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rohabbrar's avatar
rohabbrar
Copper Contributor
Jun 07, 2023

Multi-Geo & Multi-Domain Setup

Hi, 

 

I am looking for some information on how to configure O365 to achieve the following;

1. We have over 280+ employees spread across 6 nations

2. There is a local on prem AD that is syncing to Azure for each of the locations.

3. We have multiple domains, .ie , .co.uk, .net and .com currently each of these domains are configured under separate tenants - which is a pain to manage.

 

Here is what we want to achieve

1. Establish a single tenant based in HQ - USA

2. Move all the domains and mailboxes under one MSFT Tenant

4. Have xxxxx.net domain as primary domain

5. Merge all the billing under single primary container.

6. Setup secondary domains, xxxxx.ie, xxxxx.co.uk etc with their individual mailboxes under primary container.

7. Establish collaboration across all domains, AZure, Sharepoint, OneDrive, Teams etc.

 

Requesting guidance on the process, and to have a call with MSFT Specialist to achieve this task for my organisation.

 

Business Applications
Ireland

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    • sansbacher's avatar
      sansbacher
      Brass Contributor
      Jun 12, 2023

      JillArmour / rohabbrar ,

       

      I'll see if I can throw in any useful info too.

       

      As blakecheek mentioned (and as I assume is implied by the end of the question) definitely seek some MS advisory hours / support. I don't think just posting here will result in a call, contact your Technical Account Manager directly.

       

      For the technical aspects, such as migrating all the mailboxes: we're in the process of doing that ourselves (mainly between Canada and several distinct US sites). I agree, use a tool like https://www.bittitan.com/migrationwiz/why-migrationwiz/ to combine the tenants. It can move the ExO mailboxes and SharePoint/OneDrive data separately. There's a https://help.bittitan.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008112447-DeploymentPro-Guide package they have which can take care of switching over MS Outlook from the old to the new tenant.

       

      There used to be a delay in migrating the actual domain from one O365 tenant to another, but I think that has been shortened now. Regardless there will probably be some small outage since (unless O365 has relaxed the rules) you can't have a single external domain associated with multiple O365 tenants. Of course users/mailboxes within the same (combined) tenant can have different email domains (as primary or secondary/proxyAddresses). So all the combined users can be @xxxx.net  and also retain @xxxxx.ie or whatever.

       

      Migrating Azure resources will depend on the current config: there's data movement to move data between regions, so a cost involved. I'd start by contacting MS to have the Subscriptions moved to the same account/tenant, and then you can combine where it makes sense. Moving https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/management/move-resource-group-and-subscription is easy for the most part if you want to consolidate. But need to have the Subscriptions moved to the same tenant first.

       

      NOTE: as this IS the MS Partner Forum, I should add that you WILL need to maintain separate O365 tenants for CSP/Partner Center access in each of the regions MS does business. I don't know how countries are divided up in Europe, but in North America we'll need to retain separate Canadian and US tenants as the clients for each country are managed from their respective country's portals. So while your US HQ can manage all your US customers, after you have moved all your xxxxx.ie and xxxxx.co.uk domains to the US HQ tenant for the purposes of emails, etc. You'll still need to maintain your xxxxxxxie.onmicrosoft.com domain in Ireland for Irish customers and (probably) your xxxxxxxuk.onmicrosoft.com domain for your UK customers (and each other country, unless MS EU rules are different?). Only users who need to manage these customers need to retain some username @ whatever.onmicrosoft.com logins to each CSP/Partner Center.

       

      I hope that helps,

          --Saul

    • blakecheek's avatar
      blakecheek
      Iron Contributor
      Jun 09, 2023

      JillArmour 

       

      I know little outside of Dynamics and Power Platform but I'm willing to give this a go in hopes that the others might have more insight.

       

      1. If the US tenant you want to use as the primary has not been established, establish that first.

      2. Leverage tools from AvePoint or BitTitan to help migrate mailboxes and other data

      3. Billing should be consolidated by virtue of having all licenses under a single tenant.

      4. I don't know much about the domain setup part but I'm almost certain I've seen tenants where some users were mailto:email address removed for privacy reasonsand others were mailto:email address removed for privacy reasonsso it should support having multiple domains.

       

      If you are a Microsoft partner, you can use some advisory hours to open a TPD (Technical Presales/Deployment) request and that should get you a conversation with someone knowledgeable enough to help you plan this out but execution will still be up to you.  

       

      If you are not a partner, you may wish to engage with one who has proficiency in these areas but also these are the partner forums, not for end-user questions. 😉

       

      If you have a relationship with an Indirect Provider (disti) they may also be able to provide some level of support or guidance.

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