Forum Discussion
Decommissioning Exchange 2013 Server in a Hybrid Deployment with AD Connect
The short answer is no i'm afraid. What it boils down to is that if your are synchronising your AD to O365 and are using Exchange Online - then you need to have an Exchange server to remain in a supported position, and manage on-premises attributes and SMTP relay.
That is not to say that it doesn't work without the Exchange Server. It certainly does and I've had a few customers make that choice. The Exchange Management Server is purely there to make your life easier and keep you supported.
I tend to put in an Exchange 2016 server for this and decommission older Exchange servers.
Hi PeterRising, thank you for your response. Agree, I really believed the setup will work without the exchange but had to compromised being on the Microsoft's unsupported lists.