Has anyone taken an existing client from SBS03 to Office 365?

Y

YeOldeStonecat

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We've done some new Office 365 setups. But I have one client that's been on SBS03...and I'd like to take them and do the "hybrid with O365"....basically put in a new Server 08 box...join the SBS08 domain. And then take their Exchange...and Sharepoint..and shove that up to Office 365 E3 plan. Migrate data/apps/roles over to the 08r2 server...and kill SBS03. Office 365, so I'm told, has a hybrid role where it can tie in with AD on your LAN.
 
No one? I know it has local AD integration but I'm interested in actual experience with that as well.
 
I haven't but am interested in it the concept as well. What is their reseller program like? I may be wrong but I stopped looking into 365 when I found out they don't support a reseller model.
 
I had a small 03 customer that I migrated to 365, but they didn't want to transition SharePoint, they just started over. The Exchange portion was pretty simple. They went to O365 exclusively and dropped their in-house server, though, so I didn't have to keep an AD tie-in. The documentation thatMS published was pretty good, but I didn't need to do a lot of the steps because of the situation.
 
Forealz said:
I haven't but am interested in it the concept as well. What is their reseller program like? I may be wrong but I stopped looking into 365 when I found out they don't support a reseller model.
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It's a 'partner' program, not really a reseller program. You get some commission, and are expected to be the customer's first support contact. It's not as lucrative as installing and managing a server, but obviously doesn't require as much of your time, either.
 
Thanks MS. Why won't you let me build recurring revenue?! That's what attracted me to google apps.
 
365 is a fantastic platform, and it puts Google apps to shame in my mind. mainly because its MS and it ties in with software and hardware without the need for downloads and changing ports and other such stuff.

You can easily migrate email direct from the web site and do a one way AD sync with is what I tend to do.

The AD integration and authentication can work really well but I can't advise it for a small business as you need to have federation servers in place, plus if your keeping a local exchange server its 2010 or run a 2010 gateway server which can't run on an SBS. so the whole process takes more equipment and requires further licenses. plus it needs the connection to AD. if your servers are offline then no one can get in to 365.

so for small business clients, run the AD sync, migrate without federation etc. and have 2 log ins. otherwise your asking for issues.

But once its in place its fantastic and the support from MS is top notch. we had a major issue over christmas and new year when they had skeleton staff, people were called in to sort it with no fuss and they do it well.
 
Forealz said:
Thanks MS. Why won't you let me build recurring revenue?! That's what attracted me to google apps.
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There is recurring revenue, but it isn't the same as you would have with a service contract on hardware. It's 18% for the first year and 6% after that if I remember correctly.
 
joblo37pam said:
There is recurring revenue, but it isn't the same as you would have with a service contract on hardware. It's 18% for the first year and 6% after that if I remember correctly.
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Yea, Its something like that. but so long as your clients don't change it, its on going.
 
Well that's not terrible, but I'm still uncertain why one would pay more for Office 365 than google apps for business when they can both be integrated into outlook.
 
Forealz said:
Well that's not terrible, but I'm still uncertain why one would pay more for Office 365 than google apps for business when they can both be integrated into outlook.
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POP3 also integrates into Outlook, but that doesn't mean it has the same functionality. Exchange is hand down the most popular platform for a reason. SharePoint and Lync are nothing to shake a stick at, either.

That aside, there is a $6/user/mo plan for O365 for the most basic features. You easily get $1 more value than Google Apps, IMO.
 
joblo37pam said:
POP3 also integrates into Outlook, but that doesn't mean it has the same functionality. Exchange is hand down the most popular platform for a reason. SharePoint and Lync are nothing to shake a stick at, either.

That aside, there is a $6/user/mo plan for O365 for the most basic features. You easily get $1 more value than Google Apps, IMO.
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Agreed! The outlook setup if your using 2007 or 2010 is email address, password, click next and done. or even have the user go into the web site, go to downloads and sick the setup button, click next a bunch of time, and done.

Google apps was a case of enter this, click here, change this to that, blah blah, and for a small number is fine but for 50+ it wasn't going to happen. I also find that google is trying to add in too much that really isn't needed and the end user has no interest in. Plus they have the my way or the highway mantra where they decide what ports they want, how to do xyz, how to display such and such. even though the rest of the world has already agreed on it.

I should point out I know people who were paying more for hosted exchange alone than what MS offers, now we can offer them less with Lync and Sharepoint.

Oh and it MS, so they beat Google for software anyway (cause google is just a search engine) :p
 
We had so many problems moving into a hybrid office 365 setup in the end it wasn't worth it. Needed 4 servers on site to get things started, AD dir sync server, adfs server, proxy adfs server in the dmz, exchange 2010 cas server used to migrate accounts. Once accounts were in the cloud, we could only migrate them back to exchange 2010 if we wanted all of the features to work. If you took them back to 2003, we couldn't get mobile activesync working, so with all of our test users, they ended up getting moved directly to 2010 or rebuilding their exchange 2003 accounts. We finally just brought up our own lync server and configured outlook anywhere with TMG as those were the big draws for the platform.

I'm sure it works great if you go non-federated and just cut over to MS's services, but the whole hybrid thing was more trouble then it was worth. Support didn't know what they were doing half the time and it could take over a week to try and pry an answer out of them.
 
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