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.