Forum Discussion
Multi Forest Hybrid with ADFS, including one none Microsoft mail system
Hi Victor,
That scenario you must have Trust between Active Directories and you cannot have the same smtp domain across Exchange.
The best way is to consolidate the Exchange in just one Active Directory and then you can have the smtp domain on that.
You can have Exchange with linked mailboxes to other domains using AAD Connect to sincronize them to Office 365.
Thank you Nuno. I. Read you can have multi hybrid setup to a single tenant https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj873754(v=exchg.150).aspx
I am not just clear how feasible it will be to move everyone to a new branding email address after hybrid set up.
Hi Victor,
That scenario you must have Trust between Active Directories and you cannot have the same smtp domain across Exchange.
The best way is to consolidate the Exchange in just one Active Directory and then you can have the smtp domain on that.
You can have Exchange with linked mailboxes to other domains using AAD Connect to sincronize them to Office 365.
Thanks you Nuno for the replies. Quite appreciated. So it seems it would be better to first confidante the directories to a new one. If I understand we can approach it this way:
1. Setup new AD/Exchange forest.
2. Migrate users/groups to this new AD/ Exchange forest
3. Set up ADconnect, ADFS, and exchange Hybrid to the new forest
4 Migrate users from new forest to office 365.
Regards.
Hi,
Sorry, I have to correct some statements: You can, of course, have multi-forest Exchange hybrid scenarios, even with the same shared smtp domain. But this requires some "special" knowledge and experience, like Exchange 2013+, etc.
Feel free to go via multi-forest hybrid and then consolidate your AD forests, but I wouldn't recommend this. If all companies needs to be separate and now centralized IT is used, you are good with your multi-forest migration approach.
Cheers,
Dominik
Consultants don't let clients run multiple AD forests with Exchange...
We used to do this kind of thing years ago (round about the dawn of time, when Exchange first supported Active Directory in 1999). Very soon afterwards, we figured out that running multiple forests was a very bad idea. It becomes a terrible idea when you factor the cloud into the equation. The only way forward here is to consolidate the forests into one and then use that as the basis of a hybrid configuration with Office 365. IMHO, of course.
Hello Tony, thank you so much for the input. By the way I am a great fan of your articles and books, especially "Office 365 for IT Pros". Seems AD consolidation, followed by office 365 migration would be the best approach.
Thank you.
Hi Victor,
Yes, is the best approach to your scenario.
