Office 365 Exchange Hybrid Deployment Process:
This article briefs you on the step by step process involved in configuring a hybrid office 365 deployment using hybrid deployment wizard.
For any organization, enabling secure access to data is given the highest priority. How to achieve this is the tricky part as there is no thumb rule that can be followed to ensure security to the data and to know where it should reside. Few companies are thinking of cloud enablement on behalf of their enterprises but in few instances, cloud utilization as a stand-alone is not an option due to data restraints.
Hybrid deployment offerings enable organizations creating and consuming data to choose where the data should reside. In the hybrid deployment process, a hybrid link is created between Office 365 and on-premise Exchange Server (2013/2016). This link will enable the managing system administrator to choose where the user mail box must reside. To reduce complexity around user log in, single source authentication is utilized such as sync Active Directory or federated with Active Directory Azure. The following prerequisites are needed to accomplish this:
- FQDN, that is externally accessible to enable secure mail transport.
- On-premise Exchange 2013/2016 deployment.
- Windows Server 2012 R2 AD synchronized or federated with Azure AD is preferred.
To create and configure a hybrid deployment, following steps are implemented:
- In the on-premise Exchange server admin console, navigate to hybrid node.
- Enter the required Office 365 credentials after clicking Configure in the hybrid node.
- Use Global administrator account credentials to log into Office 365.
- Start the hybrid configuration wizard by clicking on Configure.
- Download the hybrid deployment wizard by clicking Here on the Microsoft Office 365 Hybrid Configuration Wizard Download page.
- When prompted, click Install on the Application Install dialog.
- Click Next in the On-premises Exchange Server Organization section.
- Finally, select Detect a server running Exchange 2013 or 2016 CAS.
Select the server running Exchange 2013 or 2016 and specify the internal FQDN of the exchange mail box server when wizard does not detect any server or if the usage of different server is required.
- On the Office 365 Exchange Online screen, select Microsoft Office 365 and select Next.
- Enable Hybrid Configuration wizard by selecting Use Current Windows Credentials.
- On the Enter your Office 365 credentials screen, specify the username and password of the Global Administrator Office 365 account.
- Once the task is complete, click Next.
- While on the hybrid domains screen, select the domains to be included in the newly enabled hybrid deployment.
- Click Next.
- On the Federation trust page, click Enable and then Next.
- On the Domain ownership page, click Copy to Clipboard.
- Create a TXT record for each domain in public DNS by pasting the token information in a text editor.
- Click Next and navigate to Select a reference server field in the Transport Certificate page. Select the certificate to use for secure mail transport.
- Click Next and enter the FQDN on the Organization FQDN page.
- Click Next and start the configuration process by clicking Update.
Once the wizard displays a completion message, click close to complete the hybrid deployment configuration process.
About SmartIMS – ConnX
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