Exchange Server Deployment Assistant Update for Exchange 2010 Hybrid Deployments with Office 365

[The_Exchange_Team]

We're happy to announce that the Exchange Server Deployment Assistant (ExDeploy) now includes full checklist support for configuring hybrid deployments for Exchange 2010 SP2 organizations.

This newly added scenario is for Exchange 2010 SP2 organizations interested in maintaining some users on-premises and some users hosted in the cloud by Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises. Like the Exchange 2003 scenario released in March and the Exchange 2007 scenario released in April, this Exchange 2010 scenario also uses the Hybrid Configuration wizards to streamline deployment.

Important information to know about this new Exchange 2010 scenario:

• Information is only available in English at this time.
• You’ll not need to add any additional Exchange 2010 servers to your current Exchange organization. Your existing on-premises Exchange 2010 servers will be configured to support the hybrid deployment.
• If you have previously configured a hybrid deployment using ExDeploy and Exchange 2010 SP1 and still need guidance; don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about you! For your convenience, checklists for configuring hybrid deployments with Exchange 2010 SP1 are here.

Hybrid deployments offer organizations the ability to extend the feature-rich experience and administrative control they have with their existing on-premises Microsoft Exchange organization to the cloud. It provides the seamless look and feel of a single Exchange organization between an on-premises organization and an Exchange Online organization. In addition, hybrid deployments can serve as an intermediate step to moving completely to a cloud-based Exchange Online organization. This approach is different than the simple Exchange migration (“cutover migration”) and staged Exchange migration options currently offered by Office 365 outlined in E-Mail Migration Overview.

About the Exchange Server Deployment Assistant

The Exchange Server Deployment Assistant (ExDeploy) is a web-based tool that helps you upgrade to Exchange 2010 on-premises, configure a hybrid deployment between an on-premises and Exchange Online organization or migrate to Exchange Online.

Figure 1:The Exchange Deployment Assistant generates customized instructions to help you upgrade to Exchange 2010 on-premises or in the cloud

It asks you a small set of simple questions, and then based on your answers, it provides a checklist with instructions to deploy or configure Exchange 2010 that are customized to your environment. These environments include:

• Stand-alone on-premises Exchange installations and upgrades
• Hybrid deployment configurations and
• Cloud-only Exchange deployment scenarios.

Besides getting the checklist online, you can also print instructions for individual tasks and download a PDF file of your complete configuration checklist.

Your feedback is very important for the continued improvement of this tool. We would love your feedback on this new scenario and any other area of the Deployment Assistant. Feel free to either post comments on this blog post, provide feedback in the Office 365 community Exchange Online migration and hybrid deployment forum, or send an email to edafdbk@microsoft.com via the Feedback link located in the header of every page of the Deployment Assistant.

Exchange Deployment Assistant Team

[#2]

a great feature to have in exchange management console is an identifier on ther user when their outlook client goes into disconnect mode. then we can be proactive to the user support and their email doesnt sit in outbox for hours.

[#3]

I have a question that the local Microsoft staff here in Scandinavia are unable to provide an answer to so my hopes are with you guys. Also note that the Deployment Assistant seem to be confused about this issue too.

Here's the thing. We have an Exchange 2010 SP2 RU2 environment On-Premises and would like to add more users by putting the mailboxes in Office 365 using the same SMTP domain. I would gather a hybrid solution would be appropriate. The new users exists in the AD including all user information but are not activated (i.e. they don't login). We would like synchronize the AD to Office 365 to eliminate the need to manually enter all user information. I believe the Synchronization tool installed on a member server would serve this purpose. Now, here's the question. *drumroll* Is AD FS 2.0 required for this setup when NOT using single sign-on?

[#4]

Why it shows ADFS setup steps in DirSync ??

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Thanks

Shailesh Vaja

[#5]

I just wanted to let you guys know that the only purpose of AD FS 2.0 is single sign-on. No more, no less. Don't trust the deployment guide as there are a number of things missing and some information such as the AD FS 2.0 requirements are just plain wrong. I know this for a fact as I just completed a hybrid configuration based on an existing On-Premises Exchange 2010 SP2 RU3 installation with all the bells and whistles configured.

[#6]

I'm using the Exchange Deployment assistant for a new staged migration and I'm getting an error that says:

Deployment checklist is not available for your responses yet!

I'm not experienced enough just yet to do the exchange setup without the deployment guide so I'm kind of stuck.