Best Exchange to Office 365 Migration Ways – Both Method

If you want to migrate Exchange to Office 365, several things to consider before Exchange to Office 365 migration. Here migration means moving the user mailbox and all the information to the cloud. You can migrate emails and mailboxes from an Exchange server to a cloud-based service.

Why the trend of Office 365 migration?

There are many reasons to choose Exchange Online setup. The main among these are the flexible control of hardware and the ability to have complete control over all the exchange data. There is also 100% availability of Office 365 services. Migrating to Office 365 offers quite advanced advantages as compared to Exchange servers.

Migrate mailboxes from Exchange to Office 365: Ways

There are several methods to migrate Exchange to Office 365. Here I have described two ways of Exchange to Office 365 migration. They are as follows:

1. Manual method:
2. Professional tool:

1) Manual method:

There are some manual ways to consider migrating Exchange to Office 365.

• Cutover Migration for Office 365: 

The Cutover migration strategy is a quick way to migrate to Office 365. But, the poor function of this way is that it is only suitable for migrating up to 2000 mailboxes. This method is compatible with Exchange 2003, 2007, 2010, or 2013 to mailbox migration. However, Microsoft recommends only 150 mailboxes with this process because there are many accounts to migrate Exchange to Office 365.

Note: This process asks all user’s Outlook profiles to be reconfigured to connect to Office 365.

• Staged Migration for Office 365: 

The Staged migration way is suitable to migrate everything from Exchange in batches. However, you can use this method for Exchange 2003 or 2007. This way can migrate more than 2000 mailboxes from on-premises Exchange to Office 365. It can complete the migration over a specified time slot. In this method, you have to use the Directory sync tool. The Directory Tool replicates your accounts with an Active Directory database. You can send and receive emails that have not yet been transferred. Here can only be accessed by users to delegates and calendars.

• Hybrid Migration deployment for Office 365: 

With this method, you will have a right to integrate Office 365 with Exchanger servers and directory servers. You can migrate In and Out of Exchange online. Also, it allows you to sync your password and open up a single sign-on for your user to log in to both environments. As a result, it will sync and affect user accounts for both settings. It is good to run Exchange 2010 and higher versions to migrate more than 2000 mailboxes to Office 365.

Manual ways are available for free and look simple. But, they come with many disadvantages and restrictions for Exchange to Office 365 migration. 

Manual limitations:

• In some phases of manual migration, you will need to apply PowerShell. You must have the expertise to use a strong scripting language. There is no need to have a specific ability level. A specific ability level is not required.
• You must have your server up to date for the best migration experience. One more thing is considering you must get your Exchange 2010 to SP3. If you don’t have an updated machine, be prepared for some maintenance.
• When you are migrating public folders, you cannot avoid downtime. You must have robust planning, especially when the resources on your Exchange Server are deployed around the clock.
• The filtering feature is not available in all the above manual methods.

2) Professional tool to migrate Exchange to Office 365:

The above ways have several limitations. Many IT experts suggest using only a professional tool for Exchange to Office 365 migration. In this post, I have defined a reliable Office 365 migration tool by Shoviv. Let’s have a complete discussion about this tool.

Shoviv Office 365 migration tool:

Shoviv’s Office 365 migration tool is a professional solution for Exchange to Office 365 migration. This tool allows the migrating process instantly with a few simple steps. It supports migrating EDB files, Live Exchange server mailboxes, Outlook profiles, and Office 365 as a source to Office 365. Shoviv’s experts put advanced algorithms in this tool to migrate Exchange to Office 365. A simple GUI enhancement of this tool makes it easy to use for all. 

Features and Functionalities of the tool:

• This tool enables you to add any number of mailboxes to process with any hitches.
• With this tool, you can easily migrate the Public folder and Archive mailboxes to Office 365.
• An Incremental export feature: There is no worry about the interruption in the process. You need to use this feature by checking on the Incremental Export option. It will help to resume the interrupted process. It also prevents duplication in the process.
• The Tool has a filter option to process selected items from the source mailbox. You can use the filter by message class and item date.
• Also, You are enabled to save the source mailbox item into HTML, EML, RTF, vCard, MSG, etc. 
• In this, the option of folder mapping has been given. It provides easy-to-map source folders to target folders to migrate mailboxes. 
• This tool has an email translation feature. It can replace Colonial email.
• Also, use the search option on Message class, Date, Subject, From, To, Cc, Bcc, and Attachment basis.
• You can preview the source mailbox items to ensure their status before processing.
• There is no chance of data loss. It drives the process of maintaining folder hierarchy and data integrity.

Conclusion:

In this post, I have introduced a few ways to migrate Exchange to Office 365. We identify that manual ways are not the genius processes for the Exchange to Office 365 migration. The mentioned professional tool is an ideal solution. You can check it with its demo version. The demo version of the tool allows you to process the first fifty items per folder with all related features. There is no limit to the mailbox once you get the licensed version.