organization need and configure settings in eDiscovery, Litigation Hold, Data loss Prevention, Retention Tags.
      
      
   5. Plan and Configure Antimalware and Spam Configurations.
      
      
   6. Plan and Configure Archive policies and delegating permissions or users and groups.

3. Plan and decide for SFBO or Lync or Teams Migration
   
   
   1. To choose the Migration option (Cutover or hybrid) and Migrate.
   2. After migration check and fix any configuration obstacles.

4. Plan for Share point and OneDrive Migration
   
   
   1. Migrate SharePoint and OneDrive data to SharePoint and OneDrive online.
      
      
   2. Configure security and compliance for SharePoint and OneDrive.
   1. Configure IRM and DLP settings.

Plan to Configure and Manage O365 Clients and Devices

1. Understand and explore modern authentication in all client devices.
2. Identify Desktop OS Version, Patches, Browser version in Client Devices
3. Plan to install O365 related application and telemetry service in Client devices.
4. Allow O365 web links in on-premises firewall if blocked.

Post Migration

1. Plan and Execute Rollout Plan.
2. Begin with small test / Pilot groups.
3. Expand rollout across organizations.
4. Expand usage of adopted apps and services.
5. Use integrations between apps and services.
6. Learn new user needs and repeat the cycle.