Hybrid Office 365
What is a Hybrid Office 365 deployment?
A Hybrid deployment in Office 365 connects an Exchange Server to Office 365. User accounts can be synchronizing from within Active Directory to Office 365 allowing for:
- Email delivery between your on-premises and online environment can be routed and securely delivered in both directions.
- A shared global address list can operate between both environments.
- Free/busy information is viewable between mailboxes in both environments.
- You can use one management interface to manage both environments. As this is the online EAC it means that you are using an interface that you would presumably already be aware of and know how to navigate.
- You can gain control and configure mail flow directions depending on your requirements.
- Outlook web portal for all mailboxes will use the same interface.
- The ability to easily move mailboxes between stores.
- Archiving mailboxes to the cloud so mailboxes are running lean with the high quality of service conditions Office 365 offers.
What is required for a Hybrid Deployment?
- Exchange 2010 or 2013 servers These servers have the capabilities for operating in a Hybrid configuration.
- Microsoft Office 365 Hybrid deployments are supported in all Office 365 plans that support Windows Azure Active Directory synchronization.
- Windows Azure AD authentication system for Active Directory synchronization This free utility needs to be installed on a server in the on-premises environment.
- Certificates A public SSL certificate needs to be operating on the Exchange server across services for a Hybrid connector to be setup and working.
Bandwidth for Office 365 Your network connection to the Internet will directly impact the communication performance between your on-premises organization and the Exchange Online organization. This is particularly true when moving mailboxes from your on-premises Exchange server to the Exchange Online organisation. The amount of available network bandwidth, in combination with mailbox size and the number of mailboxes moved in parallel, will result in varied times to complete mailbox moves. Additionally, other Office 365 cloud-based services, such as Microsoft SharePoint 2013 and Microsoft Lync Server 2013, may also affect the available bandwidth for messaging services.
