Forum Discussion
We have Exchange 2013 onprem and we want to deploy Hybrid configuration > Update Server first ?
TomMoser it's completely up to you. If you don't host any mailboxes on-premises, my recommendation is to wait until end of support, absolutely. Exchange 2013 as a SMTP relay and recipient management is sufficient.
@dfeifer
Thank you for your feedback.
We have about 120 Mailboxes, Users, Shared mailboxes and ressources.
We would like to move all the mailboxes to the cloud so that the onprem Exchange Server is only for management / configuration purposes. I read that it is not supported to remove the last onprem Exchange Server and that i need that server to configure several parameters that are not available online for configuration, so configuration has to be done always on prem.
I did this with exchange 2010 a couple of years ago.
we had 2 cas and 2 mailbox servers. You can't remove the last server, but what you do is install a 2016/2019 exchange server in to your current environment.
I installed azure ad connect and synced my domain to azure, migrated off the users to office 365.
Once I migrated my users I set up a new 2016 exchange server with the mailbox server role included and joined it to the group. I then uninstalled exchange from the older servers leaving exchange 2016 as the sole remaining server.
dfeifer There is only a free hybrid license for Exchange Server 2016, 2019 is another licensing thing you have to take care of.
Go with 2013, migrate your mailboxes and then add an Exchange 2016 server only if you need the additional features (e. g. Teams functionality for on-prem mailboxes). My personal advice would be to go with 2013 and don't upgrade, there is no reason for it if you move all your mailboxes to EXO.
Hi Dominik.
Thank you for your feedback.
When will be the right point in time to upgrade the onprem Exchange 2013 to 2016. I mean, in 2023 there is end of life for Exchange 2013, should i wait until then ?TomMoser it's completely up to you. If you don't host any mailboxes on-premises, my recommendation is to wait until end of support, absolutely. Exchange 2013 as a SMTP relay and recipient management is sufficient.